[lbo-talk] U.S. working class: functionally literate

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Mar 3 13:49:32 PST 2005



>>In general people want to do the best they can and they take pride
>>in "knowing" and gratification in being able to help.
>
>You're right. Many of the Wal-Mart workers Liza talked to liked
>retail work - they liked helping customers, and want to do a good
>job, even if pay and working conditions suck. I remember from my
>days at wage labor that not only is the boss making money off your
>work, s/he's taking advantage of your desire to do a good job - a
>moral dimension to surplus value extraction.
>
>Doug

Do Wal-Mart workers like helping out _all_ customers or just customers that don't bother them too much?

Or do Wal-Mart managers drive workers so hard that customers, comparatively speaking, all look like angels?

In Britain, managers and fellow workers have surged ahead from 1988 to 1997 as "sources of work pressure," now relegating customers to the fourth rank on the hierarchy of work pressures:

<blockquote>Green (2001: 64-8) brings together a range of these surveys and also highlights their data on why people work hard. The evidence over time shows an increase in the reporting of all forms of pressure (see Table 2). Green also shows that the number of sources of pressure cited (i.e. between zero and seven) correlates with the extent to which increased effort is reported -- which is one indicator that these self-reports are statistically valid.

Table 2: Reported Sources of Work Pressure, 1986 and 1997

per cent mentioning 1988 1997

Machinery etc 7 10 Customers 37 34 Management 27 41 Fellow workers 29 57 Own discretion 61 68 Pay 15 30 Reports and appraisal 15 24 Source: Green (2001: 69), in turn based on the 1986 Social Change and Economic Life Initiative study and the 1997 Skills Survey.

Several points stand out from this table. First, pressures from markets and customers are widely, and correctly, seen as imposing increasing disciplines on employees. It appears from these results, however, that direct pressures remain limited, and it seems that they are mediated through the expectations of managers and fellow workers. Second, there has also been interest in the role of appraisal and monitoring systems, as means of measuring performance against pre-defined targets. The importance of such systems has indeed increased, but their direct impact remains relatively small. Third, in the light of discussion of performance-related pay, the doubling in the proportion of people citing pay as an influence on how hard they work is notable. Finally, the role of fellow workers is most striking, suggesting at first sight that peer discipline has become the predominant force, outside individuals themselves, in working hard. Yet there may be some uncertainty in the data here; a 1992 survey reported by Green put the figure at 36 per cent which implies an unlikely jump in the next five years. (Note also that 'customers' were cited by 50 per cent of respondents in 1992: it is not clear why this figure is out of line with those for 1986 and 1997). Detailed research evidence suggests that it is not the case that traditional managerial discipline has been replaced by team- or peer-based discipline in the sense of there being well-entrenched and formalized team systems embracing the establishment and enforcement of norms of behaviour and taking over the role of management (Geary, forthcoming).

Green, F. (2001) It's Been a Hard Day's night: the Concentration and Intensification of Work in Late Twentieth Century Britain. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 39, 53-80. (Paul Edwards, "The Puzzle of Work: Autonomy and Commitment Plus Discipline and Insecurity," SKOPE Research Paper No.16, <http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/SKOPE/Working%20Papers/SKOPEWP16.pdf>, Summer 2001, pp. 15-16)</blockquote>

It is striking that "own discretion" has remained the chief source of work pressure since the late 80s and that work pressure due to workers' "own discretion" has become more intense than ever in Britain, according to self reports of workers.

Any slow and surly British retail workers bucking the trend in Cool Britannia? -- Yoshie

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