Work in Organizations

This chapter is concerned with the control of work in capitalist organizations. Organizations consist of sets of disciplined relationships in which individuals perform tasks assigned to them. The nature of those tasks, the manner in which people are persuaded to fulfil them and the mechanisms of control over them is the main subject of this chapter. The relations of power that produce and reproduce work relations is given central attention, as it is through these relations that key aspects of social life are formed. The argument develops from a critique of Braverman’s theory of the labour process; it rejects the idea that there is one particular form of work that is essentially capitalist and develops instead the idea that forms of work control are produced by a complex interaction of different interests within the workplace and different though connected interests outside the workplace. Central to this is the concern of various interests to gain power by taking control over the labour process. These interests, which go wider than the simple capital-labour relation to encompass gender and ethnic groups as well as occupational groups, struggle over the nature of the work task according to powers derived and reproduced both inside and outside the work situation.