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Managing Workers

Introduction to Topic Two.

The Deskilling Thesis.

            Harry Braverman was a sheet metal worker, and a member of the American Communist party. His book "Labour and Monopoly

 Capitalism" published in 1974 was a savage, emotional indictment of Speedy Taylor, and his methods. Further, he identified contemporary capitalism with Taylor's methods. This text revived interest in industrial sociology, and in the possibility of conflict between capitalist and worker. This possibility is in sharp contrast to the consensual views of Taylor and the Human Relations movement, which continued to influence Britain  and America after the Second World War. Box One below gives some idea of the attractiveness Speedy Taylor in his own time in America. An unattractive feature, at least to American managers,  was Taylor's view that managers themselves were a larger part of the problem than the manual workers. Indeed managers rather objected to Taylor's new methods being applied to them. 

            The heart of Braverman's criticism of capitalism was that it was a "crime against humanity" because it deskilled the craft workers by splitting their traditional crafts into many small parts, and redesigned the work such that anyone could do any number of the small parts. This had the consequence of removing craft pride, and the sense of oneself as a worker trained in an ancient skill. It also had the political consequence of weakening  working class consciousness. This is a form of solution to the political problem of American Exceptionalism. That is, why has the country with the largest working class not developed a socialist consciousness? 

          Braverman argued that changes in the American working class in the late 20th century, including higher levels of education in schools, higher levels of skill required in industry, and fewer manual and more clerical jobs; all contributed to changes in working class values. This contrasts with the previous century, where craft pride was greater; and socialist politics more widespread amongst manual workers. He defines work as "conscious and purposive, while the work of other animals is instinctual". (Labour & Monopoly Capital. Page 46). Work is the combination of conscious thought and practical effort. Or as Braverman put it: the unity of conception and execution. He then argued that, "The unity of conception and execution can be dissolved. The conception must still precede, and govern the execution. But the idea as conceived by one may be executed by another". Taylor himself, of course, put this differently; as Box Three below shows.

            This gives him a new account of the division of labour. There is a distinction between mental and manual work. This is followed by a distinction between the mental workers who control others; and the manual workers who are controlled by the mental workers. So the manual workers lose control over their manual work through the Scientific Management of "Speedy" Taylor. In his research Taylor noticed that workers went slow, or malingered, in order to keep the rate of production low. This was more than mere laziness. It was an attempt to protect jobs; as faster workers implied a need for fewer workers. So, the speed of the production line increases; the jobs are less complex than before, and so become boring; and thereby the workers are deskilled.  This produces conflict over the amount of work to be done, and how it should be paid for. This conflict came to be seen as different from the 19th century. The late 20th century seemed to be largely about wages, money, greed. This became known as the politics of envy. Whereas the 19th century became seen as a struggle over workers controlling their "own" work through the apprenticeship system, and trade unions.

         The above account, over two centuries, is not this simple. Lowering wages in the 19th century produced bitter conflicts; and the increase in strikes, absenteeism, and restriction of output in the 1960's and 1970's was also seen as attempts to control workers speed of work, and place of work. There was an increase in do-it-yourself home maintenance during strike periods. This was even seen by some as regaining some control over their working lives; and increasing self respect. More fundamentally, Braverman was seen as working with a "Zero Sum" theory of power. That is any gain in power over you by myself, necessarily implies a loss of power on your part. Put differently, there is always a fixed quantity of power in any social relationship. Box Four below puts this point succinctly; and suggests that all that is really happening is that workers lose the advantage of management's ignorance!

           Braverman's thesis produced a flood of criticism both in Britain and America. The main thrust of the critics is to oppose what they see as Braverman's pessimism, both about the possibility of working class resistance, and the positive outcomes of re-skilling the working class. The subsequent reality of worker resistance, as for example in the miner's strike of 1984 in Britain, does make Braverman's pessimism seem misplaced. Another criticism had to do with the influence of Taylor on the then new Soviet Russia. The attraction to Lenin of Taylor's ideas is made clear by Braverman, but not critically enough. In particular, Lenin's attempt to adapt Taylor without the potential to increase the speed of the production line, remained an unresolved problem. So much so that later studies raised the issue of Soviet workers suffering at least as much as capitalist workers. Box Five below puts this clearly. The issue of skills being destroyed or improved is a more complex issue, and is dealt with in the next topic.

            With respect to the issue of resistance, it is important to understand the Marxist style of thinking of the writer. Braverman claimed to be attempting to analyse changes in the twentieth century capitalism's organisation of work. This was seen as an objective analysis of observable changes on the factory, and increasingly office, floor. This was an explicit attempt to update what Marx called class-in-itself. The subjective awareness, or lack of awareness, by the working class of the existence, and consequences, of these changes Marx called class-for-itself. Braverman makes it clear that he is not attempting to update Marx in respect of subjective class consciousness, or class-for-itself.

            So perhaps Braverman's pessimism is explained away because he did not concern himself about the very existence of, never mind the possible success of, worker resistance. For him, this was an open question to be resolved by the future actions of the organised working class in their trade unions. His task was to describe the truth of the capitalist changes to ensure that the trade unions understood that capitalism had changed from the early twentieth century; and that future struggles should take these changes into account.

            This sympathetic account of Braverman's project does not altogether save him from criticism. The very decision to focus exclusively on class-in-itself reveals a certain primacy given to the objective reality of work organisation, over the subjective understanding of these changes.  This opens the door to the traditional charge often made to Marxist analysis as being determinist.  This implies that objective forces in the area of production and the economy are the correct source for the explanation of changes in the wider society. This downplays, and can even deny, the role of human subjectivity. More particularly the ability of trade unions to fight back, with a variety of tactics, is not sufficiently recognised by Braverman.

            However, the charge of economic determinism against Braverman does not fit at all well with his love of Marx's alienation manuscripts, and their obvious humanism. Further, his love of the craftsman producing well made, and even beautiful, objects is often seen as an overly romantic vision of the working class. This romantic vision focuses on the control over production of master craftsmen, (and some women) in the Feudal period in Europe. This control is lost in the late 19th century to the new capitalist owner managers, and later the increasing number of middle managers. This loss of control is the crime against humanity, and sees the capitalist, aided by Taylor, as the thief of workers power. But how important is control over manual workers to managers? Are there not other issues claiming management's time? Box Six below raises this issue.

            The sharp reduction in the size of the manufacturing sector in Britain over the last twenty years has been associated with higher productivity in other countries, especially Japan. This higher output per head means that goods can be produced at a lower cost than in Britain. More importantly these Japanese goods are seen to be more reliable, as in the case of motor cars, and generally having more concern for the quality of the product. So you have a better quality product at a lower price. Now there is no British owned mass car manufacturer. Some have seen this as the deindustrialisation of Britain. This extremely pessimistic view was attacked in two ways. Firstly it ignored the ability of British trade unions to make traditional arguments, "custom and practice", to limit the control of mangers over making workers redundant. Secondly, the ability of both managers and unions to negotiate over which skills were essential, who could be reskilled, and whose skills became redundant. This became known as the social construction of skill. More simply what was implied here was come collusion between unions and managers over redundancy; claims were made for new or increased skills which were exaggerated. More crudely the increase wages that went to the reskilled ones was seen as the price to managers for introducing new technology; and then legitimating redundancy by claiming these workers were lower skilled than those who kept their jobs. This produced over 20 years of research, attempting to establish if British worker were reskilled or deskilled by the end of the 20th century.

              One explanation of a poor British performance is that the levels of skill amongst workers, and even managers, is low in comparison with other countries. This relates back to the previous reading, and presents another version of the deskilling thesis. The loss of apprenticeship training, and it's replacement by various schemes for youth, was seen as a partial explanation for this low level of skill. To improve this situation attention was directed to Japan. Here skill was more to do with continuous improvement, attention to detail, and commitment to the firm; than to traditional crafts. Indeed workers expect to do many different jobs in a working life time. And in any one day one might have to help out other workers who were ill, or absent. One might do two jobs at once for a short time.

            This new sense of skill meant that what one learnt was of specific relevance to the firm that employed you. Whereas the feudal craft worker could take their stone  mason's and carpenter's skills from one employer to another. To compensate for this one was assured of a job for life. This meant until the age of about 53, and could mean moving into different jobs. Further this job for life was only for a small minority of the working population, most workers outside the large firms worked with much worse conditions. Perhaps craft pride has been replaced by pride in being a worker of this particular firm. The tradition of feudal loyalties to ancient families in Japan has arguably lasted longer there than in Britain. These old loyalties have made it possible for workers to feel loyalty to their employer. This is called the culturalist explanation for superior Japanese forms of production organisation. One problem with this explanation is that it overlooks the history of a large and vigorous Communist Party in Japan after the Second World War. It organised strikes in large firms in the early 1950's. These strikes were firmly defeated, and little sign of organised opposition has been seen since. So for those defeated workers, their loyalty  was more loyalty to their trade union than to their employer.

            The post 1950’s level of education required in Japanese factories was much higher than that in Britain. Young workers  started with approximately Advanced Level school education. They then received long periods of education within the firm. The idea was that if they understood the whole production  process they could participate in the continuous improvement of production methods every day. This continuous improvement was not only in movements of the body, as with Speedy Taylor, but also in changes in the use and lay out of machinery; and even in the introduction of new machinery. This helped to make Japanese products technically superior to western products, and not just cheap copies , as had been claimed in the past.  This helped to create a more secure employment future for the workers in these large firms. This contrasted with the British experience of the last twenty years. Even American workers began to experience unemployment, and photographs were taken of American workers destroying Japanese cars in America.       

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Flexible Specialisation