The Debate about Skilled Work

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The Debate about Skilled Work

• Professor Roger Penn
• University of Bologna
• 2009

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Two Diametrically Opposed Theories of
Trajectories in Skilled Work

• The Marxist Theory of Deskilling Bravermans
  Labor and Monopoly Capital
• vs
• The Skilling Thesis associated with Human Capital
  Theory D. Bell The Coming of
  Post-Industrial Society
• Both published in the same year 1974
• No references in common

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Deskilling The Context for Braverman

• Braverman associated with Monthly Review journal
  founded in 1949 by Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman
• An influential journal but little impact on
  American sociology
• Best known product of this school was Baran and
  Sweezys Monopoly Capital (1966). Indeed,
  Bravermans analysis of work is predicated
  theoretically upon Baran and Sweezys analysis of
  Monopoly Capital ie oligopolistic, organized
  capitalism
• After mid-1960s increasing interest in
  neo-Marxism in the USA partly result of social
  conflicts evident in America in late 1960s
• These events threw doubt of the utility of the
  structural-functionalist consensus paradigm

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The Context for Braverman

• The 1970s witnessed the re-emergence of radical
  political economy in both the USA and Western
  Europe
• Produced the Union of Radical Political
  Economists and the journal Insurgent Sociologist
  in USA and wide array of groups and journals in
  Western Europe, of which the most well known were
  New Left Review, Capital and Class and Economy
  and Society

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The Context for Braverman

• In the late 1960s in the USA two sets of ideas
  had emerged within the social sciences which
  formed the concepts against which Braverman
  reacted
• 1. H. Marcuses One Dimensional Man a German
  social philosopher and member of the Frankfurt
  school who argued that the affluence generated by
  advanced capitalism had produced a mass-consumer
  culture that incorporated the working class into
  such societies
• Accordingly, the working class was no longer a
  revolutionary class and the central foci of
  radical transformation lie with those groups
  marginalized by the capitalist process such as
  Blacks Hispanics, Students and Peasants in the
  developing world
• For Marcuse advanced capitalism had solved the
  economic contradictions held to be central to it
  by Marx this was a pessimistic view of the
  working class

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The Context for Braverman

• Post-Industrial Society

• 2. Human Capital Theory Chicago School
  exponents include Shultz Becker
• Post-Industrial Society
• ? shift from Manufacturing ? Services
• ? shift from Manual ? Nonmanual
• ? Expansion of Education.

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The Context for Braverman

• Their central thesis was that technical change
  was eradicating physical/manual work,
  particularly in manufacturing industry, and was
  causing the disappearance of the traditional
  working class.
• The rationale behind this theory was spelt out
  most clearly in Fuchss Service Economy.
• The idea was that technical change was
  eliminating much routine manual work as a result
  of the need for enhanced levels of training and
  specialist expertise.
• There is a growing need for a technologically
  sophisticated workforce. (cf. R. Blauner
  Alienation and Freedom and exponents of the new
  working class like A. Gorz and S. Mallet).

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The Context for Braverman

• These secular trends were seen as eliminating
  routine, labouring, manual jobs and generating
  more skilled, knowledgeable positions within
  industry.
• Furthermore, the increasing intensity of capital
  in the manufacturing sector also led to
  increasing employment in the service sector.
• The image was one of increasing numbers of
  teachers, doctors and related service sector
  jobs, which also led towards an increasingly
  middle class society.
• These ideas were closely entwined with notions of
  embourgeoisement, the end of ideology and the
  growth of middle class society.

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Bravermans Theory

• Braverman took exception to both these views
  about the modern working class.
• His book attempts to show that an increasing
  proportion of jobs whether nominally manual
  working class or in the service sector were
  becoming more and more akin to classic
  proletarian jobs, (i.e. more and more degraded,
  subdivided, simplified, routinized, alienating or
  straightforwardly boring).

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Bravermans Theory

• Furthermore, Braveman argued that the affluence
  that Marcuse made so much of was little more than
  the froth on the surface of capitalist societies
• Indeed, within the labour process of advanced
  capitalist societies, the same factors identified
  by Marx as operative in the mid-19th century
  equally pertinent in the 1970s in the USA.

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Bravermans Theory

• Braverman argued that the labour process (process
  of production whereby labour power is applied to
  raw materials and machinery to produce
  commodities) in advanced capitalist economies is
  determined by capitalist social relations and is
  not the result of technical /organizational
  factors.

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Bravermans Assumptions I

• That labour creates all value
• That social relations not technical relations
  determine the conditions of work.
• According to Braverman, labour processes reflect,
  in their organization, the antagonistic relations
  inherent in capitalist societies.
• In particular, managers cannot rely on labour to
  work efficiently of its own accord and therefore
  managers look to maximize their control over the
  labour process and minimize the autonomy of
  workers.

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Bravermans Assumptions II

• Within Bravermans model capital needs to
  dominate the labour process and weaken the
  ability of workers to resist.
• Braverman placed considerable emphasis on the
  role of Scientific Management (Taylorism) as a
  quintessential method of achieving this.
• In particular, Scientific Management involved
  the subdivision of tasks and the establishment of
  new technologies that were less dependent upon
  workers craft skills.

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Bravermans Assumptions III

• Braverman suggested that both manual and
  non-manual work were being deskilled in his
  analyses of craft work (chapter nine) and
  clerical work (chapter fifteen).
• Consequently, for Braverman, advanced capitalism
  is producing a proletarianization of the
  workforces of such societies
• This is a vindication of Marxs earlier arguments
  for deskilling and proletarianization under
  conditions of competitive capitalism and for the
  associated idea that labour increasingly takes on
  the central characteristics of pure labour ie
  it becomes an interchangeable commodity

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Bravermans Assumptions IV

• Braverman argued strongly that Taylorism/Scientifi
  c Management embodies three fundamental
  principles of modern management
• The labour process must be made completely
  independent of the autonomy, creativity and
  ability of the individual worker
• There must be a total divorce of mental and
  manual labour the separation of conception
  from execution.
• Capitalists (management) must assume control over
  every step of the labour process

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What are the Manifestations of Deskilling?

• Decline in craftsmen
• Increasing separation of mental and physical
  labour
• Decline in levels of training
• Increase in the interchangeability of labour

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How can these be assessed?

• Decline in the number/proportion of craftsmen?

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Decline in Skilled Content of Jobs

• A study of technological change in 3 paper
  mills in the UK in 1984 employing 408, 250 and
  670
• Returned in 1985 to 2 mills to investigate
  subsequent changes.
• Examination of the effects of technical change
  on the division of labour, especially skilled
  work since 1970.
• Series of visits to interview directors,
  managers, trade union representatives (shop
  stewards) and various groupings of workers

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Case Study at James Cropper, PLC

• Specialist papermaker coloured card and paper.
• Since 1970 significant changes to production
  machinery.
• Introduction of computermonitoring equipment
  provided continuous information on the weight,
  wetness and thickness of paper

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Case Study at James Cropper, PLC

• Operatives had to
• ?decide whether information was accurate
• ?decide what to do if trend data indicated
  an emerging problem
• Decisions made upon basis of judgment acquired
  through experience over a long period working on
  the machinery in a team
• Internal career trajectory within team ascent
  to skilled jobs over time
• Numbers of production workers essentially the
  same since 1970

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Case Study at James Cropper, PLC

• Large increase in Maintenance Workers
  Electricians, Mechanical Fitters and Instrument
  Mechanics (Instrumenters)
• 1970, Six employed (Electrician and Fitter on
  each of 3 shifts)
• 1984, 17 employed (2 Fitters, 1 Electrician, 1
  Instrumenter and 1 Maintenance Supervisor on each
  of 3 shifts plus 1 Electrician and 1 Fitter on a
  separate day shift)

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Case Study at James Cropper, PLC

• An apparent correlation between computerization
  and job losses but, in fact, this was spurious!
• Technical Changes had led to loss of jobs, but
  this was associated not with computerization but
  the widespread elimination of labouring jobs as a
  result of mechanization introduction of
  fork-lift trucks, conveyor belts and
  palletization of orders for dispatch
• Technological change/computerization had changed
  skills but had not reduced them.
• Particularly evident amongst machine maintenance
  workers (electricians/fitters/instrument
  mechanics)

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Does Braverman Demonstrate His Case Empirically?

• Not really. It is a capital logic or perhaps
  more precisely a labour process logic approach.
• Indeed, much of Bravermans argument proceeds by
  conflation by assuming what has to be
  demonstrated

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Polarisation Thesis

• Various authors Sassen,1988Morris et al 1994
  argued that there has been a progressive
  bifurcation within the job market
• well paid, secure jobs
• vs.
• insecure, low paid work

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Polarisation Thesis II

• These intersect with gender and ethnicity
• women and ethnic minorities tend to be
  concentrated in the disadvantaged sector.
• Castells (1989) argued for a similar model using
  the axis of knowledge
• those with knowledge based skills
• vs
• those without knowledge - based skills

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Polarisation Thesis III

• Gallie (1991) 'Patterns of Skill Change Work,
  Employment and Society, 5.
• Majority of nonmanual and skilled manual
  workers believed that their work had become more
  skilled.
• Most routine non-skilled manual workers felt
  the level of skill in their job had either
  remained the same or declined.

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SCELI Findings

• 'The data suggest, and they do so compellingly,
  that the direction of change was running against
  any general process of deskilling.'
• _at_ 50 of those employees who had held jobs five
  years earlier stated that they had experienced
  some gains in skill.
• main beneficiaries were respondents in
  professional/managerial occupations.
• women, in part-time jobs that were non-skilled,
  fared worst

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Compensatory Theory of Skill Presuppositions I

• Industrial capitalist society involves a
  structured conflict between capital and labour
• This conflict is fundamentally asymmetric because
  of the essential characteristic of industrial
  capitalism the separation of the producer from
  the means of production as a result of capitalist
  ownership rights
• These conflicts take various forms. The two most
  central involve conflicts over wages (the
  distribution of the surplus) and the organisation
  of the division of labour (the 'managerial
  prerogative')

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Compensatory Theory of Skill Presuppostions II

• Such conflicts over wages and the managerial
  prerogative take place within variable
  structures. One key element in these variable
  structures of asymmetric conflict is the nature
  and structure of the spatial organisation of
  employers and employees
• These conflicts over wages and over authority
  relations are both economic and normative.
  Issues of legitimacy are central to both sets of
  relationships
• A major factor in the actual relationship between
  employers and employees is the pattern of
  collective organisation of both parties. Such
  collective organisation can vary both spatially
  and historically.

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The Compensatory Theory Outlined

• Technical change is generating both skilling and
  deskilling processes
• In advanced capitalist societies these effects
  are international
• Shift of routine manufacturing from advanced,
• core economies ? less developed, peripheral
  economies
• ? Internationalisation of the capital goods
  (machinery) industry

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The Compensatory Theory Outlined

• Technical changes tend to deskill direct
  production roles but put an increased premium on
  a range of ancillary skilled tasks that are
  associated with the installation, maintenance and
  programming of machinery.
• Technological changes advantage certain
  occupational groups and disadvantage others.
• ? production vs maintenance
  ?mechanical maintenance vs electronic maintenance
  

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Overall Hypotheses about Trends in Skilled Work
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References

• Castells, M. (1989) End of Millenium, Oxford
  Blackwell
• Gallie, D. (1991) 'Patterns of Skill Change
  'Work, Employment and Society, 5.
• Morris, L. et.al (1994) Dangerous Classes,
  London Routledge
• Penn, R. et.al (1995), Skill and Occupational
  Change, Oxford O.U.P.
• Sassen, S. (1988) The Mobility of Labour and
  Capital, Cambridge C.U.P.