Mathur, Chandana (1998) Transformation as Usual? The meanings of a changing labour process for Indiana Aluminium workers. Critique of Anthropology, 18. pp. 263-277. ISSN 0308-275X
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Abstract
The present era of ’flexible accumulation’ and crisis is widely seen to
have engendered distinctive changes in the labour process. The analysis presented
here explores the ways in which these transformations are experienced
and absorbed by hourly wage workers at an aluminium plant in the United States.
Of particular interest are the distinct meanings the workers attach to different
managerial innovations; thus, the reordering of shift arrangements provokes
worker response (and union action) that is quite different from the reaction
inspired by the introduction of cooperative worker-management teams at the
plant. Using classical Marxian analytical categories, it may be said that the
current regimen of workplace control involves some combination of absolute
and relative surplus value strategies. By disaggregating this mix of strategies,
these workers’ narratives help cast some light on the currently raging debate
about whether or not we are living in an age of globalization and epochal change.
Item Type: | Article |
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Keywords: | capitalism; globalization; labour; management; Marxian economics; unions; United States; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Anthropology |
Item ID: | 8378 |
Depositing User: | Dr. Chandana Mathur |
Date Deposited: | 28 Jun 2017 08:22 |
Journal or Publication Title: | Critique of Anthropology |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Related URLs: | |
URI: | https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/8378 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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