Rick Fantasia

Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action, and Contemporary American Workers

A commonplace assumption about American workers is that they lack class consciousness. This perception has baffled social scientists, demoralized activists, and generated a significant literature on American exceptionalism. In this provocative book, a young sociologist takes the prevailing assumptions to task and sheds new light upon this very important issue. In three vivid case studies Fantasia explores the complicated, multi-faceted dynamics of American working-class consciousness and collective action.

Workers, Managers, and Technological Change: Emerging Patterns of Labor Relations.

I. Introduction.- 1 Workers, Managers, and Technological Change.- I. Introduction.- II. The Growing Concern with Control.- III. Labors Changing Responses to Technological Change.- A. From Provider to Advocate: The Changing Role of the Unionin Responding to Technological Change.- B. Labors Measures for Preventing TechnologicalUnemployment.- C. Relief for the Displaced Worker.- IV. Plan of the Book.- II. Toward Unilateral Managerial Control?.- 2 Microchips and Macroharvests: Labor-Management Relations in Agriculture.- I. Political Economy of Agriculture and Unionization.- II. Structural Change and Its Consequences.- III. A Different Approach to Unionization.- A. Stability.- B. Product Boycotts.- IV. The Technological Challenge to Labor-Management Relations.- A. Tomatoes: The Mechanical Solution.- B. Lettuce: Squeezing the Labor Market.- V. Conclusion.- 3 The Eclipse of Craft: The Changing Face of Labor in the Newspaper Industry.- I. Introduction.- II. The Context of Technological Change: Industrial Dualism in theNewspaper Industry.- III. Technological Change and the Decline of Craftsmanship.- A. Composing Room.- B. Platemaking.- C. Pressroom.- D. Mailroom.- IV. Changes in Labor-Management Relations.- A. The Decline of Craft Consciousness and Control.- B. Craft Unionism in Transition: Toward Industrial Unionism?.- V. Conclusion.- 4 Technology and Control of the Labor Process: Fifty Years of Longshoring on the U.S. West Coast.- I. Introduction.- II. Control and Technology.- III. Technological Changes in Longshoring.- IV. Longshore Employment.- V. Collective Bargaining and Technology.- A. The Early Years (1934-1960).- B. The Mechanization and Modernization Agreements (1961-1970).- C. Post Mechanization and Modernization (1971-1984).- VI. The Shift in Control.- VII. Conclusions.- 5 Technological Change and Labor Relations in the United States Postal Service.- I. Introduction.- II. Theoretical Issues in the Analysis of Technology and LaborRelations.- A. Labor-Management Relations in Public Sector Organizations.- B. Technology and Labor Relations.- III. Technological Change in Mail Processing.- A. Mechanized and Automated Mail Processing.- B. The Nationwide Bulk Mail System.- C. Computerization of Mail Forwarding and Window Service.- IV. Labor Relations in the Post Office Prior to Reorganization.- A. Executive Orders 10978 and 10988 and Formal UnionRecognition in the Post Office.- V. Changes in the Postal Organization Structure after Passage of theReorganization Act.- VI. Postal Labor Relations, 1971-1985.- A. Conflicts over Wages and Job Security.- B. Further Conflict over Economic Control: Hiring, Promotion, Overtime, and Training.- C. Deskilling and Degradation of Postal Jobs.- D. Political Control: The Pace of Change and Work Standards.- E. Reassignment.- F. Safety and Health.- VII. Summary and Conclusion.- 6 Office Automation, Clerical Workers, and Labor Relations in the Insurance Industry.- I. Introduction.- II. Occupational Sex Segregation in Insurance.- III. The Impact of Technological and Organizational Change on The Insurance Industry Work Force.- A. Technological Change and Diffusion in the Insurance Industry.- B. Technology-Related Shifts in the Insurance Occupational Structure.- C. Displacement, Reassignment and Retraining.- D. Job Satisfaction and Interpersonal Work Relationships.- E. Declining Real Earnings in Insurance.- IV. Clerical Labor Relations in Insurance.- A. Clerical Workers: Organization and Issues.- B. Managements Stance toward Clerical Labor.- C. The Disjunction between Clerical Labor and Management.- 7 Computerized Instruction, Information Systems, and School Teachers: Labor Relations in Education.- I. Introduction.- II. Conceptual Approach.- III. The Nature of Educational Organizations and Professional Autonomy.- IV. Teachers and Their Associations.- V. Technological Change in Education.- A. Computers in Education.- B. Development and Diffusion of Computers.- VI. The Effect of Technological Change on Teachers and Principals.- A. Computers, Educational Reform and Autonomy: National Developments.- B. Technological Change and Schools: The Local Level.- C. Computers and Professional Autonomy.- VII. Conclusions.- 8 Technology, Air Traffic Control, and Labor-Management Relations.- I. Introduction.- II. Developments in Air Control Technology.- III. Growing Concern with Hardware Adequacy.- IV. Changes in Air Control Labor Relations.- V. The 1981 Negotiations.- VI. Patco Decertification.- VII. Labor-Management Conflict over Workplace Control.- VIII. Conclusion.- III. Toward Labor-Management Cooperation?.- 9 Changing Technologies and Consequences for Labor in Coal Mining.- I. Introduction.- II. A Changing Industry.- A. Changes in the Use of Coal.- B. Technological Changes in the Production of Coal.- III. Changes among Miners and Managers.- A. Changes among Miners.- B. Changes among Managers.- IV. The Relations of Coal Miners and Coal Managers.- A. Miners, Managers and Mediation, 1945-1950.- B. Miners and Managers in Accord, 1950-1972.- C. Miners and Managers Without Accord, 1972 to Present.- V. Conclusion.- 10 Conflict, Cooperation, and the Global Auto Factory.- I. Introduction.- II. The Legacy of Conflict and Post-War Labor Relations.- A. Origins in Conflict-Pre-1950.- B. Post-War Balance of Power.- C. Collective Bargaining Issues and Agreements.- III. Causes of the Shift in Labor Relations.- A. Technological Change.- B. Economic Transition and Corporate Revitalization.- C. The Conflict over Control.- D. The Shift in the Balance of Power.- IV. The Emergence of New Labor Relations.- A. Job Security Measures.- B. Sharing the Wealth.- C. QWL and Cooperative Work Practices.- D. Strategic Planning and Decision Making.- V. Conclusion.- 11 Technological Change, Market Decline, and Industrial Relations in the U.S. Steel Industry.- I. Introduction.- II. The Steel Industry: A Brief Portrait.- III. Technological Change in the Steel Industry.- A. Technological Changes.- B. Managements Failure to Introduce New Technologies.- IV. The Impact of Technological Changes on Skill Requirements.- V. The Emergence of Cooperative Labor Relations in Steel.- A. Labor-Management Relations over the Last Two Decades: The Collective Bargaining Agreements.- B. Labors Response to Technological Change.- C. Rise in Cooperative Arrangements and USWA Changes.- 12 Computer-Based Automation and Labor Relations in the Construction Equipment Industry.- I. Introduction.- II. Changes in Product Demand and Employment.- III. Technological Change and Employment Trends.- IV. Labor Relations.- A. Labor Relations History, 1960-1984.- B. Analysis of Changes in Labor Relations.- V. Conclusion.- 13 The Impact of Technological Change on Labor Relations in the Commercial Aircraft Industry.- I. Introduction.- II. Technological Change in Aircraft Production.- III. The Issue of Job Security.- IV. Unions in the Aircraft Industry.- V. Collective Bargaining in Aricraft Production: Recent Trends.- VI. Conclusions.- 14 Technological Change in the Public Sector: The Case of Sanitation Service.- I. Characteristics of Sanitation Service.- II. Conceptualizing Technological Change and Public Sector Labor Relations.- III. Quantitative Analysis of Technological Change, Sanitation Employment, and Unionization.- IV. Technological Change and the Sanitation Labor Relations Process.- V. The Sanitation Labor Relations Experience in Larger Context.- 15 Deregulation, Technological Change, and Labor Relations in Telecommunications.- I. Technological Change in Telecommunications.- II. The Political Economy of Telecommunications Regulation.- III. The Changing Industrial Organization of Telecommunications.- IV. Changes in the Workplace and Labor Relations.- A. Job Security.- B. Quality of Working Life.- C. Changing Labor Relations.- V. Conclusion.- IV. Conclusion.- 16 Labor-Management Cooperation or Managerial Control: Emerging Patterns of Labor Relations in the United States.- I. Introduction.- II. Theories of Work Place Control.- III. Developments in Labor-Management Cooperation.- A. World War I: Legitimizing Collective Representation.- B. 1920s: Collective Bargaining or Employee Representation?.- C. World War II: Limited Formal Cooperation.- D. 1970s-Present: Labor-Management Cooperation or Managerial Control?.- IV. Emerging Patterns of Labor Relations in the United States.

In the Spirit of Bourdieu

Bourdieu became a sociologist. Or, more accurately, Algeria was where Pierre Bourdieu made a sociologist of himself. After being prepared as a philosopher at the prestigious École normale supérieure, he was to find himself in a society scarred by the lash of colonial domination and in a fierce war of independence. It was a situation that raised a fundamental sociological question that the scholastic orientation of his philosophical training had not equipped him to answer. What happens when a people are forced to adopt a new mode of economic organization that requires a new logic of action and new ways of perceiving that substantially depart from the social rules and cultural expectations that have governed them for generations? A commitment to both understand the situation of Algeria and to demonstrate it to those back home prompted Bourdieu to pursue a series of ethnographic and statistical studies at the University of Algiers, and these first investigations essentially set the broad terms of engagement for a career that would extend for over four decades and leave a truly remarkable intellectual legacy. From the sociological work in Algeria onward, Bourdieu pursued an activist science that sought to remain free of the distortions of ideological predestination while staying firmly engaged by the problems and struggles of the socially disinherited. As those who have grappled with his works know well, Bourdieu resisted the pressures of simplification and came to develop a complex theoretical method (though no more complex than the social world that it aims to comprehend). Beyond its complexity, however, Bourdieu’s scientific practice was really quite transformative as a theoretical methodology, because it entailed not only a systematic examination of the social world “out there,” but also a critical analysis of the social world “in here.” That is, it demanded a systematic examination of the conceptual universe of conventional categories inside the head of the social analyst. Thus, the thorough deployment of Bourdieu’s approach requires a veritable mental and conceptual “housecleaning” to critically examine the categories of analysis employed, as well as the very social object that one is trying to understand. Thus for Bourdieu, an indispensable part of sociological practice was a sociology of sociology, to train a critical spotlight on the analyst in order to lay bare the social determinations that shape and limit our conceptual tools and procedures. So Bourdieu can be seen to have bequeathed a sociology of troublemaking that is aimed at dismantling the walls around the powerful in the society, but that also furnishes the analytical means by which social scientists might see through the conceptual walls of our own making. While Bourdieu’s work can be read and his theoretical constructs employed in any number of ways, I think there are considerable analytical benefits to be had by taking Bourdieu on his own terms. What I mean is that the analytical power of his approach remains limited when we treat it as just a smorgasbord of theoretical constructs available for citation—habitus, field, symbolic violence, and capital—or by applying them in an overly mechanical fashion. Like any other symbolic good that is imported from abroad, it’s hard to avoid perceiving Bourdieu through REVIEW ESSAYS