Skill and Consent : Contemporary Studies in the Labour Process

The concepts of skill and worker consent to management control are central both to labour process literature and to wider debates on the management, organisation, and experience at work. Defining the nature of skills exercised in producing goods and services and ensuring that they are directed cooperatively to this end remain fundamental issues to the controllers of organisations. For workers, skill represents an important source of identity which may thereby ensure cooperation in production or, equally be defined by resisting de-skilling or substitution by other workers. At the same time, covert skills may be used to resist, detract from or consent to the experience of subordination. At the level of both worker and management practices, skill and consent are of central importance. In exploring their historical and social construction in capitalist societies, this book highlights their inter-relationships, through a range of rich empirical studies that reflect the diversity and theoretical development of contemporary labour process literature, skill and consent are examined in relation to issues such as: subjectivity and class consciousness, gender, technology and employee involvement.