95: Labor-Management Relations – Tom Lupton

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Lupton’s On the shop floor is an overlooked ethnography that deserves renewed attention. In 1955 & 1956, Tom Lupton conducted two studies of worker behavior by serving as a factory worker for six months in two separate locations. The purpose of the case studies was to identify factors contributing to the workers’ inabilities or unwillingness to perform in accordance with management expectations. This despite the usual incentives offered that operate under a simple calculus of working harder = better pay. Lupton was concerned that previous studies of worker behavior were biased in favor of the management position that assumed management goals and norms were “sancrosanct” (p. 9) and that management worker goals should naturally be aligned. Instead, Lupton sought to understand what the workers’ motives truly were and to how the “behaviour of workers in relation to output” was the result of an “interplay” of social forces.

The settings for the case studies could not have differed more. The first, of the Wye Garment Company, manufactured weather-proof garments in an industry marked with intense competition, seasonal changes in demand, high labor costs, and little involvement or support of trade unions. Lupton worked in a unit with 18 women and one other man, doing piecework – where jobs were mainly paid by the piece. The second, of Jay’s Electric Components, manufactured large transistors where there was little competitive pressure, stable demand, lower labor costs, and powerful trade unions. Lupton worked in a unit with more than 20 men but because of the complicated nature of building transistors, workers were not paid entirely on a piecework basis. Instead, the rather complex pay system made allowances for hold-ups beyond the worker’s control. The system was so complex that few workers understood it fully, yet they acted in ways that ensured they optimized their pay, many seeking to keep it stable from week to week.

Among the findings were that conditions at Wye served to preclude workers from collective action in protest against poor management, whereas the workers at Jay’s were continuously exercising collective action to protect fellow workers from management decisions. At Wye, workers were more isolated and had little social interaction. Protests were generally kept at the individual level and their loyalties to the company meant that the company frequently talked workers out of leaving. On the other hand, workers at Jay’s were much more socially mobile and monitored each other constantly. There were norms that limited what was considered a reasonable level of effort (noticeably lower than that of management) and deviations from those norms were dealt with severely.

Overall, the study has a lot to say that is relevant for contemporary times – where labor-management relations are under strain from the pandemic and workers in many industries are choosing not to return. From the “great resignation and quiet quitting” to severe shortages of personnel in blue-collar firms and some professions, dissatisfaction with the state of worker-management relations is gaining significant attention. What can Lupton’s studies tell us about the underlying factors that may be contributing to today’s problems?