Restructuring of Work as a Bargaining Process: Employee Participation in Restructuring

A review of recent discussion of new production paradigms by industrial sociologists in the Federal Republic of Germany, emphasizing empirical findings on the restructuring of skilled office work. The new, complex, craft-like concepts, resisting Tayloristic restructuring measures, have always existed among central groups of skilled blue- & white-collar workers. Members of core groups have personal knowledge relevant for the functioning & restructuring of work, knowledge on which management is dependent; members of these groups participate in the reorganization of their work. The consequent expansion of craft-like concepts based on high trust in labor-management relations has been increased by the economic recession. 57 References. Modified HA