Australian Left Review
Article Title
Shop Floor Organisation : some experiences from the vehicle industry
Abstract
For wage- and salary-earners involved in vehicle assembly, class is not a dead issue. It does not present itself as an intellectual problem, as a matter of the nice determination of class boundaries, and it is not a subject that would normally be discussed over lunch. Rather does class present itself as an expression of the experience of living human beings. That experience is a day-by-day event, five days a week, of routine activity which yields a pay packet which in turn gives them access to life, to the pleasures outside work. In a normal working day the dominant activity is work, preparing for work and travelling to and from c work. There is little choice about the work: what is done is done for others, the way they want it, at the quality and at the rate they set.