Industrial Relations and the Industrial Revolution: Evidence from M'Connel and Kennedy, 1810–1840

1991 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Huberman
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Managerial Strategies ◽  
Piece Rates

Using the record books of M'Connel and Kennedy, a leading cotton-spinning firm in Manchester, this article traces the development of managerial strategies to elicit effort from workers during the Industrial Revolution. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the firm had difficulty in extracting effort from its workers, who were unwilling to increase output without capturing some of the gains through wage adjustments. Since spinners controlled the work organization, M'Connel and Kennedy had to accommodate workers' demands for stable piece rates, which were codified in the Manchester list of prices of 1829.

Effective Labor Organization «Remote» Employees: From Functional Tasks to Software

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 62-69
Author(s):  
N. Nagibina ◽  
A. Bestuzhev
Keyword(s):  
Data Storage ◽  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Document Management ◽  
Remote Work ◽  
Video Communications ◽  
Remote Employees ◽  
Human Labor ◽  
Office Employees

In the new realities of the world, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the paradigm of management and work organization in companies is changing. The industrial revolution and digitalization are “threatening” to replace human labor with automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. The cluster of IT companies is actively developing. The management of the companies accepted the challenge of lightning fast transfer of office employees to the remote mode. The study provides recommendations on the use of software to solve functional tasks for managing employees and remote teams. Based on a detailed analysis of the characteristics, practices of companies and price guidelines, a list of software for managing employees on remote employment is formed. The software is presented for functional tasks: discussion of operational tasks using video communications, setting and monitoring long-term tasks, document management and online accounting, quick access to services and data storage. Maintaining a healthy and developing digital corporate culture is key to the success of remote work.

scholarly journals Public Employment, Collective Bargaining and the Conventional Wisdom : Canada and U.S.A.

2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 406-435
Author(s):  
W. B. Cunningham
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Public Employment ◽  
The Public ◽  
State Of Affairs

The author states that the conventional wisdom has viewed collective bargaining in the public service as unnecessary, impractical and illegal. And he adds that, in general, and until recently, the prevailing practices in the United States and Canada have been in close harmony with the conventional wisdom. But the restless change of events threatens the existing state of affairs, described by the conventional wisdom, with progressive obsolescence. And the author answers the two following questions: Can the industrial relations system of the private sector be applied to public employment? To what extent does the nature of government employment raise unique problems? The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events. J.K. GALBRAITH, « The Affluent Society »

Reconstruction and restoration: the legacies of post-war German Industrial Sociology

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1017-1029 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holm-Detlev Köhler
Keyword(s):  
Social Research ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Intellectual Traditions ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World ◽  
High Skill

The article reconstructs the re-birth of Industrial Sociology in Germany after the Second World War in a comparative perspective. Although sharing the main context conditions and maintaining a constant and fluent exchange with their colleagues in other countries, the German intellectual traditions and specific institutional context motivated several particular interests and perspectives that shape a distinct German Industrial Sociology until today. The dominance of qualitative in-depth research, the focus on the emancipative potentials in high-skill-based work organization, the cooperative industrial relations tradition and the constant attempts to link employment studies with general social theory on modern capitalist society and social change characterize German Industrial Sociology. The richness of distinct national institutional settings for comparative social research on employment regimes may be another lesson to be learned from critical reconstruction of labour sociology.

`A Unique Working Environment': Health, Sickness and Absence Management in UK Call Centres

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil Taylor ◽  
Chris Baldry ◽  
Peter Bain ◽  
Vaughan Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Diagnostic Model ◽  
Remedial Action ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Call Centres ◽  
Recent Emergence

This article fills an important gap in our knowledge of call centres by focusing specifically on occupational ill-health. We document the recent emergence of health and safety concerns, assess the responses of employers and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), critique the existing regulatory framework and present a holistic diagnostic model of occupationally induced ill-health. This model is utilized to investigate quantitative and qualitative data from a case study in the privatized utility sector, where the relative contributions to employee sickness and ill-health from factors relating to ergonomics, the built environment and work organization are evaluated. The principal conclusions are that the distinctive character of call-handling is the major cause of occupational ill-health and that effective remedial action would involve radical job re-design. Finally, the limitations of recent HSE guidance are exposed and industrial relations processes and outcomes analysed.

The German Automobile Industry in Transition

1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-247
Author(s):  
Michael Schumann
Keyword(s):  
Automobile Industry ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Job Descriptions ◽  
Product Strategy ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
Work Autonomy

This paper describes the new approaches the German automobile industry has developed during the last four years. It deals with product strategy, production concepts, work organization, industrial relations and technology. In the automobile industry, team concepts and groupwork have been the most important innovations in increasing efficiency. There are two fundamentally different approaches to team work The concept of ‘structurally conservative groupwork’ is a more or less modernized version of Taylorism. The job descriptions of production workers remain narrow, there is not much work autonomy and no reprofessionalization. By contrast, ‘structurally innovative groupwork’ builds on the specific assets of the German industrial order: the tradition of craft work (Facharbeiter), the strong focus on qualified, self-directed work, and the consensus orientation in the field of industrial relations.

scholarly journals Fiat Auto: Industrial Relations Lost in Globalisation

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 672-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Caputo ◽  
Antonino Campenni ◽  
Elisabetta Della Corte
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
The Other ◽  
Car Industry ◽  
Union Activists ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

In the actual context of globalization, carmakers face a highly competitive market. The pace of technological innovation, the increase in international competition, the saturation of markets and the shortening of product lifespan are but some of the factors requiring a new organization of production. In order to face these radical changes, carmakers are implementing new strategies, not only by embracing the concept of globalization, but also by promoting changes in labour management practices, work organization and industrial relations. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of Fiat’s new managerial strategies in response to increased global competition on the situation of the industrial relations, on the role of the Unions and on the condition of workers. These strategies include an intensification of work, shift and wage flexibility, plus a severe limitations of workers’ rights (including the right to strike). On the one hand, such a strategy was presented and justified to the workers and the public as an objective necessity of global economy, and was even submitted to a referendum; on the other, the process was conducted unilaterally, under the recurring threat of transferring production abroad if the workers and their Unions refused to accept the new method. This brought to a split of the Unions and dialogue was maintained only with collaborative organisations, causing the discrimination of the other Unions and a situation of great dissatisfaction amongst all the workers. Through the words of workers and Union activists, the research showed evidence of the failure of claims that new management strategy can ensure both productivity and a new form of workplace democracy in the post-fordist factory. Despite new labour-saving technologies, lean production organisation and the adoption of new metric systems (such as Ergo-UAS), car industry would need, more than in the past, the involvement and active participation of Unions and workers. On the contrary, the paper points out how Fiat’s actual form of production organization generates new tensions and increases employee’s discontent, likely to ignite industrial conflict.

scholarly journals Un paradigma diferente del management: teletrabajo. / A different paradigm of management : teleworking.

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-17
Author(s):  
Gabriel Maresca
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Potential Development ◽  
Historical Times ◽  
Technology And Communication ◽  
New Forms Of Work ◽  
Material Input

En la actualidad estamos transitando los primeros vestigios de una nueva revolución sociocultural y económica tanto a nivel local como global, a raíz de la implantación de las tecnologías de la información y de la comunicación (TICs) en muchas de las actividades que realizan los seres humanos y las organizaciones, y el gran desarrollo potencial de aplicación que ofrece a todos los campos disciplinares. Tal como ocurrió en su momento histórico con la revolución industrial, hoy se manifiesta a través de la necesidad de obtener información como principal insumo y materia prima para el éxito de las organizaciones. Es decir, la posibilidad de acceder a una mayor cantidad y calidad de información en todo momento y lugar, representa actualmente el alimento escencial para subsistir y obtener los mejores beneficios en cualquier sistema productivo. Podríamos decir, que toda actividad donde participan los individuos, ya sea de ocio, educativa o productiva, intervienen en mayor o menor grado las tecnologías de la información y de la comunicación, y nos “exige” de alguna manera, a no detenernos en adquirir constantemente conocimiento del manejo sobre éstas, adaptándonos al avance vertiginoso que nos impone, y acompañando de la mejor manera su evolución. Este contexto fue el que permitió, principalmente, el acceso a nuevas formas de organización del trabajo, dando inicio a la modalidad del teletrabajo o trabajo a distancia, cada vez más utilizada por las organizaciones, y ofreciendo amplios beneficios tanto a los empresarios como a los trabajadores. ABSTRACT: Today we are moving the first traces of a new socio-cultural and economic revolution both locally and globally, following the implementation of information technology and communication (ICT) in many of the activities performed by humans and organizations, and the potential development of application that provides all disciplinary fields. As happened in historical times with the industrial revolution, it is now manifested by the need for information as the main raw material input and for the success of organizations. That is, the ability to access a greater quantity and quality of information anytime, anywhere, now accounts essential to survive and get the best benefits in any food production system. We could say that every activity where individuals involved, whether recreational, educational or productive, involved in varying degrees of information technology and communication, and we “require” somehow not stop in acquiring knowledge management constantly on them, adapting to the rapid advance imposed on us, and the best way to accompany its evolution. This context was allowed mainly access to new forms of work organization, starting mode of teleworking or telecommuting increasingly used by organizations, and providing extensive benefits to both employers and the workers.

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