Trade Unions, Control and Resistance

Abstract

For the great majority of the ‘occupied population’¹ (in Britain, over 90 per cent), work equals wage-labour. Labour relations are thus, at the outset, market relations. The prospective worker must find an employer willing to pay a wage or salary in return for the disposal of his/her skill, knowledge or physical capacities; and can expect such employment to last only so long as this willingness continues. Labour thus has the status of a commodity; and as with all market relationships, the interests of buyers and sellers are antagonistic. The wages and conditions sought by the employee as the means to a decent life, both within and outside work, are a cost cutting into the employer’s profits. In the absence of specific and untypical counter-tendencies (the need to recruit and retain scarce categories of labour, or a belief that improved conditions will generate greater worker commitment and productivity), the employer is naturally motivated to resist worker aspirations which are liable to increase labour costs. Moreover, because labour represents a cost to be minimised, it is in the employer’s interest to continue a worker’s employment only so long as it remains profitable to do so. A decline in demand for the goods and services produced, or the development of new techniques permitting these to be produced more cheaply and profitably, may at any moment lead to managerial decisions which throw men and women out of employment.

First published as Chapter 10 of Esland, G. and Salaman, G. (eds) (1980) The Politics of Work and Occupations, Open University Press.