Trade Unions and the Process of Production

Abstract

In Chapter 2 trade-union development was analysed in the context of employer-bargaining dominance in unorganised markets, which extends beyond wage negotiations to control of the process of production and of the activity of workers who participate in it. Once the contract of employment is completed workers become subject to a disciplinary structure designed to maximise the effort and application they supply in return for wages, so that the job environment and behaviour in the work-place are prescribed for them. Their inability to influence the decisions that immediately shape their lives may be more irksome than are the inequalities of income distribution. Unions attempt to obtain such influence by using collective-bargaining machinery to regulate the contents and conditions of their members’ jobs.