Flexible Despotism: Workplace Control in the Informational Age

Abstract

Rarely has research attempted to investigate Bourdieu’s (1998) claim that flexible work practices constitute a new 'mode of domination'. Flexibility is instead principally framed in terms of increased productivity spurred by technological innovations (Castells, 1994). This is surprising, as long ago as 1974 Braverman (2002: xvii) reminded sociologists that “management is at least as interested in the capacity of certain types of machinery to centralise their control over the labour process as it is in the productivity of labour.” This paper draws upon Burawoy's (1979; 1985) workplace regimes (also known variously as factory, production and labour control regimes) framework and ‘extended case’ method whilst making use of a ‘broadly ethnographic approach’ (Fantasia, 1988) in order to study the two largest North American and European private sector employers (both of which are major innovators of flexible work practices). Through this method of combining participant observation of work and union organising with 60 semi-structured interviews with workers and union officials, an in-depth account is developed of the workplace control engendered by flexibility. That a regime termed ‘flexible despotism’ is found to operate, in adapted form, at both firms regardless of the vastly differing regulatory and industrial relation contexts suggests this regime of workplace control may be widely applicable to a range of firms in the informational age. The adoption of flexible despotism has major repercussions for both workers well-being and labour organising both of which are also elucidated.

Keywords: Control, Flexibility, Scheduling, Workplace Regimes