Duncan Gallie

This masterly new study presents the first large-scale empirical analysis of the changes in British work experiences and employment relationships between the 1980s and 1990s. Drawing on the Employment in Britain surveya national survey providing the richest source of evidence to date about individuals' experience of employmentit examines the impact of new technologies, the emergence of new management policies, the changing forms of employment contract, and the growth of job insecurity on people's experience of employment. The authors focus on the implications these developments have for the ways in which skills and work tasks have been changing, the nature of control at work, the degree of participation in decision-making, and the flexibility demanded at work. They assess whether there has been a tendency towards either a polarization or convergence of employment experiences between men and women, and between occupational classes. They offer fresh insight into how the changing quality of work in recent years has affected employee's involvement in their jobs and organizations, the stress they experience at work, and the propensity for absenteeism and staff turnover. While the study provides strong evidence of a marked trend towards upskilling, the authors take issue with the argument that a new type of employment relationship is emerging, arguing instead that the restructuring of the employment relationship has, in fact, reinforced traditional lines of division in the workforce.

This masterly new study presents the first large-scale empirical analysis of the changes in British work experiences and employment relationships between the 1980s and 1990s. Drawing on the Employment in Britain surveya national survey providing the richest source of evidence to date about individuals' experience of employmentit examines the impact of new technologies, the emergence of new management policies, the changing forms of employment contract, and the growth of job insecurity on people's experience of employment. The authors focus on the implications these developments have for the ways in which skills and work tasks have been changing, the nature of control at work, the degree of participation in decision-making, and the flexibility demanded at work. They assess whether there has been a tendency towards either a polarization or convergence of employment experiences between men and women, and between occupational classes. They offer fresh insight into how the changing quality of work in recent years has affected employee's involvement in their jobs and organizations, the stress they experience at work, and the propensity for absenteeism and staff turnover. While the study provides strong evidence of a marked trend towards upskilling, the authors take issue with the argument that a new type of employment relationship is emerging, arguing instead that the restructuring of the employment relationship has, in fact, reinforced traditional lines of division in the workforce.

This book, first published in 1983, examines in depth the nature and sources of class radicalism in France and Britain and takes issue with some of the major theories of class consciousness and class action. Drawing on data both from detailed case studies and from wider national surveys, it shows that the conflict of class interests within capitalist societies can lead to sharply diverging attitudes to class inequality. It argues that the explanation of such differences cannot be found in some 'general' law of the evolution of social conflict in capitalist society. It must be sought in the profound institutional differences that exist between the two societies. In particular the study argues for a reassessment of the importance of the experience of war and of the way in which the business and political elite handled the social crises generated by war, in accounting for the long-term structural divergence of capitalist societies.