Worker Resistance: An Underdeveloped Concept in the Sociology of Work

Resistance, struggle and effort bargaining are important components of everyday life at the workplace. Yet the topic of worker resistance has been given a very limited role in our theoretical models of the workplace. As a result, the study of worker resistance has remained conceptually underdeveloped. In this paper, I develop a model of worker resistance which conceptualizes four basic agendas of resistance: deflecting abuse, regulating the amount and intensity of work, defending autonomy and expanding worker control through worker participation schemes. I argue that these four agendas of worker resistance parallel forms of the organization of the labor process as characterized by Edwards (1979) and others, with deflecting abuse being most typical of direct control, regulating the amount and intensity of work being most typical of technical control, defending autonomy being most typical of bureaucratic control, and manipulating participation opportunities being most typical of worker resistance under modern participative organizations of work. Agendas of worker resistance, however, are not reducible to forms of the organization of control at the workplace and each agenda may emerge, to differing degrees, under any given form of labor control. The proposed parallelism between agendas of resistance and forms of labor control allow the development of hypotheses about both current and future developments in labor control and worker resistance.