IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/reorpe/v22y1990i4p1-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rules and Compliance in the New York Subways

Author

Listed:
  • Marian Swerdlow

    (185 East 85 Street, Apt. 14M, New York, NY 10028)

Abstract

The article explores the system of management control and worker compliance in a unionized industrial workplace. In a four-year participant observer study, the researcher found workplace rules to be an ambiguous framework within which supervisors negotiated or enforced compliance. The findings supported criticisms that Braverman underestimated the impact of worker resistance upon strategies of workplace control and the problems of direct control. Coercion still played an important indirect role in management control, suggesting limits to Burawoy's generalization that U.S. workers no longer feel the "whip of the market." Workers' compliance was pragmatic, based upon existing power relations. Possibilities for change are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Marian Swerdlow, 1990. "Rules and Compliance in the New York Subways," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 22(4), pages 1-16, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:22:y:1990:i:4:p:1-16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://rrp.sagepub.com/content/22/4/1.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:22:y:1990:i:4:p:1-16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.urpe.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.