The Social Construction of Occupational Identity of Technical Workers: Results of Denkiroren (Japanese Electric/Electronic Industry Trade Union) International Survey

This short report aims at describing the social construction of occupational identity of a growing actor in the union activity, that is a white-collar technical workers. They are named as technical workers, technicians, engineers or company researchers in different countries. Why do we need to restrict this report to this professional category (technicians, engineers and company researchers) with regard to the division of labour and the trade union commitment? This occupational category (compared here with manual workers) is of interest in several respects. Their numbers are growing, particularly in the industries that were the subjects of this survey (electronics, computers, and telecommunications), while the manual workers, at least in the advanced countries, are tending rather to shrink, as are the clerical and administrative workers. They are also the main engine of technological innovation. The competitiveness of each national economy is then depending more and more of their creativity. These trends are clearly evidence of a restructuring of the classic division of labour (inherited in part from Taylorism and Fordism) that is itself associated with complex technological, economic and organisational phenomena.