Work Individuation among Women Machine Operators

To account for the pattern of processes through which interaction becomes an alien force between machine operatives, and to suggest the conditions under which conflict enters work relations, a close, firsthand study of "work individuation " is developed. The dimensions of concern are illustrated in the present paper. They are part of a case study of women machine operatives in a New England mill. Task structure, aural, spatial, and interactional features combine to produce a way of doing work: low nontask related interactions of people on the shop floor, routine technology, and machine/worker intensive, unit production. The mill organization also produces an orientation and ethos toward coworkers: the experience of not belonging to effective social ties or bonds. These women are simultaneously deprived of the means for controlling the work process while being held to account as causal agents of their production outcomes.