Myths at Work

Citation

McHugh, D. (2001), "Myths at Work", Employee Relations, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 290-302. https://doi.org/10.1108/er.2001.23.3.290.1

The project that underwrites this text is one which attempts to “put labour back in the sociology of work” (p. 190) and to correct the “overzealous emphasis on change” (p. 191) which the authors see as pervading much of the mainstream literature. Bradley et al., are concerned to unpick the myths about work advanced by managerial and post‐structural theorists, which they claim have marginalised the voice of labour and located workers in “subject positions” within “top‐down” processes of change. The chapters on specific myths are framed within an integrative theme which queries the notion that “technological progress has helped to create a more flexible, highly skilled workforce”. In the light of this it is surprising that the impact of technology is not itself examined until Chapter 5, following on from consideration of myths relating to globalisation, lean production, non‐standard employment and the “female takeover”. The remaining chapters on the myths of the skills revolution, the “death of class”, the end of trade unionism and the “economic worker”, take the theme forward more explicitly than the first half of the text, though in a suitably progressive fashion. The authors conclude with an appeal for a critical theory which “avoids the fatalism of other contemporary workplace analyses” (p. 198), a sentiment which engaged my wholehearted approval.

The main analytic thrust of the text involves examining the credibility of the evidence supporting the proposed myths in the light of the political and social contexts of their construction. The text is clearly at its best in this task of summarising evidence and critiques, the use of studies and cases, etc., being somewhat variable, especially in relation to the use of the authors’ own researches. Likewise the quality of linkages provided between materials, arguments and issues varies between chapters, but does show a developmental focus on the overall theme. More importantly, the stylistic variations that exist in the text do not detract from making it an enjoyable read that is pitched to challenge students and inform academics.

Given the above, I still feel that there are areas in which this text could have been made more amenable to use in teaching. Some structural standardisation would have been welcome, particularly in more explicitly identifying the main myths to be challenged in beginning each chapter, perhaps in a bulleted list. In some chapters, most notably those on feminisation, skill and unions (Chapters 4, 6 and 8), the myths to be examined are hedged around with qualifications so that the reader needs to unpack the putative myth from the commentary. A table summarising the main myths and critiques in each chapter would be ideal, although I recognise the frustrations inherent in such a task.

Bradley et al. also identify, in their conclusion, alternate myths which they might have covered, such as those of the “dole scrounger” and Japanisation, as well as subsidiary myths, like that of women workers lacking ambition, which they could have examined in more detail. Breadth and depth of existing coverage is not however a real issue here in comparison to the constraints the authors place on themselves by emphasising the necessity for locating theory within its political and social context, while ignoring the psychological context of the construction and the debunking of the very same myths. This is particularly true in the case of the “myth of the economic worker” (Chapter 9), where input from psychological research and theory could have added an extra dimension of critique that would have undoubtedly strengthened the case for the “alternative account of workplace motivation” (p. 171) that Bradley et al., offer. It might of course have strengthened it to the point where the economic worker would appear as more of an old manager’s tale than a myth.

Throughout the text there is an unacknowledged myth that technical intervention and political and organisational strategy can produce anything more than an instrumental relationship to work in people who are treated instrumentally. This is most evident in relation to their account of skills, non‐standard employment (Chapter 3) and the economic worker, where the depth of critique is limited by an inability to go further into the problem of worker self‐motivation and how it has come to be a key factor in political and managerial responses to change. This lack of consideration of the psychological contribution to the legitimation and implementation of HRM and job design initiatives, needs at least to be signalled by the authors in terms of the related myths, such as those of teamworking and leadership, which could be opened up from such a perspective. I would not ask the authors to write a different book as reviewers are often wont to do, but I would like them to signpost the sources of major alternative perspectives on the issues they debate.

The general standard of critique is, however, much to my taste, focusing as it does on determinism, universalism and on lack of empirical evidence, continuity and context in the literature (p. 188). It offers an overdue return to a more radical and empirical mode of analysis which is not over‐dependent on literary criticism and offers accounts of where policies and interventions went wrong rather than readings of the discourses inherent in their rhetoric. Bradley et al. show no ignorance of post‐structural critique; rather they seem to have more urgent things to do in puncturing myths in the old‐fashioned way. Their urge is clearly to communicate the defects in these myths in a fashion that is capable of informing the people who suffer from them, rather than informing academic debates about how much they suffer. This is most clearly seen in the chapters on skills, the death of class and the “female takeover”. The account of the failure of reform in vocational qualifications being the best example of this and also the best use of case evidence in the text with its identification of straightforward structural and political factors which led to standardised competencies being equated with quality in skills training. The chapter on the death of class (Chapter 7) likewise represents the best overall argument in its exploration of the reconfiguration of the working class in new forms which reconstitute the benefits gained from collectivism and solidarity in earlier times.

This general approach is more or less adhered to in the chapters on the myths of globalisation, lean production, and the end of trade unionism (Chapters 1, 2 and 8). Where it breaks down is arguably in the weakest chapter in the book, Chapter 5, which deals with the “myth of science and technology as the solution to work place problems”. Here we find the one place in the text where the authors come close to the main pitfall in myth as an analytic category, the danger of setting up straw men. Here, in pursuit of the “general myth of the efficacy and omnipotence of science and technology” (p. 93), technology is used as a stick to beat the straw men of science and scientific rationality. Apparently they need beating on account of science being seen as “disinterested, universal and transcendent” (p. 93) and because no viable alternatives to “technoscience solutions” to social and industrial problems have “been allowed to emerge” (p. 109). For the sake of constructing their basis of critique, Bradley et al., have seemingly ignored the current social and political context of this myth in the same fashion as they accuse mainstream literature of doing in regard to the others. At a time when science and scientists are coming not only under greater scrutiny but under physical attack and when universities teach courses on alternative pseudosciences such as homeopathy, I think that Bradley et al., could have done a little better than the “science is arrogant and often wrong” argument that only really evidences a lack of knowledge about science.

In this chapter, the authors are falling prey to the same fatalism over individual and social capacities to resist that they oppose elsewhere. In much the same way, in the chapter on lean production, they underestimate the capacity of people to “upskill” themselves outside of the context of work. Again, when discussing the death of class they are at pains to point out that, “workers continue to hold collective and solidaristic values as well as instrumental and individualistic ones” (p. 132). When it comes to science and technology, however, the same thoughts never occur to them. Thus both scientists and workers alike are quite capable of holding contrary views on science, both enjoying and contesting its outputs, and both recognising its authoritative voices and being ever more sceptical about the legitimacy of its applications. This represents a more serious fault than it at first might appear, in that both analyses and critiques throughout the text often appeal to the substance of the other myths for their ammunition. Luckily, even though the worst chapter in the book (Chapter 5, on technology) is often used this way, so is the best chapter (Chapter 7, on class) leading at least to a measure of balance, which leaves the reader to interpolate themselves in the debate.

This, in the end, is the best aspect of this text, that it draws the reader into contesting the critiques on offer. A more comprehensively scholarly book, such as Heller et al.’s (1998), Organizational Participation: Myth and Reality, might have been better for some purposes, but I feel that in the end, Bradley et al., have pitched this where people will read it and that is the most important thing a book like this can do.