Collective Mobilization in Changing Conditions by Jonas Axelsson & Jan Ch. Karlsson & Egil J. Skorstad

Author:Jonas Axelsson & Jan Ch. Karlsson & Egil J. Skorstad
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030191900
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Another worker commented on the use of computers and the Internet. Computers for personal use were not allowed at the mill, but the worker frankly told us that in spite of the regulations, private PCs were used for personal enjoyment in the control rooms .

Lysgaard often mentions that the workers made a sharp distinction between ‘us’, that is the subordinate workers, and ‘them’, being the superordinates or management . This distinction was still in use in our interviews , but we find two exceptions. One is when they talked about the risk of downsizing or of the closedown of the workplace. Then ‘us’ meant the whole Peterson company without a contrasting ‘them’. The other exception was when they talked about the technical engineers that they worked with. The ‘us’ took on a meaning of us who understand the technical processes as opposed to those managers who only think about economic aspects and profit . The expression ‘us and them ’ had become more complex since Lysgaard’s time.

However, strong hostile attitudes towards management —at least until 2006 when the plant changed ownership—were not universally prevailing. In the interviews , we found examples of views on the period before the change of ownership that, apparently, are in direct contrast to Lysgaard’s findings. For instance, one of the workers claimed, ‘There used to be an environment and a culture for working together […] Management and employees worked together in order to improve production and of course also profits’. ‘Mutual respect’ was also mentioned by the operators . At least until 2006, there seems to have been some degree of mutual respect between supervisors and subordinates , which appears strange in comparison with Lysgaard’s findings. Later, this developed to a positive view of the technical engineers and a strongly negative regard for other managers, which we return to in Chapter 6.

On the surface therefore, conditions of similarity and the process of identification in the years before the closure of Peterson appear to have been quite different from what they were in Lysgaard’s days. However, on closer examination, it is still possible to see some important similarities manifesting themselves in different ways. Furthermore, the similarities proliferated considerably in the wake of the takeover by the cowboys . They introduced a new regime that in several ways was a return to the 1950s, illustrated by the growing tendency towards direct control as well as the suspension of the participatory practices that had become a common procedure in matters related to organisational change. Interview statements show that the new style of leadership was considered to be unacceptable. The displacement of the traditional and trustworthy regime seems to have revitalised the workers’ identity and paved the way for collective resistance . During the last six years […] we spoke of the newcomers [the new owners] as the cowboys . It was a totally different type of management . But they were rather shocked, because they thought that they could do exactly as they had done in other companies. But it was not like that here.

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