The Politics of Workplace Change

Debates about workplace change have been influenced by interest in the "high-performance" workplace. Practices such as cross-functional teams, job rotation, multi-skilling, and employee involvement are touted as rational responses to the competitive conditions that companies currently face. As such, contemporary debates generally treat high performance practices and downsizing as mutually exclusive trajectories of corporate reorganization. This book challenges the high performance model by examining a company that uses both high performance and downsizing practices as part of its reorganization strategy. It traces the evolution of different "production regimes" in the US telecommunications industry, from a period in which monopoly status created stable conditions for accumulation and accommodation with labor to the post-divestiture period in which the context of labor-management relations has been dramatically altered. The book argues that, rather than constituting contradictory approaches to reorganization, the combined use of high performance practices and downsizing, forms a singular strategy, one that is fundamentally changing the employment relationship.