Retooling the Class Factory : Response 4
Labour History, Work and the Role of Capital

Chris Wright

Elizabeth Faue's paper challenges a number of conventional perspectives of labour history. In particular her argument for the need to account for the subjective meaning of class identity and to develop a broader conception of labour history beyond the workplace and beyond institutions suggests a significant departure from the traditional focus upon the formal institutions of the organised labour movement. Her paper makes a number of important contributions and also provides the grounds for further debate.	1
An important shortcoming of traditional labour history that Elizabeth raises is the neglect of diversity in documenting the history of workers and their working lives. Labour history has indeed been guilty of a bias towards studying the organised sections of the labour movement, partly I suspect because of the pragmatic issues of access to archival sources, as well as the assumption, that has only really been challenged in the last decade or so, that car plants and steel factories were where the 'real' workers worked. While it is true that contemporary trends such as increasing employment in small firms, 'atypical' casualised employment, and the growth of the amorphous category of 'service work' have become increasingly apparent, the reality is that these employment trends outside of the industrial core have always been there (for example, seasonal, itinerant employment in the agricultural and primary industries, the service ethos within banking and retail, employment in the small firm sector). Elizabeth's point about the often unrepresentative nature of much labour history is indeed well-founded and in recent years we have begun to see labour historians research these areas and restore some balance to the study of the labour history. This is a trend which should be encouraged and that is likely to be enriched through a greater appreciation of the subjective nature of the working class experience.	2
Elizabeth's paper also highlights the need to reconnect with individual experiences and complexity within the broader features of historical and social change. As she points out, these are important issues that have often been downplayed within labour history in favour of structural and institutional perspectives. However in arguing for the need to re-emphasise the subjective aspects of working class identity, care needs to be taken not to neglect the role of economic and institutional context. Clearly how we define labour history relates to differing perceptions of the field of study as well as alternative theoretical paradigms. From my own perspective, what distinguishes labour history from related areas of inquiry such as social , economic or even business history is a focus on the history of the employment relationship and the nature of work. This relationship is based upon the employee's sale of labour power to an employer and in most cases involves a fundamental inequality of bargaining power between worker and manager that is founded upon the legal rights of the employer and the private ownership of capital. In studying the history of people as workers, basic structural, economic and legal dimensions therefore play a crucial role in determining their work experience. In short, I'd suggest structure and institutions do matter and indeed are crucial to an understanding of labour history. Moreover, in seeking to move labour history beyond the workplace and institutions there is the danger of labour history simply becoming a sub-set of a broader social history and losing focus of the dimensions which give labour history its defining qualities; the employment relationship and issues of power and control within the workplace (however it is defined).	3
This brings me to an area that failed to be mentioned in Elizabeth's paper, the role of business and employers. Given the economic, political and legal structures that underpin employment in capitalist economies, it is clear that employers do play a key role in the construction of workplace relations and working life. Therefore in order to better understand workers, trade unions, and the work experience in a historical perspective, I don't think we can ignore the role of capital. In the Australian context, certainly one of the key influences in the development of labour history as an academic discipline during the 1980s was the 'labour process' debate, which following Braverman's seminal work Labor and Monopoly Capital , 1 emphasised the importance of employers and management in the historical development of work and the work experience. While early labour process writing was rightly criticised for ignoring issues of worker response, 'second' and 'third generation' labour process scholarship has provided rich insights into the dialectical relationship between capital and labour within an historical perspective. 2 For labour historians, the labour process literature emphasised how a coherent understanding of the working class and its formation required also a better understanding of the workings of capitalism and capitalists.	4
Including the role of capital within studies of labour history may also allow for a broadening of our understanding of labour's work experiences. For example issues of gender and ethnic segmentation within particular occupations and industries are often closely related to employer recruitment and selection practices and strongly informed by particular stereotypes of gender or culture that employers believe would be useful for their purposes. Indeed contemporary studies of labour management strategy have highlighted how particular employers specifically target employee profiles re their perceived work ethics, lack of social connection to trade unions, and individualism. Nor would such studies necessarily be limited to the 'gates of the factory'. Indeed innovative Australian historical studies have demonstrated the complex inter-relationship between management strategy, workplace and the local communities within which workplaces are located. 3 Given the growing power of capital during the twentieth century to encroach upon public space and culture through interventions in marketing, advertising and public policy 4 , the role of capital in affecting the working class experience appears a crucial focus for future labour history research.	5
In sum, reading Elizabeth Faue's reflections on the current state of North American labour history and her suggestions for future directions, reminded me that there is no single concept of 'labour history', rather there are different 'labour histories' which different researchers will be more or less disposed towards. That is 'labour history' like most academic disciplines is a contested and debated concept. Rather than viewing this as a sign of weakness and division, I believe such questioning and debate indicates a healthy introspection about what the discipline is about, where it has come from and where it is going.	6
Endnotes 1. H. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century , Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974. 2. For example, R. Edwards, Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century , Basic Books, New York, 1979; S. Jacoby, Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions and the Transformation of Work in American Industry, 1900-1945 , Columbia University Press, New York, 1985; C. Littler, The Development of the Labour Process in Capitalist Societies: a Comparative Analysis of Work Organisation in Britain, the USA, and Japan , Heineman, London, 1982. 3. For example, P. Cochrane, 'Anatomy of a Steel Works: The Australian Iron and Steel Company Port Kembla', Labour History , no. 57, 1989, pp. 61-77; B. Ellem and J. Shields, 'Making a Union Town': Class, Gender and Consumption in Inter-War Broken Hill', Labour History , no. 78, 2000, pp. 116-140; G. Patmore, 'Localism and Labour: Lithgow 1869-1932' Labour History , no. 78, 2000, pp. 53-70; L. Taksa, 'All a Matter of Timing: Managerial Innovation and Workplace Culture in the New South Wales Railways and Tramways prior to 1921', Australian Historical Studies , no 110, 1998, pp. 1-26. 4. N. Klein, No Logo: Taking Aim At The Brand Bullies , Picador, New York, 1999.

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