Annualised Hours and the `Knock': The Organisation of Working Time in a Chemicals Plant

Abstract

It is frequently noted that the development of industrial capitalism was predicated on the progressive commodification of working time. The process was, however, complex, uneven and incomplete, with control over the use of workers' time continuing to be subject to dispute. Yet this insight has tended to be neglected in accounts of recent managerial initiatives with respect to working time. Discussions of `temporal flexibility', whilst emphasising managers' attempts to achieve greater co-ordination between labour supply and production requirements, have failed to engage with these developments in sufficient conceptual depth. Through an investigation of the operation of annualised hours in a chemicals plant, the present paper shows that new working time arrangements increased managerial control, reduced earnings, and undermined workers' solidarity; but some resistance was still evident.