Contingent Autonomy

Abstract

The authors argue that autonomy in the labor process results from the contingent interaction of worker power and organizational practices. Focusing on the “core jobs” (i.e., most central to the production process) in 618 randomly sampled workplaces in Australia, the authors find that the influences of technology and bureaucratization on autonomy are conditioned by the relative power (skill and unionization) of employees. As the relative power of workers increases, both the technical organization of work and bureaucratization are less likely to undermine job autonomy. The findings underline the importance of local power relations for understanding the impact of organizational structures on workers and help resolve deep ambiguities in the literature on autonomy and the labor process.