Insufficient attention has been paid to the social dimensions of skill in the ongoing investigation of deskilling. This article seeks to stimulate critical analysis of the impact of skill changes on work-based social relationships among workers by presenting a case study of the effect of dieselization on locomotive engineers. The study shows that a particular skill made obsolete by the transition from steam to diesel locomotives had greater importance for the formation and maintenance of an occupational community among engineers than the many other skills required of them. The data also suggest that the loss may have led to a deterioration of the community. Implications for workers' collective power are considered, along with other concerns for future analyses of changing skill requirements.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Attewell, P.1987. The deskilling controversy.Work and Occupations14:323-346.
2.
Braverman, H.
1974. Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century.New York: Monthly Review.
3.
Brecher, J.
1972. Strike!San Francisco: Straight Arrow.
4.
Bromley, J.
1943. Clear the tracks! The story of an old-time locomotive engineer.New York: Whittlesey House.
5.
Cottrell, W. F.
1940. The railroader.Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
6.
Ducker, J. H.
1983. Men of the steel rails: Workers on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad, 1869-1900.Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
7.
Edwards, R.
1979. Contested terrain: The transformation of the workplace in the twentieth century.New York: Basic Books.
8.
Ehrenreich, J.
, and B. Ehrenreich.1976. Work and consciousness.Monthly Review28:10-18.
9.
Gamst, F. C.
1980. The hoghead: An industrial ethnology of the locomotive engineer.New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
10.
Grzyb, G. J. 1977. Death of a craftsman: The impact of rationalization in the railroad industry on the occupational community and occupational culture of operating railroaders. Ph.D. dissertation, Washington University, St. Louis.
11.
Grzyb, G. J.1981. Decollectivization and recollectivization in the workplace: The impact of technology on informal work groups and work culture.Economic and Industrial Democracy2:455-482.
12.
Hill, S.
1982. Competition and control at work: The new industrial sociology.Cambridge: MIT Press.
13.
Hughes, E. C.
1972. The study of occupations. In The social dimensions of work, edited by C. D. Bryant, 106-120. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
14.
Kemnitzer, L. S.
and J. Spier. 1975. Class and integration of labor in the railroad operating crafts: An ethnographic example. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, January.
15.
Kornblum, W.
1974. Blue collar community.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
16.
LeMasters, E. E.
1975. Blue collar aristocrats: Lifestyles at a working-class tavern.Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
17.
Leuthner, S.
1983. The railroaders.New York: Random House.
18.
Licht, W.
1983. Working for the railroad: The organization of work in the nineteenth century.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
19.
Mills, C. W.
1956. White collar: The American middle classes.New York: Oxford University Press.
20.
Mills, H.
1979. The San Francisco waterfront: The social consequences of industrial modernization. In Case studies on the labor process, edited by A. Zimbalist, 127-155. New York: Monthly Review.
21.
Murphy, N. W.
1968. The fun and work of railroading.Philadelphia: Dorrance.
22.
Pretzer, W. S.1983. Review of F. C. Gamst's “The Hoghead.”Railroad History148:109-110.
23.
Pretzer, W. S.1984. Review of W. Licht's “Working for the Railroads.”Railroad History151:109-111.
24.
Salaman, G.
1974. Community and occupation: An exploration of work/leisure relationships.London: Cambridge University Press.
25.
Seligman, B. B.
1966. Most notorious victory: Man in an age of automation.New York: Free Press.
26.
Spier, J. S. 1963. The railroad switchman: A study in the meaning of work. Master's thesis, University of California, Berkeley.
27.
Terkel, S.
1972. Working: People talk about what they do all day and how they feel about what they do.New York: Pantheon.
28.
Thompson, P.
1989. The nature of work (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan.
29.
Vallas, S. P.1988. New technology, job content, and worker alienation: A test of two rival perspectives.Work and Occupations15:148-178.
30.
Weir, S. L.
1973. The informal work group. In Rank and file: Personal histories by working class organizers, edited by A. Lynd and S. Lynd, 179-200. Boston: Beacon.
31.
Weir, S. L. 1974. A study of the work culture of San Francisco longshoremen. Master's thesis, University of Illinois, Urbana.
32.
Williams, G. H.
1971. Life on a locomotive: The story of Buddy Williams, C&NW engineer.Berkeley: Howell-North.
33.
Zicklin, G.1987. Numerical control machining and the issue of deskilling: An empirical view.Work and Occupations14:451-466.
