The British Worker Question: A New Look at Workers and Productivity in Manufacturing

The British Worker Question (1986) examines the productivity of British workers, drawing upon a wide range of management, trade union and other sources, and spanning the traditional preserves of several other areas and disciplines economic history, industrial administration, industrial relations and Marxism. It criticises much earlier research for its lack of a grounded sociological analysis of both workers and managements and for its lack of detailed attention to how goods and services are actually produced. The book accords a central place in its analysis of workers and productivity to the role of social organisation and management, matters which both the orthodox and Marxist traditions neglect.