ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that workers have an important informal role in determining work practices in high-tech settings. It addresses the issues by investigating some of the consequences of "high-tech" production systems for the skill content of jobs, for labor market segmentation, for organizational structure, and finally, for the satisfactions and frustrations that workers derive from their employment. Engineers were also asked what they liked least about their jobs, and, perhaps surprisingly, given their much greater degree of autonomy, they also complained most bitterly about bad management. Management concern with health-related absences and past management abuses in this area had made it an especially sensitive issue. High-tech production systems generate a new set of problems for organizations. More significantly, high-tech production systems offer important potential resources for the development of heightened worker power. Many of the jobs in high-tech production settings require high levels of skill.
