ABSTRACT
Explanation of shopfloor behaviour can usefully begin with an examination of the employment contract. Whatever additional attractions may be discovered in work by the employee, or fringebenefits provided by the employer, industrial and other work organisations as we know them depend for their existence on the sale of labour-power by the employee in return for a wage or salary. The relationship between employer and employee is essentially a ‘calculative’ one (Etzioni, 1961; Goldthorpe et al., 1968a, pp. 37-42). The contract which regulates this exchange, however, even if it is defined to include customary and normative elements as well as those which may be legally enforceable, is generally, and some would argue necessarily, a remarkably ‘open-ended’ agreement. It may specify wages and hours but with the exception of strict pieceworking or subcontracting situations does not specify in detail the work to be done. This may be because the employer wishes to retain some flexibility in the deployment of his labour force, or because it is difficult if not impossible to specify in advance precisely what is required of the employee. The employment contract is only worked out and ‘closed’ in the day-to-day interactions between workers and their employer, or his agents-managers and supervisors.
