ABSTRACT
Over the last twenty years, the composition of the industrial labor force in the United States has changed as more women have continued to work while having children, and semi-skilled and skilled jobs have been increasingly filled by people of color and immigrant workers, especially women. At the same time, U. S. manufacturing has experienced a radical restructuring, primarily characterized by the decline of heavy industry, the movement of light industry to the South and West as well as to the Third World, and the introduction of Japanese management techniques as a way of shoring up American productivity. In this climate, women were seen as more docile workers than men, and managers deliberately attempted to control women’s labor through various strategies and practices. Understanding the conditions under which women consent to or resist managerial control means that we need a more complex analysis of women’s position as industrial workers, one that takes account of restructured and relocated industries, the new array of management practices, and the diversity among women workers.
