ABSTRACT
In sociologie du travail, marked contrasts appear between the midseventies and mid-sixties whether the point of focus is subjectmatter, theory, standing with officialdom, or organisation and personal prestige. Some of the immediate effects within Sociology were dramatic. A few established figures had flirted with the gauchistes, and there had been no shortage of instant Trotskys amongst junior staff. But the more wily had kept their heads closely to the ground. The expansion of semi-skilled work prior to 1968, and the lack of trade union traditions amongst many recruits to it, might lead one to expect the appearance of a more 'normal' conflict propensity after a certain time-lag. The technicist objection to any proposal for democratising the control structures of the enterprise goes naturally in pair with that to any scheme for a fundamental redesign of the labour process, and is based upon the proposition that the characteristic forms of subaltern control are an inescapable outcome of operational and technical imperatives.
