ABSTRACT
This chapter examines empirical material from a longitudinal study on the introduction of a performance appraisal system in an Australian colliery. It focuses on power and political process and the way miners’ tales and storying acted as a political vehicle in resisting and countering the managerial frame embedded in a new performance appraisal system. The miners’ stories typically reinforce traditional divisions between miners and management, whilst managers in contrast downplay any persuasive appeal of the miners’ tales in asserting their own managerial prerogative. Management were completely unprepared for the vehement resistance from coal miners that occurred even before the first round of appraisals. Miners contested the appraisal discourse by refusing to accept the legitimacy of managers to assess accurately their work underground. The chapter explores stories that emerge, develop and arise from the past to reinforce, to challenge or to reconstitute the place of the individual and group.
