The Tool Crib

Abstract

The workers at this American machine shop were convinced that it was impossible to ‘make out’ on the piece work jobs if they followed management’s instructions. Instead, they had to find ‘angels’ in order to ‘fix’ the piece rate. In practice that meant that the operators did their job in collaboration with several other occupational groups, mainly the set-up men, the inspectors, the tool-crib attendants, the stockmen and the time-checkers. Most of this collaboration was hidden from management and, as a result, the workers had built up some autonomy from the control that management thought it was exercising.