First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Work occupies a pivotal role in the daily activities and over the course of a lifetime of members of modern societies. In anticipation, work influ ences education and training; it has much to do with shaping current earned income and status in the community; and in retrospect, it influ ences retirement income and activities. It is a powerful force affecting personal associations. In our society work is deeply encased in moral and religious values: As Poor Richard says, A Life of Leisure and a Life of Laziness are two Things. Do you imagine that Sloth will afford you more Comfort than Labour? No, for as Poor Richard says: ... Industry gives Comfort, and Plenty and Respect. Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. But few words have as many different meanings and nuances as "work": to forge or to shape, to stir or to knead, to solve, to exploit, to practice trickery for some end, to excite or to provoke, to persuade or to influence, to toil, and the like. A need for precision in meaning is requisite with respect to work, not only in common discourse, but, even more so, in scholarly communication.

Work and Politics develops a historical and comparative sociology of workplace relations in industrial capitalist societies. Professor Sabel argues that the system of mass production using specialized machines and mostly unskilled workers was the result of the distribution of power and wealth in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Great Britain and the United States, not of an inexorable logic of technological advance. Once in place, this system created the need for workers with systematically different ideas about the acquisition of skill and the desirability of long-term employment. Professor Sabel shows how capitalists have played on naturally existing division in the workforce in order to match workers with diverse ambitions to jobs in different parts of the labor market. But he also demonstrates the limits, different from work group to work group, of these forms of collaboration.

In the fourth edition of this successful and popular text, Tony Watson explains how the discipline of sociology contributes to our wider understanding of the variety of work practices and institutions, which exist in modern society. The new edition outlines both what has been achieved historically and what is currently being achieved by the sociological study of work, as well presenting a range of concepts, models and other theoretical ideas that students and researchers can apply to the study of work. Subjects covered include: * how working patterns have changed, and continued to change since the industrial revolution * work organizations * innovations in the structuring of work activities at the enterprise level * the occupational aspects of the organization of work in changing societies * how people experience and cope with the pressures, insecurities and inequalities of a restructured world of work * how challenge and resistance influence the shaping of work in an ever-changing world. Fully updated throughout, this book includes an all-new chapter on the distinctiveness of the sociological perspective along with guidance on the research and analysis of work. It will be essential reading for anybody studying the sociology of work and organizations.

In the twentieth century, large companies employing many workers formed the bedrock of the U.S. economy. Today, on the list of big business's priorities, sustaining the employer-worker relationship ranks far below building a devoted customer base and delivering value to investors. As David Weil's groundbreaking analysis shows, large corporations have shed their role as direct employers of the people responsible for their products, in favor of outsourcing work to small companies that compete fiercely with one another. The result has been declining wages, eroding benefits, inadequate health and safety protections, and ever-widening income inequality. From the perspectives of CEOs and investors, fissuring--splitting off functions that were once managed internally--has been phenomenally successful. Despite giving up direct control to subcontractors and franchises, these large companies have figured out how to maintain the quality of brand-name products and services, without the cost of maintaining an expensive workforce. But from the perspective of workers, this strategy has meant stagnation in wages and benefits and a lower standard of living. Weil proposes ways to modernize regulatory policies so that employers can meet their obligations to workers while allowing companies to keep the beneficial aspects of this business strategy.