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Informal hierarchies among workers in low‐skill food manufacturing jobs
Author(s) -
Hopkins Benjamin
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
industrial relations journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.525
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 1468-2338
pISSN - 0019-8692
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2338.2011.00637.x
Subject(s) - deskilling , agency (philosophy) , hierarchy , informal sector , immigration , business , migrant workers , context (archaeology) , work (physics) , labour economics , sociology , economic growth , economics , political science , market economy , social science , mechanical engineering , paleontology , law , engineering , biology
This article examines the creation of informal workplace hierarchies in the context of recent changes in the UK labour market. Previous studies have identified that deskilling of jobs has removed formal hierarchies among many production workers, and that informal hierarchies based upon factors such as contractual status have formed in their place. The aim of this article is to examine how changes in the labour force mean that new informal hierarchies have developed among migrant and immigrant workers who take these jobs through an agency. Research consisted of 50 semi‐structured interviews, coupled with lengthy observation of both work and social settings, at three food manufacturers. The article finds that language and cultural issues create a complex informal hierarchy not only between directly employed and agency workers, but also among and within different groups of migrant and immigrant agency workers.

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