The Transformation of the Professional Workforce

Crain, Marion

doi:10.2139/ssrn.329200

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Professionals operating under managerialism are thus subject to both the normative control of the profession and the bureaucratic control of the corporate enterprise, leading to both a continual self-surveillance and a narrow technical rationality (Halford and Leonard, 1999;Kitchener, 2002;Leicht and Fennell, 2001). Moreover, they tend to encounter greater commodifi cation, standardization and rationalization of both the work and the self (Crain, 2004;Kritzer, 1999).…”

Section: Discursive Infl Uences On Subject Positions In the Legal Professionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positioning Lawyers: Discursive Resources, Professional Ethics and Identification

Kuhn

2009

Organization

103

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Critics assert that lawyers’ subject positions make them accomplices to corporate domination. Work on subject position formation, however, frequently ignores either identifications with particular organizations or the manifold discourses circulating around those organizations. To address this, I asked junior corporate attorneys at a large US law firm to reflect on the accusation of being a ‘corporate lackey’. In their responses were four forms of discursive resource that evinced varied sources of identification. The analysis shows that the discursive resources reinforced one another in a ‘reticulated’ fashion: conditioned by encompassing discourses of managerialism and legal professionalism, they supported a particular mode of subjectivation. From this finding, I argue for the need to contextualize studies of professionals in multiple discourses, the advantages of studying arrays of discursive resources and the importance of surfacing ‘submerged’ discursive resources.

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Section: Discursive Infl Uences On Subject Positions In the Legal Professionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positioning Lawyers: Discursive Resources, Professional Ethics and Identification

Kuhn

2009

Organization

103

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“…I suggest that contemporary labor struggles over nonstandard work represent a synchronous double movement, as struggles not only about the terms of commodification but also over the extent of commodification 5 . For instance, scholars have provided evidence that professionals and graduate students have unionized in part to protect themselves from the commodification of their work (Crain 2004; Rhoads and Rhoades 2005).…”

Section: Background and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Is a Worker? Partisanship, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Social Content of Employment

Tomassetti¹

2012

Law soc. inq.

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In opinions addressing whether graduate students, medical residents, and disabled workers in nonstandard work arrangements are employees under the National Labor Relations Act, I analyze partisan differences in how National Labor Relations Board members, under the previous two US presidents, confronted the contradictory permeation of wage-labor into relatively noncommodified relationships. I argue that Republicans mediated the contradictions by interpreting indicia of employer property rights as status authority. They constructed employment as a contractual relationship consummated through exchange relations and demarcated a nonmarket social sphere in which to locate the relationships before them. This construction suppressed the class dimension of employment and the connection between relations of production and relations in production (Burawoy 1979). Democrats mediated the contradictions by recognizing them in part and arguing that the workers were engaged in commodity production. They proposed the Act as a means for workers to negotiate "differentiated ties" (Zelizer 2005) in nonstandard employment.Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection. National Labor Relations Act (1935, sec. 157)

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“…42 Beyond occupational closure, professionalism is compatible with other organizational principles, including trade unionism, and indeed, the Canadian labour movement is increasingly composed of professional workers. 43 This requires adaptation, taking into account the ways in which commitments to meritocracy, public service, professional status, and reputation overlay and dampen the likelihood of professional workers defining their interests collectively in opposition to those of their employers. Professionals are notably wary of attributing workplace dissatisfaction to employer discretion, although this would seem not to be an insurmountable barrier to their mobilization, at least exceptionally in already unionized contexts or in non-union forms of collective action.…”

Section: Organizing Precariously Employed Professionalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Experimental Organization of Precarious Professionals

MacDonald

Kolhatkar

2021

L/LT

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This article discusses the sector-wide organization of contractual archaeologists in Québec, beginning with the formation of a workers’ committee and leading subsequently to union accreditation. We theorize the difficulty of organizing these “precarious professionals” and suggest that self-organization outside of an industrial relations framework may be required to overcome barriers to their unionization. Deliberation, norm setting, and informal parlays with employers lead to clarifying class distinctions that professional identification often occludes, while self-organization increases worker confidence in collective action. Cet article traite de l’organisation sectorielle des archéologues contractuels au Québec en commençant par la création d’un comité de travailleurs et menant par la suite à l’accréditation syndicale. Nous mettons en théorie les difficultés qui ont entravé l’organisation de ces «professionnels précaires», et proposons que l’auto-organisation en dehors d’un cadre de relations industrielles peut être nécessaire pour surmonter les obstacles à leur syndicalisation. La délibération, l’établissement des normes et les discussions avec les employeurs conduisent à clarifier les distinctions de classe que l’identification professionnelle occulte souvent, tandis que l’auto-organisation augmente la confiance des travailleurs dans l’action collective.

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The Transformation of the Professional Workforce

Abstract: A-7 (characterizing unionization among physicians as "growing rapidly" in response to the devaluation of medical professionalism by managed care). 7.

Cited by 7 publications

References 3 publications

Positioning Lawyers: Discursive Resources, Professional Ethics and Identification

Positioning Lawyers: Discursive Resources, Professional Ethics and Identification

Who Is a Worker? Partisanship, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Social Content of Employment

An Experimental Organization of Precarious Professionals

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