For most of us, work is the central, dominating fact of life. We spend more than half our conscious hours on work, preparing for work, travelling to and from work. What we do there largely determines our standard of living and to a considerable extent the status we are accorded by our fellow citizens as well. It is sometimes said that because leisure has become more important, the indignities and injustices of work can be pushed into a corner, and that because most work is pretty intolerable, the people who do it should compensate for its boredom, frustrations and humiliations by concentrating their hopes on the other parts of their lives. I reject that as a counsel of despair. For the foresee, able future the material and psychological rewards which work can provide, and the conditions in which work can provide, and the conditions in which work is done, will continue to play a vital part in determining the satisfaction that life can offer. Yet only a small minority can control the pace at which they work or the conditions in which their work is done; only for a small minority does work offer scope for creativity, imagination, or initiative.
Inequality at work is still one of the cruelest and most glaring forms of inequality in our society. We cannot hope to solve more obvious problems of industrial life, many of which arise directly or indirectly from the frustrations created by inequality at work, unless we tackle it head-on. Still less can we hope to create a decent and humane society
The most glaring inequality is that between managers and the rest. For most managers, work is an opportunity and a challenge. Their jobs engage their interest and allow them to develop their abilities. They are constantly learning; they are able to exercise responsibility; they have a considerable degree of control over their own and others’--working lives. Most important of all, they have the opportunity to initiate. By contrast, for most manual workers, and for a growing number of white-collar workers, work is boring, monotonous, even painful experience. They spend all their working lives in conditions which would be regarded as intolerable--for themselves--by those who take the decisions which let such conditions continue. The majority has little control over their work; it provides them with no opportunity for personal development. Often production is so designed that workers are simply part of the technology. In of ices, many workers feel alienated from their work and their firm, whether it is in public or in private ownership.
Rising educational standards feed rising expectations, yet the amount of control which the worker has over his. own work situation does not rise accordingly. In many cases his control has been reduced. Symptoms of protest increase--rising sickness and absenteeism, high turnover of employees, restrictions on output, and strikes, both unofficial and official. There is not much escape out and upwards. As management becomes more professional--in itself a good thing-- and managers don’t think there is close connection between production and working condition.