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Economic and Industrial Democracy
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From Conflict to Shared Development: Social Capital in a Tayloristic Environment

Peter Hasle

National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Denmark

Niels Møller

Technical University of Denmark

The Danish slaughterhouse industry is known for its Tayloristic organization of work, poor industrial relations with frequent wild cat strikes, and a hazardous work environment. However, a few slaughterhouses show big differences in sickness absenteeism, labour turnover and frequency of strikes. These slaughterhouses were studied in order to understand the latitude for cooperation and improvement of the psychosocial work environment. The results revealed that three out of four slaughterhouses studied have moved from a culture based on conflicts and opposing interests to a culture based on mutual trust and respect, thus developing social capital. Developing trust between production managers and shop stewards was the key to the new situation. This happened without jeopardizing the traditional roles of management representatives and shop stewards. The study indicates that there are possibilities of improvement of working conditions under a Taylorized regime based on collaboration between local management and workers. An important factor explaining the results is the strong position of the workers and their unions in the slaughterhouse sector and the general acceptance of unions in the Danish society.

Key Words: psychosocial work environment • slaughterhouse • social capital • strikes • Taylorized organization • trust

Economic and Industrial Democracy, Vol. 28, No. 3, 401-429 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0143831X07079355
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