TRANSFORMATION AS USUAL - THE MEANINGS OF A CHANGING LABOR PROCESS FOR INDIANA ALUMINUM WORKERS

The present era of 'flexible accumulation' and crisis is widely seen t o have engendered distinctive changes in the labour process. The analy sis presented here explores the ways in which these transformations ar e experienced and absorbed by hourly wage workers at an aluminium plan t in the United States. Of particular interest are the distinct meanin gs the workers attach to different managerial innovations; thus, the r eordering of shift arrangements provokes worker response (and union ac tion) that is quite different from the reaction inspired by the introd uction of cooperative worker-management teams at the plant Using class ical Marxian analytical categories, it may be said that the current re gimen of workplace control involves some combination of absolute and r elative surplus value strategies. By disaggregating this mix of strate gies, these workers' narratives help cast some light on the currently raging debate about whether or not we are living in an age of globaliz ation and epochal change.