The propensity to strike in relation to social power

• Main Author: Burrell, W. G.
• Published: University of Manchester 1980
• Subjects: 331; Labour studies
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.253080

The thesis contains blO very distinct parts . The first and longer segment att empts to test a number of hypotheses concerning the relationship between the propensity to strike o f certain industrial workers and ·their ' social power ' . Various measures of power, based upon published or easily accessible information , were used in three industr ial organisations v.'hj ch ""ere taken to be representative o f t he coal mining , docks 'and woollen industries, On the bC'\sis of this work , it \Vas thought possibl e to construe the elementary form a nd content of the ' objective power structure ' o f each company . Intervi el'ling took p ace in a colli ery and on docks premises ... lith nround 200 workers , . their r eprescntative~ and management in an attempt to assess the d ' mensions of the 'subj ectj.ve power structure ' . The results of the interviewing were thought explicable only in terms of a model of two social processes acting in contr adiction~ one ""ith the other . 'l'he f i rst part is drawn t o a close with a consideration of the theoretical and practical conc lusions to which the empirical work has led . In the ~ho;rter ' se Gond segt1'\ent , the f i.1;'st p~r t is subjected to an ' autocriti,!ue' i.n which an attack is launched on the whole empirical enterprise not jus.t .. as .eyidenced in this thesis but in social science in gener a l . An alternative to ' e~~iricism ' is suggested which, if taken up, ~,ould lead to very different kinds of work being done in the social sciences . In particular, the adoption of 'realism ' (of the kind advocated) would preclude all empirical research of the type upon which the thesis largely rests. This second part is dr a~m to conclusion by a suggestion that it is unlikely that a realist philosophy of science will be widely adopted for a number of deep-seated institutional reasons.