Work alienation : a case study of Maltese industrial workers

Abstract

People who work and have no job satisfaction hate themselves. (1 ). On contracting a job a certain degree of calculation is involved. Personal 'costs' are balanced against the available 'rewards'. Personal costs include the amount of physical and mental effort to be expended, fatigue and the loss of freedom involved in accepting the supervision of others. As for the rewards, cash may be the personal priority of certain employees. Future career advancement may be a major concern for others. The chance to control other people is attractive for some. Yet others seek to fulfil and/or develop personal values through their job. Work, therefore. is viewed "in a basically and generally instrumental manner''. (2) Following a series of work satisfaction studies, Robert Blauner distinguished four major areas: (3) • the occupation's relative prestige. • the degree of independence and control over the conditions of work, that is, freedom from hierarchical control, the opportunity to perform tasks without being too strictly supervised. • the opportunity of working within an integrated group breeds other advantages, namely social satisfactions. • non-work activities are shared by people who work together. Dissatisfactions at work arise when people are impeded from being creative, from using their skills and working with people who know their job. Other factors include performing repetitive, at times, useless tasks, producing a small part of an item, feeling insecure and being too closely supervised. The preceding aspects contradict the notion that both selffulfilment and self-actualisation can be acquired through a job or a career. Rather, these lead to their very opposite - work alienation - precisely the theme of this dissertation. [...]