Peter G. Hollowell - The Lorry Driver

THE SOCIOLOGY OF
WORK AND ORGANIZATION

In 18 Volumes

by

PETER G. HOLLOWELL

First published in 1968 by

Routledge

Reprinted in 1998 by

Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

1968 Peter G.Hollowell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The Lorry Driver

ISBN 0-415-17679-4

The Sociology of Work and Organization: 18 Volumes

ISBN 0-415-17829-0

The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes

ISBN 0-415-17838-X

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

For

Twerkals

with love

I wish particularly to thank the following: Dr George F. Thomason, Department of Industrial Relations, University College, Cardiff, my supervisor while I was writing my Ph.D. thesis, of which this book is an edited version; Professor M. P. Fogarty and other members of the above department for their continuous assistance; Dr and Mrs Newson of Nottingham University and Mr Norman Dennis of Newcastle University for help on particular points. I have a great debt to the lorry drivers and textile workers who displayed a remarkable tolerance. Thanks are also due to officials of the Transport and General Workers Union, the Ministry of Labour, the Road Haulage Association and to the managements of the firms who gave help with the study. I am grateful for financial support from the Department of Industrial Relations, University College, Cardiff; the Charles Henry Foyle Trust, Birmingham; the Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust, London; the John Hampden War Memorial Fund, Thame, Oxon.; and Mr and Mrs B. A. Hollowell.

A study in occupational sociology, like this one of the status and role of the lorry driver, will not be primarily concerned with the structure and economic operation of a particular industry. It is inevitable, however, that the industry will have its effect on the occupational role, and that the consequences of industrial structure will be apparent in the analysis of the observed behaviour and recorded attitudes of a sample of this group of workers.

Any insight into a social system poses the immediate problem that sociology is about real interactions and relationships while analytic schemes run the risk of producing characterless quintessences. The actor, who is in reality a bundle of activities, has to be discussed in terms of statuses and roles. In this work inferences for theory are made directly from illustrations of what lorry drivers actually did or said. It seems very important not to diverge too greatly from the observed and reported realities of the action situation, but it is of much greater importance to produce an analytical framework for replicatory purposes. The realities have to be placed in a context which is capable of being tested in a scientific way for its validity. An important criticism which has been made of some of the earlier community studies in Britain is that they did not produce any generalisations or propositions capable of being tested, though their value to sociology is proved by the frequency with which they are cited.

The central theme of this book is that actors are alienated by Alienation is subjective in that it refers to individuals mental states, whereas anomie refers to a more objective condition in society. There are however subjective and objective aspects of both concepts. Our problem is to produce an analysis where alienation is discussed in terms of role structure.

The actors orientation to his situation is the base of the theoretical considerations here. The actor interacts with other actors within the guidance of norms. Each actor is a bundle of statuses and roles. Status is the position of the actor in the social system relative to other actors, while what the actor is expected to do in his relations with others is termed his role. An operational definition of role has been provided by Gross et al.

A role is a set of expectations [Expectations are] a set of evaluative standards applied to the incumbent of a particular position.

This definition enables the concept of role to be used empirically in the analysis of the lorry driver and his social system. What we are interested in is the way in which the lorry driver resolves a series of actual or potential conflicts. We assume that the lorry driver is an actor in a stable structural system or rather a series of integrated sub-systems. Here we make the assumption of role congruency, that is to say expectations are clearly defined, are not conflicting, and are completely fulfilled by the actors in the system. Having made these assumptions we can The anomic situation is essentially one in which the rules have been suspended or upset in some way and actors are not afforded the guidance of the normative order. In other words the familiar and sufficient constraints of social structure no longer exist.