Choice Review

Silver's monograph undermines the images of construction workers as well-paid craftworkers organized into powerful unions and espousing the conservative ideology of the ``labor aristocracy.'' Silver argues that workers in the building trades have suffered de-skilling and the loss of autonomy just as other workers have. Silver also asserts that the trade unions are balkanized and much weaker than commonly assumed. Core unions (i.e., those more central to production, whose skilled members are involved in constructing the foundation, frame, wiring, and piping) have greater power than the peripheral unions (i.e., those whose members are less skilled and do work least related to the structural integrity of the building). But even core unions, faced with uncertain markets and chronic periodic unemployment, accommodate contractors and developers by making concessions outside the formally negotiated trade agreement. Silver's third major point is that both objective and subjective alienation are characteristic of the building trades. Of particular interest here is his argument that alienation rather than embourgoisement accounts for the construction worker's conservative ideology. Silver has worked in construction but he uses his participant observation primarily to support regression analyses of data from a mail survey of 260 workers. The book has a number of typos and other errors, including the complete omission of one of Silver's questionnaires. Adequate index and bibliography. In general, a welcome contribution to the sociology of occupations. Upper-division undergraduates and above.-J. Bearden, SUNY College at Geneseo