INTERACTFDN NETWORKS AND
ENDUSTRSAL EFFECEENCY IN
PIPELENE CONSTRUCUON

Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D.
MiCHIGAN STATE UNWERSITY
BENNIE DWANE GRAVES
1968

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thesis entitled

INTERACTION NETWORKS AND INDUSTRIAL

EFFICIENCY IN PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION

presented by

Bennie Dwane Graves

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D. dqpagfil Social Science

 

Date July 22, 1968

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ABSTRACT

INTERACTION NETWORKS AND INDUSTRIAL
EFFICIENCY IN PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION

By Bennie Dwane Graves

This thesis reports an observational study of re-
cruiting and skill training in the pipeline construction
industry. The study attempted to determine the extent to
which the particularism of kinship and friendship and the
universalism of industrial efficiency reinforce or disrupt
one another.

The writer collected data through participant obser-
vation.and interviews. He worked for eleven months as a
skilled and unskilled laborer for two construction companies
in Texas. He interviewed workers and officials of three
companies at offices and construction sites in Ohio, Michi-
gan, and Ontario. .Wbrkers were interviewed at all skill and
authority levels. The interviews were designed to discover
good informants rather than to get a cross section of pipe-
liner opinion.

The organization of the industry encourages unof—
ficial recruiting. Few contracted jobs last longer than

three or four weeks. Rarely can a company hold a crew from

Bennie Dwane Graves

one project to the next. The company would lose most of its
crew even if it lost no time between projects because it can—
not make use of a full crew throughout a Single project.
Great distances between jobs usually prevents the company's
beginning one job before ending another. The construction
season creates a curvilinear need for workers from a constant
labor force. At the beginning and end of the season fewer
jobs are available than workers. In mid-season there are
more jobs than workers to fill them.

Personnel offices, labor unions, and employment
agencies have been unable to distribute workers from such a
fluid labor force with the necessary speed and efficiency.
The small contracting firm which operates with little capital
is especially dependent upon a ready labor force. These
companies often rent expensive equipment. Consequently,
once the job is started the contractor must be able to
muster a crew within a very short time.

The foregoing conditions act to encourage unofficial
recruiting practices. The pipeline labor force seems to be
organized around kinship and friendship groups which act as
very efficient occupational contact networks. It is these
networks that distribute and redistribute the labor force
throughout the season.

The networks originate in kinship obligations and

friendship relations but their persistence seems to be due

Bennie Dwane Graves

neither to institutional kinship norms nor to continued
friendship. Rather, they seem to persist, because of their
functional significance to companies seeking crews and to
workers seeking jobs. Once the networks become established,
they seem to become more and more organized around the ex—
change of favors related to employment and less and less
around sentiment. Established networks are able to function
despite interpersonal indifference and even antipathy.

The worker's ability to get what he wants from the
industry depends upon his participation in the networks.
WOrkers use the networks to get jobs which are not far apart,
jobs of the longest duration possible, as much overtime as
possible, and to stretch the season as much as possible.

The construction supervisor's involvement in the net-
works inSures him a ready crew during mid-season when he may
have to ask workers to work as a favor to him. His involve-
ment in the networks also underpins his authority by giving
him the ability to reward and punish beyond a particular
project. The supervisor also is able to use loyalty to him-
self in the service of his company. He needs these loyalties
in his competition with other companies for workers, his dis—
putes with unions, and his occasional work related illegal
acts.

Despite kinship and friendship based recruiting, ob-

jective work standards seem to be maintained. The shipping

Bennie Dwane Graves

company, through its inspectors insist upon minimum quality
standards of workmanship, and construction company officials
guard against costly ineptitude. Nepotistic placements are
channeled into particular tasks which do not require much
skill. The relatively inept kinsman or friend can be kept

employed as a laborer while he learns a skill.

INTERACTION NETWORKS AND INDUSTRIAL

EFFICIENCY IN PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION

BY

Bennie Dwane Graves

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

College of Social Science

1968

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT S

I should like to thank the members of my doctoral
committee: Professors Donald W. Olmsted, John D. Donoghue,
James B. McKee, Clarence W. Minkel, Milton Rokeach, and
Joseph Spielberg. I feel sure that the gentlement who served
on my committee did not thereby have their departmental re-
sponsibilities reduced. Consequently, I used a good deal of
the little free time that otherwise they might have had.

rMany pipeliners, students, and colleagues acted as
critics as well as sources of information. They deserve my
thanks.

My wife, Peggy, contributed criticism, encouragement,

and endless patience to the project. She has my gratitude.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

LIST OF TABLES
Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION .

Primary Groups and Pipeline Construction

Pipeline Ownership and Construction .

The Labor Force . . . . . . . . .

Research Procedures . . . . . . .

Conceptualization .

Relevant Trends in Contemporary Social
Science . . . . . . . . . . . . .

II. SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND INTERPERSONAL RE-
LATIONS: ‘A VIEW OF ORGANIZATION

Informal Organization . . .
Role Set and Status Set

worker Motivation

Norms and Relationships

KinShip and Occupation .
\Kinship in Pipeline Construction

III. RESEARCH PROCEDURES

Data Collection

Observation and Observer Effect .

Advantages and Disadvantages of Quali-
tative Research . . . . . . . . .

IV. PIPELINE INDUSTRY AND CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Shipping Companies and Construction
Companies

Petroleum and Pipelines
Technology and the Organization of WOrk

iii

Page

ii

ll
14
18

25

31

34
37
39
4O
44
47

51

51
58

63
67
67

7O
74

Chapter Page

V. THE PIPELINERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Origins and Characteristics . . . . . . . 96
Organization and movement . . .‘. . . . . 98
Bidding, Contracting, Recruiting, and

Job Finding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
VI. .LABOR FORCE DYNAMICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
The Labor Supply—Demand Cycle . . . . . . 116
Occupational Contact NetwOrks . . . . . . 121

Kinship Organization in the Pipeline
Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Labor Force Allocation: The Dynamic
Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Schism and Coalition . . . . . . . . . . . 136

VII. yAPPRENTICESHIP: A LONG RANGE CONSEQUENCE OF
THE EXCHANGE NETWORKS . . . . . . . . . . 147
Breaking Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
The First Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
The Second Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
The Third Stage . . . . . 160
Integrative Functions of the System . . . 165
VIII. _AUTHORITY JUDGMENT AND TECHNICAL COMPETENCE . 168
Competition and WOrker Evaluation . . . . 168
Supervisor's Role Set . . . . 170
Particularism and WOrk Quality Standards . 171
IX. SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Pipelines and Pipelining . . . . . . . . . 181
Technology, Time, and Distance . . . . . . 183
Bunches, Cliques, and Networks . . . . . . 184
Kinship-Friendship Relations and

Conflict . . . . . . . . 194
Latent Functions of the Networks . . . . . 198
Networks in Other Industries . . . . . . . 200
A NOte on Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . 203
WORKS CONSULTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
GLOSSARY OF PIPELINE TERMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

iv

LIST OF TABLES

Table

1. Time and distance during mid-season for
one medium sized company, Amarillo,
Texas. Summer, 1955 . . . .

2. Estimate of the number of days each gang
can expect to be employed on a 12 work-
ing day job . . . . .

3. wages for five skill groups for forty,

sixty, and seventy hour weeks. Based
on wages paid by one Michigan company
in Southern Michigan during the summer
of 1966. Data furnished by accounting
office . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page

109

111

133

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

This thesis reports an observational study of the
role of informal recruiting and training in adjusting the
pipeline labor force to the needs of the pipeline con-
struction industry. The study has sought to discover the
patterns whereby the members of the pipeline construction
labor force are distributed and redistributed throughout the
season among the several construction companies. A second,
and related, concern derives from the fact that the informal
recruiting and training in the industry are organized around
kin ties and friendships, and as such, they are characterized
by particularistic relations among workers. The work itself,
on the other hand, is governed by universalistic standards
of competence. The second question, then, is how do the
construction companies get the degree of technical compe-
tence they need when they are dependent for a labor force

upon the particularism of kin ties and friendship?

Prim ry Groups and Pipeline Construction

The pipeline construction industry seems to provide
an ideal setting for an investigation of the functional re-

lationship between the universalistic demands of a modern

industry and the particularism of kin ties, friendships, and
other unofficial relationships. Groups of workers con-
sisting of from two to twenty individuals who are kin to one
another often work for the same contracting company. More-
over, the industry can make little use of formal recruiting
agencies. The shortness of contracts and discontinuous needs
for skilled workers present construction firms with the re-
curring problem of bringing men and equipment together within
a matter of hours, to work for a few days or a few weeks.
Correct timing of recruitment is necessarily precise. Con-
tracting companies often use rented equipment at high hourly
and daily rates, and transmission companies exact penalties
for lost time. Crews, about half of which are highly skilled,
must be recruited within a few hours-—a few days at the most.
Neither public and private employment agencies nor unions

can supply crews from such a fluid labor force.' Groups of
kinsmen and friends, however, amass crews rapidly and ef-
fectively. Steady employment requires much movement among
companies. Kinship and friendship based communication net—
works, unofficially organized into what Katz called "occu-
pational contact networks," keeps workers informed about
opportunities.1 Thus, the networks serve the double function
of furnishing crews to contracting companies, and furnishing
workers with a maximum number of job opportunities during the

construction season.

Theoretically we may expect that kin ties, together
with less apparent primary relationships, and the require—
ments of industrial efficiency may conflict with each other.
But, two general conclusions have been drawn regarding pri—
mary relations and production needs of contracting companies:
(1) companies and the primary groups contribute to, rather
than detract from, each other‘s survival, and (2) particular—
istic threat to industrial efficiency is reduced by patterns
of recruiting and apprenticeship which permit the "boss"
(the person at the center of possible conflict) to fulfill
all of his obligations with a minimum of "role strain" and
“role conflict."2

Role strain, for the construction supervisor, is his
awareness that his official duties are difficult to perform
because relatives and friends expect special work related
favors from him, or his feeling that being a good friend or
a proper relative are comprised by his job. Role conflict,
a similar concept, applies when the supervisor views both
the kinship—friendship expectations and the official expec-
tations as legitimate but in conflict with one another. The
supervisor's obligations to kinsmen and to friends are a
variety of particularism. That is, the obligations derive
from the relationships themselves. His official obligations
are a variety of universalism in which he is expected to

treat workers in terms of objective criteria of competence.

Pipeline Ownership and Construction

The pipeline industry is at present one of the
larger but less visible industries in the United States.3
And, it is becoming increasingly important throughout the
world.4 Pipelines now transport 30 percent of the total
tonnage of land freight shipped within the United States.
The United States is the leader in pipeline mileage, with
slightly over 1,000,000 miles, followed in order by western
Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Middle East.*5

In the United States, pipelines are almost every-
where, but the greatest concentration of lines is found in a
broad belt which runs diagonally from the American Southwest
into the Midwest and to the NOrtheastern Seaboard. The
southern boundaries of the belt are marked roughly by
Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the easternmost part of
Louisiana. The northern boundaries are marked by Chicago
and New York City.6

Pipelines have proven to be an inexpensive means of
transportation. Their initial cost and their maintenance

are considerably less than the costs of railroads. The

average cost of transporting liquids by pipeline is about

 

 

*The Middle East actually produces more petroleum
than do western Europe and the Soviet Union. However, most
of the Middle Eastern petroleum is exported and consequently
the area lacks the spiderwebbing of "spurs" and "loops"
which characterize the pipeline systems of petroleum cone
Suming nations such as the United States.

one half that of transporting the same liquid by rail. Pipe—
lines transport a variety of products, the largest of which
is natural gas. The natural gas industry itself is the

7 Crude oil and

sixth largest industry in the United States.
its products--gasoline, diesel, and other fuel oils make up
a large portion of the total freight shipped by the pipe-
lines. Numerous pipelines, called products lines, carry a
variety of liquids on a contract basis. They ship one liquid
or gas behind another.8 Of lesser but growing importance
are recent technical innovations which permit pipelines to
ship a variety of products other than gas and petroleum. A
Colorado company ships asphalt over a distance of more than
two hundred miles. Another Colorado company ships coal
simply by mixing it with water. WOOd chips for pulp
factories, and even automobile parts, are shipped through
pipelines in southern Canada. The automobile parts and
other solids are put into cylindrical or spherical con-
tainers, and the containers are then put into some kind of
liquid medium. Molten sulfur is transported from offshore
‘wells to the Louisiana coast in pipelines which are built on
the principle of the vacuum bottle.9

Most of the pipelines are owned by petroleum, public
utility, and independent pipeline companies. Pipeline con-
Struction is done by some of the companies which own the

lines, by companies which are semi-independent parts of pipe—

line owning companies, and by independent contracting

companies. The greatest number of construction companies
are independently owned. These range in size from very
large corporations to one owner subcontracting companies.
Pipeline shipping companies that own their own construction
equipment actually do a very small part of their own con-
struction. The industry is organized in such a way that
construction contracts ordinarily can be awarded to outside
construction companies more cheaply than the construction
can be done by the pipeline company itself. The semi-
independent companies are financed by parent petroleum
companies, but they have their own boards of directors and
accept contracts from other companies.10

The actual size of construction companies is diffi-
cult to determine. The largest companies ordinarily do
several kinds of construction work. They may drill and re-
pair oil wells, build roads, highways, dams, hotels, and a
variety of other structures. Often they operate heavy equip-
ment rental services for smaller companies. Even if a
Company just builds pipelines the flexible size of its staff
and crews makes the definition of size uncertain. The
Smaller companies that build only pipelines may start each
Season with only the owner, a bookkeeper (who often is the
<aner's wife) and a construction superintendent. The company
‘may own little more than a few pickup trucks and a "grease
Wagon." By the middle of the season, the same company may

have from one hundred to two hundred workers, and it will

have rented enough equipment to keep them busy. As the
season comes to a close in early winter, the company‘s staff
will again shrink to two or three people and little equip-
ment. Even large companies that own most of their own equip-
ment and hire a full time office staff may start and end
each pipeline season with a pipeline crew consisting of a
general superintendent and a bookkeeper. Yet, in mid-season,
the company's crews may swell to more than a thousand men.

Despite the rubber sheet flexibility of all con—
struction companies, some determination of relative size can
be made. The largest companies often have jobs in progress
throughout the world. They own their own equipment and main-
tain operations centers in the United States, Canada, and
the Middle East. Their staffs often include vice presidents
for purchasing, contracting, and other divisions of the
company. The larger companies seem rarely to accept other
than prime contracts. They frequently subcontract portions
of jobs to smaller companies.

Smaller companies may be viewed as those which (1)
accept both prime and subcontracts, and (2) which operate at
least one full "spread." (A "spread" is the organization of
enough men and equipment to build a pipeline.) The smaller
companies generally confine their operations to the nine to
ten month construction season in the United States and Canada.
These companies often own little equipment. Consequently

they lease most of the equipment they use.

Numerous other companies accept only subcontracts,
and they do not ordinarily operate a full spread. Rather,
they complete specific tasks such as road crossings, and
make connections to pump stations, refineries, and gas and
oil fields. There-seems to have been a recent proliferation
of the small subcontractors-~a trend corresponding to the
increasing specialization within the construction industry
and the increasing cost of pipelining equipment.

In order to determine the number and approximate
size of companies, the writer examined the listings included

in “Pipeline werk in Progress" in Pipeline Construction for
11

 

June, July, and August, 1966. The listings cover a re-
porting period from June 10 through August 10, 1966. The
listings are limited to companies working on prime contracts
during the reporting period. Unfortunately, the listings
include only smaller than spread size companies which have
been awarded subcontracts. Companies that had accepted sub—

contracts for an entire segment of line were not included in

the listings. The June, July, and August issues of Pipeline

 

_Qonstruction were selected because the reporting period
covers the heaviest part of the construction season. The
three summer issues of the journal listed active contracts
for a total of 107 different prime contracting companies at
least once. The June issue listed 77 (72%) of the 107
companies: the July issue listed 75 (70%), and the August

issue listed 70 (65%).

The best apparent indexes of company size are (l)
the amount of mileage under prime contract to a construction
company, (2) the number of simultaneous prime contracts
awarded to a construction company, and (3) the number of
subcontracts awarded by the prime contracting firm.* Pipe
diameter is only slightly related to company size. wAlthough
some of the larger companies accept contracts only for cer-
tain ranges of pipe diameter, the smaller companies seem to
contract work involving all pipe sizes. .The large companies
own their equipment, and it is designed and outfitted to
deal with a particular range of pipe diameters. The small
contracting companies enjoy greater pipe size flexibility
because they simply rent whatever equipment a particular
contract demands.

The typical contract is awarded to a one contract
company, to lay less than ten miles of large diameter pipe.
Sixty—six of the 107 companies operating at some time during
the 1966 season worked on only one contract at a time.
Thirty-one companies had two contracts listed for overlapping
JPeriods. ,One hundred nineteen subcontracts were awarded by
.Prime contractors during the reporting period covered in the
'three issues of Pipeline Construction. Most of the sub-

cOntracts were awarded for the completion of special jobs,

Kg

*These criteria apply only to the "heavy (summer)
season." This is the period in which most existing companies
can be expected to have active contracts.

10

but at least a few subcontracting companies known to the ob-
server, but not reported, operated complete crews and were
responsible for all of the tasks on a portion of the line.
Some subcontracts for special jobs known to the observer

were awarded too late to be included in the Pipeline Con-

 

struction listings.

Only the larger companies can handle jobs involving
more than 100 miles. ,Large contracts require access to
equipment which small companies to not have--either because
they do not own the equipment, or their credit is not good
enough to rent it. Moreover, the contracts usually contain
a time limit clause. Consequently the contractor often must
be able to operate several spreads. Only twelve of the 107
companies had contracts for more than one hundred miles and
only fourteen more had contracts requiring the construction
of from ten to fifty miles. The typical 1966 contract (mode)
was awarded to 77 companies to build less than ten miles of
Pipeline each.

The construction companies are located along the
-1arge belt of pipelines described earlier. The largest
<33ncentration of home offices is found in the American South—

West. Texas is the conspicuous leader with 32 of the 107
listed companies. Louisiana and Oklahoma were represented
‘bY four companies each. The remaining companies are spread

Over the midwestern, southern, and southwestern states.

11

The Labor Force

The pipeline labor force seems to come predominantly
from the American Southwest. (Although it has been impossible
to determine the proportion of workers with respect to re—
gional origins, the_southwest has left its cultural stamp on
the industry. Even the workers who were born and raised in
the Midwest and in Canada use a pipeline vocabulary which
originated in Southwestern farm and ranch life.” Most of the
pipeliners contacted on Midwestern jobs by the writer were
"up here from Texas," "from Louisiana," or from somewhere
else "down home."

The typical pipeliner seems to be a white Anglo-
American southwesterner. He has a rural background, and his
"folks" were farmers or farm laborers. Several factors seem
to have combined to determine the regional and social compo-
sition of the pipeline labor force. The uprooting effects
of the dust bowl and the depression of the 1930's created a
large migrating population. Many pipeliners who are now
over fifty years old have had some experience in the "cotton,
Ibroom corn, and grain sorghum harvest circuit" in New Mexico,
(Iklahoma, and Texas before they became pipeliners. Others
‘traveled north through the wheat belt and to south Texas and
to northwestern Colorado to fruit harvest. When pipelining
began to demand a large labor force during and after World
War II, many migratory farm workers were available, and they

had learned to live "on the go." Increasingly efficient farm

12

technology and decreasing profits since world War II have
displaced many farm owners and renters, and the resulting
decline of the family farm and the rapidly diminishing need
for unskilled farm workers has occurred simultaneously with
a rapid expansion of the need for pipeliners. There are
then, perhaps, two fairly similar populations in the pipe-
line labor force: the "old timers" whose neighbors and kins-
men went west to California first to pick fruit, and later
to work in defense plants, and a younger group which, had it
not been for pipelining, might have migrated to the West
Coast or to midwestern urban centers.12

Pipeline crews are conspicuously white. The writer
has seen perhaps over a thousand pipeliners on jobs. No
more than a dozen of these have been Negroes. And, with one
exception, these few individuals were "common hands" (un-
skilled workers). One Negro "common hand" was made "straw
boss" for a few hours over a gang of Negroes hired to clean
ditches. workers whose ethnic origins are Mexican American
and Spanish American (in New Mexico) are seen more frequently,
3but not nearly in the same proportions as they are found in
'the population, and they too are rarely found in supervisory
Positions .

The white Anglo-American workers have been able to
restrict skilled jobs to themselves primarily because workers
themselves largely control skill learning in the industry.

Loos reports that in 1910 both Negro and white pipeline crews

~-

v‘

a

.V

13

worked for the Interstate Oil Pipeline Company. Except for
joining the lengths of pipe, which was done by whites, the
segregated crews did the same kinds of work although white

foremen supervised the Negro crews.13

Since these early
crews did not need the more complicated skills of the mid—
century pipeliner, their employment was in the hands of the
company. Modern skill training, and therefore induction in—
to the industry, is informal. The contemporary trainee is
dependent upon friends and kinsmen to instruct him and to
supervise his initial attempts to practice his newly acquired
skill. Consequently, white workers seem to have attained
more control over the ethnic composition of the industry
than they had over the composition of the farm labor force.
Despite gross economic disadvantages, minority groups in the
Southwest did have minor advantages in seeking manual farm
work.' For one thing, Negroes and Mexican Americans could be
hired more cheaply and they were more controllable. The
writer recalls that in the summer of 1940 the customary wages
for chopping cotton in west Texas were ten cents per hour

for white men, and seven and one-half cents per hour for
white women, white adolescents, and Negro men.* For several

years during and after WOrld War II, Mexican Nationals

 

_——

*These rates seem to have been based not upon any as-
sumption about the worth of work done by members of the
different categories, but rather the belief that white grown
men needed better pay.

14

(Braceros) were paid twenty-five to fifty cents per hour to

chop cotton.

Research Procedures

Data were collected in three ways. The writer
worked in the southwestern states as a laborer during the
summer of 1951 and through most of the construction season
of 1953. .Following that period he made occasional contacts
with pipeliners in the Southwest and Midwest. From June,
1966, through May, 1967, the writer visited the construction
sites of three companies and company offices in Ohio, Michi-
gan, and Ontario, where he interviewed workers and company
officials. Observations during the latter period were made
in three companies, all of different sizes. workers were
interviewed at all skill and authority levels. The writer
did not draw a random sample of workers from the elusive
labor force. Rather, pipeliners who were interviewed were
viewed as informants. Convenience governed the selection of
companies in which the writer made his observations. The two
Texas companies are best described as two-contract companies.
That is, they rarely had more than two contracts at any one
time. Two of the Ohio and Michigan companies were much
larger; one was smaller. The large companies were capable
of, and had carried on, four large simultaneous contracts.
The two smaller Texas companies seem, however, to have been

more typical of the kinds of companies that accept contracts

15

to do pipeline work. The small companies rented some of the
equipment which they used, and their permanent staffs amounted
to two or three people. Few companies are larger than one
of the south-central Michigan companies although a few, such
as the Bechtel Corporation of Houston is vastly larger. The
writer interviewed workers and supervisors in one company
which specialized in housing development "tie ins" in central
Michigan.

The representativeness of companies selected for
their convenience is uncertain. But independent of size,
all of the companies are similar in some ways most relevant
for the present study. (1) Regardless of size, each of the
companies accept more contracts for short term than for long
term jobs. (2) The size of a "spread" (full crew) is
governed by pipe diameter and topography, not by the size of
the contracting company. (3) Even when long term jobs are
contracted the construction company usually operates several
spreads in order to meet contract deadlines. Thus, at the
actual work level the situation for workers apparently is
identical in all companies. Most of the pipeliners known by
the writer have worked in all sizes of companies, and whether
a company is large or small seems to be a matter of general
indifference to the workers. Moreover, the recruiting
problems for all of the companies in which the writer made

observations seem to have been identical. That is, they are

16

required to recruit almost completely new crews for each,
usually short, contract.

The writer carried out his most intense research ef-
forts in the summer of 1966 in the two Michigan and one Ohio
companies. He interviewed the president, the vice president
of the pipeline division, the personnel manager, and the
general construction superintendent in the large company,
and all three of the officials in the specialized company.
The interviews were designed to get information about crew
recruiting. Approximately two hundred workers and gang
supervisors were contacted. (About 120 of these contacts can
be described as interviews. An interview is defined here as
a focused conversation which probably both the interviewer
and the interviewee would define as an interview. The defi-
nition excludes situations such as "bull sessions" in which
the observer often was an attentive and grateful bystander.
Bull sessions frequently proved to be more fruitful than
focused interviews.

No claim can be made for the representativeness of
the interviewed subjects. Indeed the main purpose of the
formal interview was to discover good informants. And good
informants are atypical, not typical pipeliners. Out of the
approximately 120 interviews, the writer selected and spent
most of his time with nine workers. One of these was a
general construction superintendent, two were inspectors,

four were gang foremen, one was a welder, and one was an

17

x-ray subcontractor. These individuals were selected from
the rest because: (1) They seemed to have a large store of
information, and they exhibited what the writer considered,
on the basis of his own experience as a pipeliner, to be
good insight into the socio-cultural characteristics of the
industry. (2) They were articulate and cooperative, and
they had thought objectively about pipelining as a way of
life. ;Although idle curiosity has not achieved the stature
on the pipeline that it has achieved in universities, the
industry contains individuals who observe and ponder the be-
havior of their fellow men "just for the hell of it." Al-
though the student of social science has to interpret and
evaluate informant reports, such individuals are very valu—
able sources of information and working hypotheses. (3)
Finally, the selected individuals were quick to comprehend
the writer's clumsily stated objectives and they became
interested in the inquiry.

The writer has not viewed the use of unrepresentative
informants as especially inferior to a randomly drawn sample
of workers. Many of the subtleties of organization do not
lend themselves to survey techniques. The opinions of
numerous workers (for example, the belief of some that they
taught themselves complicated pipeline skills) would indi-
cate only that many workers are innocent of interpersonal
inSights. Ethnologists have used carefully selected in-

fonmants for decades without apology.14

18

Conceptualization

 

The study has attempted to explore the problem of
labor force industry adjustment on three levels of analysis:
the structural, the interpersonal, and the individual
(motivational).

The structural level, applied to pipelining, in-
cludes (l) the organization of the industry—-the formal re—
lationships among pipeline companies, construction contract-
ing companies, and labor unions, (2) the organization of
contracting companies and subcontracting companies, and (3)
the social and technical organization of pipeline con—
struction work, the "spread." The interpersonal level of
analysis is concerned with concrete patterns of interaction
found among workers acting within the context of the pipe—
line construction industry. ,Analysis of interpersonal
patterns takes into account the work related motives of
workers within the nexus of the various structures in which
interpersonal behavior takes place.15 "Motive," as the term
is used in this thesis, refers to phenomenological prefer-
ences regarding work.

The principal effort in the present project has
focused upon the interpersonal level of analysis and upon
the organizational patterns which seem to emerge from this
level. The most important of these are (1) groups of kins-

men formed on an ad hoc rather than an institutional basis,

19

(2) friendship cliques whose relationship is relevant for
labor force movement, and (3) contact networks of pairs of
individuals who exchange job related favors but who, unlike
kin groups and cliques, do not constitute social groups.16
The emergent kin groups and cliques within the labor force
are characterized by affective involvement of members and
particularistic and diffuse obligations among members. The
dyadic networks are characterized by particularistic obli-
gations, but not by affectivity, nor by diffuse obligations.

The fitting of the pipeline labor force to the
industry has two dimensions: the adaptive and the inte—
grative. The principal adaptive questions are: How do
workers with the appropriate skills become distributed among
the construction firms in roughly the correct proportions,
and how do workers and groups of workers go about achieving
their explicit objectives? The principal integrative ques—
tion is: How are the particularism of kinship and friend-
ship and the universalism of pipeline technology articulated
in such a way that they do not disrupt one another?

The adaptive dimension of labor force adjustment to
the industry is especially important in pipeline construction
because of the peculiar time and distance characteristics of
the industry. Short contracts and long distances between
contracts makes virtually impossible any formalized company
or labor union recruiting procedure. These time and distance

Characteristics of the industry foster informal recruiting

20

and skill training. Patterns of crew recruiting, job find-
ing, and the longer range patterns of apprenticeship in the
industry seem to be most understandable when they are viewed
in terms of the constantly recurring need to recruit crews
and find jobs.

The integrative dimension of labor force, industry
adjustment, is perhaps more important in pipelining than in
other industries becauee of contracting company dependence
upon particularistic communications channels to distribute
the labor force. Inherent in these conditions is the oppor-
tunity for particularistic exploitation of job vacancies to
the detriment of official production goals. Kin ties and
friendships among pipeliners are governed in most contexts
by particularistic expectations, that is, by expectations
based upon the kinship or friendship tie itself. Even after
the friendship has "cooled" or even become hostile, any sur-
viving remnant of the relationship is likely to continue to
be particularistic. These latter "other directed friend-
ships" are instrumental rather than expressive.

The nondisruptive integration of particularistic and
universalistic expectations in pipeline construction seems
to result from .some of the characteristics of recruiting,
selective placement on the job, and the apprenticeship sys-
tem. The crew formation and skill training processes are
particularistic, yet the particularism seems to be channeled

into productive work which is minimally threatening to

21

production standards. The nondisruptive channeling of par-
ticularism means that workers hired on a particularistic
basis seem not to interfere seriously with the technical re-
quirements of the industry. Rather, inept workers are placed
in jobs they can do, and workers are hired in such a way

that more skilled workers can continue to believe that "skill
pays off." These channeling practices, taken together, may
be described as "controlled particularism."

Controlled particularism, as the term is used here,
denotes special kinds of relationships among at least three
classes of pipeline workers, and the functional consequences
of these relationships. The individuals involved in the
relationship are (1) an aid recipient whose claim to aid is
particularistic, (2) a strategically located person (usually
a supervisor) who is able to give aid on a particularistic
basis, and (3) third parties who have a legitimate interest

17 The

in the aid transaction (the supervisor's "role set").
aid recipient in pipelining usually is an untrained person.
But near the beginning and end of the season, when there are
more workers than jobs, the aid recipient may be a highly
skilled person. The highly skilled person can be viewed as
an aid recipient if his unofficial relationship to the
hiring supervisor influences the hiring.

It is convenient to examine the problem of inte-

gration from the point of View of construction supervisors.

"Bosses" who actually do the hiring are especially important

22

in the study. Their positions expose them to expectations
based both upon kin-friend relationships and upon production
criteria. The boss who hires workers necessarily faces the
problem of placing friends and kinsmen, satisfying the con-
tractor and the shipping company inspectors, and assuring
skilled workers that their skills form the basis for hiring.
Inspectors representing public utility and petroleum companies
demand high quality work. The construction companies want
the work done efficiently and speedily. Skilled workers ex-
pect their competence to be recognized and rewarded with
first choice of good jobs. Supervisors, inspectors, con-
tractors, and workers themselves generally enforce uni-
versalistic standards, despite the fact that they often con-
sent to the bosses' particularistic worker placements.
WOrkers make little distinction between the preferential
hiring of kinsmen and of friends. Both actions are viewed
as favoritism, sometimes approved and sometimes not.

The pipeliners, making up the boss's role set, have
sanctions available to them to enforce their demands.
Sanctions available to shipping company inspectors, con-
tractors, and skilled workers in their dealings with super—
visors are fairly clear. The contractor can reprimand or
fire the boss. The inspector can require that work be re-
done, and skilled workers can boycott, strike, or refuse to

take a particular job. Sanctions available to friends and

23

kinsmen are more subtle. They consist largely of withhold-
ing favors from bosses.

The pipeline labor force is distributed and redis-
tributed throughout the season because: -(1) strategically
located persons give particularistic aid, (2) most pipe-
liners, at sometime during the season, seek such aid, and
(3) because the aid giver ordinarily receives implicit con-
sent from most or all of the people who have a legitimate
interest in the transaction. The system works because
the three classes of principals expect to get something out
of the transaction. The aid recipient, of course, receives
preferential treatment. The aid giver obligates the re-
cipient so that the recipient owes him particularistic aid
for the future. The members of the aid giver's role set, by
their consent, either return favors or they obligate both
giver and receiver. Hence, the entire transaction is im-
bedded in a complicated exchange system which workers ex—
ploit in order to increase the amount of overtime they may
work, and the probability that they can remain employed
fairly continually for the longest possible amount of time
during the season. Supervisors increase the liklihood that
they can find crews during periods of worker shortages.

The thesis argues, then, that the networks function
first of all to move the labor force, and second, that they
function to reduce the liklihood of conflict between the

particularistic practices inherent in crew formation and

24

training and the technical requirements of the industry.
This is not to say that such conflict never occurs. It does,
and its occasional occurrence is taken as evidence of the
potential strain between the two sets of standards. Both
workers and supervisors assume that wholesale favoritism is
likely to be costly, and no aid recipient has an unlimited
claim to aid. Supervisors have reputations as "fair" or
"unfair," and these reputations depend upon their skills in
choosing occasions in which it is safe to favor exchange re-
ciprocals directly, and when it is not. .In short, "perfect
integration" is too simple a formulation. The foreman who
has a number of particularistic obligations often finds ways
to give aid other than placing a worker directly under him-
self. And sometimes he is unable to give aid at all.

The networks, once they become established on the
basis of exchanges among kinsmen and among friends, often
eventually center more and more exclusively around job find—
ing and recruiting. No matter what the interpersonal history
of networks as groups, they seem to survive not because
individuals are kin to one another or like one another, but
because the networks function to enhance the pipeliner's
career-and to furnish workers rapidly for the companies. Be-
cause of this trend, the writer has found the concept of "ex-
change to be useful. _Exchange among pipeliners has been

viewed as a form of rational self interest in which favors

25

with ultimate cash values are traded among groups and

individuals.

Relevant Trends in Contemporary
Social Science

 

 

The present investigation has been viewed as an at-
tempt to understand the character of the relations between
informal and formal organization in the pipeline construction
vindustry. (The investigation has been stimulated by two
broad trends within American social science: the study of
the relationship between industrialism and kinship, and the
study of informal organization within industry. Recently
investigators have suggested that kin ties and industrialism
may not be as incompatible as was thought earlier. And the
concept of informal organization has been broadened to in-
clude more than organized worker opposition to management
objectives. ,Litwack examined several empirical studies and
concluded that continued kin relations beyond the nuclear
conjugal family survive extensively in comtemporary American
society despite the impersonal requirements of industry.18
Historical and crosscultural studies, moreover, indicate the
persistence of similar kin relations in various stages (or
varieties) of industrialization. The network of relation-
ships among Japanese factory workers and lumbermen, for ex-
ample, seems to be governed as extensively by kinship as by

production standards.19

26

The western Electric studies increased interest in
informal groups in industry.20 Attention since, however,
has been focused largely on the ability of such groups to
subvert industrial goals. Nevertheless, primary groups
other than kinship seem to act as recruiting agencies for
manufacturing, construction work, business, government, the

21 Werner, in a study of top

military, and the professions.
management in large American corporations describes "national
primary groups" which serve similar functions.22 A few of
these studies have analyzed the efficiency consequences of
such recruiting practices and have found them to aid rather
than hinder production. For example, interpersonal relation-
ships among Detroit building craftsmen seem to lend sta-
bility (i.e., labor force predictability) to the city's

23 And, although it is mildly deplored,

building industry.
faculty inbreeding at The University of Texas helps to main-
tain departmental continuity.24

Finally, an important but largely unexplored question
remains. How are the impersonal demands of industry and the
requirements of kinship and other extra official organi-
zations integrated in such a way that they do not disrupt
one another? Nepotism can, and often does, result in in-
competence and failure. Friendships within organizations
and other forms of informal organization frequently do create

loyalties and goals which subvert industrial objectives.

The significant research problem is then, to discover the

27

conditions under which kinship, friendship, and other kinds
of particularistic relationships and formal industrial
organization either support or disrupt one another.

Groups of kinsmen are not ordinarily described by
social scientists as informal groups. The present writer,
however, has viewed the groups of kinsmen ("bunches") in the
pipeline construction industry as informal groups because of
their ad hoc formation. The formation of bunches is due as
much to the time and distance factors in the industry as to

extra-industry kin ties.

FOOTNOTES

lFred E. Katz, “Occupational Contact Networks," in
Sigmund Nesow and William H. Form (eds.), ManL_work and So-
_giety: A Reader in the Sociology of Occupations (New York:
Basic Books, Inc., 1962), pp. 317-21.

2The phenomena of "role strain" and "role conflict"
have been explored in a variety of settings. The most ex-
tensive investigations are reported in:

Neal Gross, Ward S. Mason, and Alexander McEachern,
Explorations in Role Analysis: Studies of the School
_Superintendency Role (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,
1957).

Robert L. Kahn, et al., Organizational Stress:
Studiesgin Role Conflict and Ambiguity (New York: John
Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1964).

3R. J. Rutherford, "The First 150 Years were the
Easiest," Pipeline_Igdustry, 24, No. 6 (June, 1966), 24.

4George Sell, The Petroleum Industry (London: Oxford
University Press, 1963).

5E. J. Jenson and H. S. Ellis, "Pipelines," Scien—
tifig American, 216, No. 1 (January, 1967), 64.

6Jenson, Scientific American, 216, No. 1, 64.

7Jenson, Scientific American, 216, No. l, 62.

8Harold Williamson, et al., The American Petroleum
Industry: The Age of Energy 1899-1959 (Evanston, Illinois:
Northwestern Press, 1963), p. 102.

9Jenson, Scientific American, 216, No. l, 66.

10The relationship of semi-independent and independent

construction companies are discussed in:

Henrietta M. Larson and Kenneth Wiggins, History of
Humble Oil_§nd Refining Company: A Study in Industrial
Growth (New York: Harper and Bros., 1959).

John L. Loos,_gil on Stream: A History of Inter-
state 011 Pipe Line Company, 1909-1959 (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1959).

28

29

11"Pipeline Work in Progress," Pipeline Construction,
21, No. 7 (June, 1966), 47—55; No. 8 (July, 1966), 35-41;
and No. 9 (August, 1966), 48-55.

12John Steinbeck, despite his penchant for sentimen-

tality, recorded his excellent field observations of the
migratory life of the dustbowlers in: .

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (The Viking
Press, Inc., 1939).

Anderson describes the migratory patterns among the
same group more systematically in:

Nels Anderson, Men on the Move (Chicago: The Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1940).

13

 

 

Loos, pp. 23-24.

14Kurt w. Back, "The Well Informed Informant," Human
Organization, 14, No. 4 (1956), 30-33. Reprinted in Richard
N. Adams and Jack J. Preiss (eds.), Human Orgagization Re-
_§earch: Field Relations and Technigues (Homewood, Illinois:
The Dorsey Press, Inc., 1960).

15Distinctions between the more formal structures and
concrete social behavior have been found to be useful in
both sociology and anthropology:

Delbert C. Miller and William H. Form, Industrial
_§ociology: The Sociology of werk Organizations (2d ed.; New
Yerk: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964), p. 17.

Raymond Firth, Elements of Social Orgapization (2d
ed.; Boston: Beacon Press, 1961), p. 22.

16The kin groups and cliques may be described as

groups in terms of the most inclusive criteria. Especially
important in these pipeline groups is group identity, norms,
and goals. For a discussion of the various definitions of
groups see:

.Donald W. Olmsted, Social Groups, Roles, and Leader-
ship: An Introduction to the Concepts (East Lansing, Michi-
gan: Board of Trustees, Michigan State University, 1961).

17Merton used the concept, "role set" to describe an
actor's relationships to other status incumbents which he
incurs because he occupies a particular position.
Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure
(Revised and enlarged edition; Glencoe, Illinois: The Free
Press, 1961), pp. 368-84.

 

30

18Eugene Litwack, "Occupational Mobility and Extended
Family Cohesion," American Sociological Review, 25, No. 1
(February, 1960), 9-12.
Eugene Litwack, "The Use of Extended Family Groups
in ghe Achievement of Social Goals: Some Policy Impli-
cations," Social Problems, VII (1959-1960), 177-187.

19James Abegglen, The Japanese Factory (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
1959).
James W. Bennett and Iwao Ishino, Paternalism in
the Japanese Economy: Anthropology Studies of "Oyabun—Kobun
Patterns (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963).

20F. J. Rothlisberger and W. J. Dickson, Management
and the worker (Cambridge: The Harvard University Press,
1939).

21Katz, PP. 317-21.

 

 

22w. Lloyd Warner, The Corporation in the Emergent
American Society (The Ford Distinguished Lectures . . . LV;
New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1962), p. 12.

23

Richard R. Myers, "Interpersonal Relations in the
Building Industry," in Sigmund Nosow and William H. Form
(eds.), Man, werk and Society: A Reader in the Sociology of
Occupatigns (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1962), pp. 126—36.

24McGee, Reece, "Institutional Inbreeding," The Ameri-
_gan Journal ofg§ociology (March, 1960), pp. 483—488.

 

CHAPTER II

SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS:

A VIEW OF ORGANIZATION

The present investigation has focused upon inter-
personal relations in the pipeline construction industry.
The principal problems have been to determine the extent to
which informal recruiting and training patterns act as
mechanisms which meet the manpower and efficiency require-
ments of the industry, the employment needs of workers, the
economic survival needs of construction firms and the sur—
vival needs of various kinds of kinship and friendship
groupings as economic units. More specifically the observer
has attempted to determine (1) how contracting companies get
the manpower and efficiency they require in order to survive
as profit making organizations, (2) how much work workers
want to do in a year's time and how they go about fulfilling
their wishes, (3) what pipelining as an occupation con-
tributes to the survival of kin groups as limited economic
units and (4) what kin groups and informal networks, in
their capacities as "recruiting agencies," contribute to the

survival of contracting companies.

31

32

The project has been guided by a structural-functional
orientation. An attempt has been made to View interpersonal
relationships within the context of larger and more formal
social structures. That is, the analysis proceeds from a
description of the largest to the smallest structures--from
relevant characteristics of the industry to the resulting
interpersonal relations. The writer has assumed that at—
tempts to understand patterns of interpersonal relations
without first considering the broader structural context in
which these occur could easily lead into many "interesting"
but largely irrelevant phenomena. And the essential dynamic
relationship of interpersonal relations to the pipeline
labor force movement might be lost. .Individual differences
among pipeliners, aside from skill and stamina, are largely
submerged even at the behavioral level. Thus, the units of
analysis in order of their analysis are (a) the relevant
characteristics of the industry, (b) kinship and friendship
networks, (c) characteristics of contracting companies, and
the "spread" (work plant), (d) labor unions, and (3) the ex-
pressed motives of workers regarding work.

The study of interpersonal relationships within the
context of interacting social structures is a thread that
runs through much of organizational theory. _And generally,
the effort has been to understand interpersonal relations
following an analysis of the principal structures (or sub-

structures) which are brought to bear on the participants.

33

The implication here is, of course, that patterns of inter-
personal relationships are to be understood primarily as
functions of the structures in which persons occupy positions,
and only secondarily as functions of the personal character-
istics of the actors. Yet, even in the most rigid of
structural contexts there is room for choice, and indeed
choices must be made. This leeway gives some play to inter-
personal skills and to the pursuit of individual goals. The
relevant goals, however, are “shaped" by, and their expres—
sion is stimulated by, organizational factors.

Since Herbert Spencer first distinguished social
statics and social dynamics, much social science effort has
been expended to conceptualize and study the nature and conse—
quences of structures and substructures for one another.
Thus, for decades social scientists have been concerned with
"inrbetween" problems such as innergroup, innerethnic, and
labor management relations, to mention just a few.

The "marginal man" was seen to be a product of im-
perfect integration (or assimilation) of two or more groups
in which the marginal individual held incomplete membership.
The study of leadership especially since WOrld War II may be
seen as an attempt to deal primarily with the problem of the
integration of individuals within groups and the integration
of groups with groups. Hence, leadership studies of the past

two decades have shifted from a focus upon the personal

34

characteristics of leaders to the social structural occasions

calling for focused decision making.1
Informal Organization

The concept of "informal organization" represents an
attempt to study integrative problems. The concept has re-
ceived much attention since the publication of the results
of the Western Electric studies.2 Despite its continued ap-
peal, however, “informal organization" has not been defined
consistently. Informal organization, Gouldner states, is
a "cafeteria concept of diverse and sprawling contents."

The concept takes on varying meanings and emphasis depending
upon the social scientist who writes about it.3

The western Electric studies not only stimulated
interest in informal organization, but the same studies pro-
duced a onesided view of these unofficial struCtures. The
functions of informal organization has generally been lo-
cated either in the satisfaction of personality needs which
are not met by the formal organization, or to the subversion
of management goals. .A number of sociologists have con-
tinued both traditions. The work of Donald Roy represents
the subversion tradition.4 Schneider gives us an example of
the psychological needs model in the following description
of the functions of informal organization.

The informal group is an outgrowth of, and a re-

action to, industrial technology and industrial

bureaucracy. It is therefore the function of the in-
formal group to afford the worker (l) relief from

35

monotony, boredom and fatigue: (2) opportunities
for status; (3) an increased flow of emotional
responses; (4) opportunities for independence;
and (5) increased security.

Descriptions of the structure of informal relations,
however, seems not to be as diverse as are the postulated
functions. Page‘s structural characterization of the con—
cept seems to be fairly representative.

Like the formal, it consists of rules, groupings,
and sanctioned systems of procedure. They are in-
formal because they are never recorded in the codes
or official blueprints and because they are gener-
ated and maintained with a degree of spontaneity
always lacking in the activities which make up the
formal structure. These rules, groupings, and
procedures do, never-the-less, form a structure,
for, though not officially recognized, they are
clearly and semi—permanently established, they are
just as "real" and just as compelling on the member-
ship as the elements of the official structure, and
they maintain their existence and social signifi-
cance throughout many changes of personnel.

Recently a more general view of the functions of in—
formal organization has emerged. A few writers have pointed
out a less frequently recognized fact--that informal organi-
zation may be functional as well as dysfunctional for organi—
zations, and that often informal organization is necessary
for the operation of the organization. Miller and Form see
an important source of aid to management objectives in in—
formal organization.

Without the assistance of informal organization,
formal organization would often be ineffective, as
is frequently the case when managers try to de-
termine every detail in production. They are too
far removed from production to envision many of the

problems that arise. Yet frequently they give
orders on the basis of presumed knowledge. If their

36

orders were completely obeyed, confusion would re—

sult and production and morale would be lowered.

. . . where strong informal groups are present,

there is no need for the foreman to enforce minimum

standards of work. The group will do it for him,

and much more effectively.7

Selznick's treatment of organizations incorporates

much of what has been called informal organization. Firth's
distinction between social structure as ideal and social
organization as behavioral includes much of what has been
called informal organizations. Blau goes a step farther; he
suggests that the “formal-informal" dichotomy can only be
misleading . . . "since the distinction is an analytical one;
there is only one actual organization."8 The suggestion
here is that the issues raised by the concept of informal
organization are the issues of organization generally. The
principal problem is that of accounting for the fact that
rationally planned and coordinated action proceeds success—
fully and predictably despite changes in personnel, broad
individual differences, and the possibly non-rational extra—
organizational motives of participants.

-Despite conceptualization difficulties, however, the
importance of the wide range of unofficial organizations is
attested by the prominence of discussions of the concept in
the literature of formal organization and industrial soci-
ology. If for no other reason, the concept is valuable be-

cause it broadens the View of the observer and it sensitizes

him to relevant phenomena which might otherwise be

37

disregarded. Indeed, the total disregard of phenomena sub—
sumed under the concept would leave us with neatly drawn
organizational charts. The concept of organization might

become lost completely.
Role Set and Status Set

Merton's "role set" and "status set” formulation has
stimulated a fruitful but one-sided concern with the phenome—
non of role conflict. Such efforts have been one-sided be-
cause they have (1) focused upon the pathological character
of role conflict and (2) the work has been largely applied
research with the aim of reducing role conflict, and (3) the
responses to role conflict have been viewed largely as indi-
vidual responses.9 The possible functions of role conflict
for both victims and organizations has been generally disre-
garded. -Merton's original formulation, which postulated
organizational as well as individual responses to strain,
were not as narrow. The essentially cressive organizational
responses to potential role conflict may be creative and
problem solving.

Social structures are not without powers of

learned adaptations, successively transmitted through
changed cultural mandates. This helps mitigate the
frequency and intensity of conflict in the status-
set. For the greater the frequency with which
patterned conflict between the obligations of multi-
ple statuses occurs, the more likely that new norms
will evolve to govern these situations, assigning
priorities of obligation. This means that each indi-

vidual caught up in these stressful situations need
not improvise new adjustments.

38

Each of the foregoing perspectives has been useful
in the present attempt to understand the articulation
problems between the labor force and the industry. The con-
cept of informal organization, although broad and variously
conceived, alerts one to the potential relevance to organi—
zation of many kinds of worker activities which are not
specified officially in the pipeline industry. The role-set
and status-set concepts, and the resulting potential for role
conflict focused the student's attention on the pressures
upon foremen and other individuals who are strategically lo-
cated in the industry. Indeed it was a rather serious at-
tempt on the student's part to find manifestations of role
conflict, and a failure to do so which started him on the
track of studying recruiting and apprenticeship as articu-
lating rather than subversive patterns. The leadership
properties of the industry have been important. Pipeliners
themselves have a strong theory of leadership and have lists
of bad and good foremen and spreadmen. Indeed, the pipeline
supervisor has a continuing problem of legitimizing his
authority. Authority on the pipeline, like authority in
other bureaucratic organizations, rests in positions. Yet
the very fluid labor force of the pipeline industry makes
the "indivisibility of control and consent" a more acute

11 The sanctions

problem for the pipeline supervisors.
available to the pipeline boss gives him control of workers,

at least in his capacity of supervisor, only for a very short

39

period of time. The real power which a supervisor enjoys
seems to be most explicable in terms of his official po-
sition together with his involvement in the networks which
account for recruiting and apprenticeship. It is these in-
volvements which permit him to extend his power beyond a

particular job.

WOrker Motivation

The view of motivation adopted for the present study
is rationalistic. The method used in investigating moti—
vation has been confined to phenomenological reports of
pipeliners. Needless to say this does not represent an at-
tempt to present a comprehensive view of motivation. The
present writer does not presume to resolve such philOSOphi-
cal issues as rationality-nonrationality, or individualism-
altruism. There is no need here to assume a position re-
garding the existence or nature of unconscious motivation.
Nevertheless any researcher makes either implicit or explicit

12 The assumption guiding

assumptions regarding these issues.
the present project is that the pipeliners' behavior in the
work context is coherent and predictable because they gener-
ally make visible efforts to achieve what they say they want
to achieve. When their wants are known, their behavior can

be predicted by an observer. The present study has, then,

focused upon the expressed wishes of the workers,

4O

supervisors, etc., regarding working conditions, travel,

overtime, and other job related concerns.
Norms and Relationships

The "pattern variables" as formulated by Talcott
Parsons offer a means to describe the norms bearing upon be-
havior within the various substructures in the pipeline con-

13 The primary concern here is with

struction industry.
"universalistic" and "specific" expectations which ordinarily
characterize production standards, and "particularistic" and
“diffuse" expectations which ordinarily characterize kinship
and friendship.

A universalistic expectation is one in which the
relevant position incumbent is expected to behave toward
others in terms of abstract laws, rules, standards of compe-
tence or general principles. The alternative of particular-
ism is one in which the person is expected to respond to
others in terms of their relationships to one another. In
pipelining, the most important universalistic norms are
standards of technical competence: the clearest example is
a "welding test" in which the work sample of an aspiring
welder is examined by highly objective techniques. Kinship
and friendship relations, on the other hand, are ordinarily
governed by the relationship itself. The obligations of

persons to one another may be specific, in which case the

obligations are confined to one or a few kinds of

41

relationships. The obligations are diffuse if they can be
invoked in a wide range of concrete situations. Ordinarily
occupational norms are specific whereas kinship and friend-
ship norms are diffuse.

The alternatives, universalism-particularism and
specificity-diffuseness constitute either-or action alterna-
tives in any particular concrete situation, but when several
situations are considered the extent of obligation varies.
And there may be change in extent of obligation over time.
Hence the interpersonal norms which are important for this
thesis need to be viewed in hierarchic terms. For example,
a pipeliner's obligations to a mature brother and an im-
mature son both are particularistic and diffuse. But his
obligations to the son transcend his obligations to the
brother. The economic obligations of a person to his rela-
tives outside of his wife and children are to "help out if
he can." The economic and other needs of his wife and
children come first.

"Friendship" is a term which is subject to very di—
verse definitions. It has been used in this thesis for lack
of a better term. In this discussion "friendship" has been
used to denote a voluntary relationship in which expectations
are affective, particularistic, and diffuse. The relevant
persons recognize each other as friends, and are recognized
by outsiders as friends. No attempt has been made to de-

scribe the complete nature and functions of such relationships

42

and, of course, the definition used here is not offered as
complete or as the "best." The definition merely is con—
venient in an analysis of pipeline labor force dynamics.
Informal relations among workers within the context
of the pipeline industry are not specified officially,
neither are they determined by traditions external to the
industry. Where neither official prescription nor tradition
guides interpersonal relations, the observer has sought ex-
planations in conditions indigenous to pipeline work itself.
In this respect "exchange" seems to be a useful concept.
Exchange arrangements among pipeliners have been viewed as
the principal kind of mechanism which organizes the seasonal
movement 0f the labor force, and through which workers enter
the ranks of the’skilled.14
Blau defines exchange as follows:
"Social exchange," as the term is used here, re-
fers to voluntary actions of individuals that are
not motivated by the returns they are expected to
bring and typically do in fact bring from others.15
Exchange is viewed as more or less rational and con—
sensual in the present study. Rationality has been a typi-
cal assumption in exchange formulations.
In this and in all the manifold activities of
economic order, the social behavior of the natives
is based on a well—assessed give-and-take, always
mentally ticked off and in the long run balanced.
There is no wholesale discharge of duties or ac-

ceptance of privilegeSé no "communistic" disregard
of tally and earmark.

43

We can anticipate some of the functions of the ex—
change networks for pipeliners in Malinowski's functional
statement about the "Kula-ring.“

. the Kula partnership provides every man
within its ring with a few friends near at hand,
and with some friendly allies in the far-away,
dangerous, foreign districts.

Several advantages result from using the concept of
exchange. Once a system of exchange among pipeliners is es-
tablished it is not dependent upon interpersonal liking.
Friendship is one of the relationships which is important in
establishing systems of exchange but friendship is not per-
sistent or stable enough to sustain the exchange obligations
over as long a period of time as they apparently last. It
might be noted that kinsmen, like former friends, need not
like each other in order to sustain smooth relations.

The concepts of exchange and reciprocity imply a
self interest emphasis. Such an emphasis seems to be ana-
thema to those social scientists who have celebrated the
passing of "economic man." Some attempts at resurrection,
however, currently are being made. Homans applauds and de-
fends the results.

Mankind has always assumed that a person stabi-

lizes his behavior, at least in the short run, at

the point where he is doing the best he can for him-
self under the circumstances, though his best may not
be a "rational" best, what he can do may not be at
all easy to specify, except that he is not apt to
think like one of the theoretical antagonists in the

Theory of Games. Before a sociologist rejects this
answer out of hand for its horrid profit—seeking

44

implications, he will do well to ask himself if he
can offer any other answer to the question posed.
I think he will find that he cannot.

One of the postulated functions of exchange relation—
ships is that of system equilibrium; and equilibrium has
been seen by critics of functionalism as one of the po-
sitions' weakest points. The present study, nevertheless,
has been guided by the concept for two reasons. First is
the author's preference for such a focus. Secondly, the
observations seem to support such an interpretation. The
search for equilibrium need not contain teleological as-
sumptions, or conservative biases. .Again, Professor Homans
comes to the rescue:

I do not mean that all real-life groups are in equi-
librium. I certainly do not mean that all groups
must tend to equilibrium. I do not mean that groups
have built-in antidotes to change: there is no homeo-
stasis here. I do not mean that we assume equili-
brium. I mean only that we sometimes observe it,
that for the time we are with a group—-that it is

often short-—there is no great change in the values
of the variables we choose to measure.

Kinship and Occupation

There are two reasons for the concern with kinship
in the present study. First, the presence of pipeline
workers who are kin to one another is one of the most obvious
characteristics of construction crews. Second, kin ties
wherever they are found in the United States, ordinarily are
governed by particularistic and diffuse obligations. These

value characteristics are polar opposites of the

F

45

universalistic and specific norms which govern worker-
employer relations. Presumably, these characteristics should
create conflicting and mutually undermining processes. Theo-
retically, either the norms of kinship or those of industry
have to "give." The kin-industry incompatibility View is
general within American social science, but it has been
stated most explicitly by Parsons.

In more technical terms it (occupational system)

requires a high incidence of technical competence,
of rationality, of universalistic norms and of
functional specificity. All these are drastically
different from the patterns which are dominant in
the area of kinship relations where ascription of
status by birth plays a prominant part, and where
roles are defined primarily in particularistic and
functionally diffuse terms.

Several recent investigators have challenged the as-
sumption that the conjugal nuclear family is isolated from
other kinsmen or from the occupational system. The investi-
gators, following a current fashion, have directed most of
their criticism toward the work of Talcott Parsons.21 But,
it is doubtful whether they have seriously challenged the
latter's statement. Rodman points out that . . . "Parsons
emphasizes the relative isolation of the nuclear family,
while others stress that the family is not altogether iso-
lated."22 Moreover, the investigators have not found "ex-
tended families" which some of them claim to have found.
They have found a variety of situationally determined

patterns of voluntary associations among kinsmen. These

have included kinsmen as friends and confidante, kinsmen as

46

sources of economic aid, as participants in the person's up-
ward mobility and a variety of other ad hoc relationships.
In no way do groups of kinsmen so related resemble the
institutionalized extended family in which membership is
traditionally obligatory, and characterized by common resi-
dence. Common residence of all members of a contemporary
extended family is possible, but no such, even accidental
group has been described in the literature. It seems that
two important conclusions can be drawn from recent dis-
cussions of the family-industry issue: (1) Patterns of
association among kinsmen transcending those in the nuclear
family exist extensively in the United States, and they
possibly are functionally related more directly to industrial
occupations than was thought. (2) These patterns originate
in ad hoc arrangements among kinsmen, not in traditionally
determined ways. They are governed by situation, circum—
stances, and even accident, rather than by institutionalized
prescription. Individuals are fairly free to enter or not
enter into such relations, and they are fairly free to with-
draw. This freedom of association among kinsmen is reflected
in_American kinship terminology. Schnieder and Homans point
out that terms of address vary greatly, depending upon

interpersonal factors.23

47

Kinship in Pipeline Construction

Kin ties found in pipeline construction work seem to
center around aid in crew formation and job finding. They
show no pattern other than the ad hoc arrangements described
above. They involve kinsmen often because in the Southwest,
kinsmen of any degree are very generally obliged to aid one
another. But such aid is in the form of "he should help out
(a brother, cousin, in—law, etc.) if he can." But his first
obligations are to his wife and children. The ad hoc kin
ties which seem to obtain on the pipeline, seem to be related
to the industry in two ways. (1) Many supervisors depend
upon kinsmen to help them form crews; workers depend upon
kinsmen to hire them, or to furnish them with valuable job
information. While such relationships are recognized by
other workers, the participants cannot be described as
"groups." (2) A second kind of arrangement among kinsmen,
however, can be described as a "group" composed largely of
workers who are kin to one another. Some gangs are manned
almost entirely by workers who are kin to one another. This
seems to be true on those gangs which are characterized by
simple skills and low proficiency requirements. These groups
recognize themselves, and they are recognized by others, as
"bunches." Although the "bunches" may contain nonkinsmen
who travel with the group, the bunch is referred to as the

"Jenes'," or the "Jones bunch." The members of a bunch

48

generally remain together, and the goals of its individuals
may be subordinated to that objective.

By way of summary, the present study has assumed
that the behavior of the pipeline labor force is best under-
stood by examining the ways in which it is informally
organized. Further, it has been assumed that such organi-
zation is functional, rather than disfunctional for the
industry--that nepotism and similar patterns act to fit
persons to technical requirements. The outcome is production

efficiency rather than disorganization.

FOOTNOTES

1Donald W. Olmsted, Social Groups, Roles, and Leader—

ship: An Introduction to the Concepts (East Lansing, Michi-
gan: Board of Trustees, Michigan State University, 1961)
pp. 38-40.

2Rothlisberger

 

3Alvin W. Gouldner, "Organizational Analysis," in
Robert K. Merton, et al. (eds.), Sociology Today: Problems
andggrospects (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1960), p. 401.

4Donald Roy, "Efficiency and 'The Fix': Informal
Intergroup Relations in a Piecework Machine Shop," American
Journal of Sociology, 60 (1955), pp. 255-266.

 

 

5Eugene V. Schneider, Industrial Sociology: The
Social Relation of Industry and the Community (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1957), pp. 193-94.

6Charles H. Page, "Bureaucracy's Other Face,‘I Social
Forces, 25 (1946-1947), pp. 88-94.
-7Delbert C. Miller and William H. Form, Industrial
Sociology: The Sociology of Work Organizations (2d ed.; New
York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964), p. 280.

8Peter M. Blau, "Co-operation and Competition in a
Bureaucracy," American Journal of Sociology, 59 (1954),
pp. 530-35.

9Gross

Kahn

10Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure
(Rev. and enlarged ed.; Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press,
1961), p. 382.

11The term "indivisibility of control and consent" is
Selznick's.‘ Philip Selznick, "Foundations of the Theory of
Organization," American Sociological Review, 13 (1948), p. 26.

12Gouldner, p. 501.

49

50

l3Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe,
Illinois: The Free Press, 1951), pp. 58-67.

14Exchange, as a central feature of social organi-
zation, has appeared in:

Malinowski, 1966.

Everett Cherrington Hughes, "The Study of Occu-
pations," in Robert K. Merton, et a1. (eds.),_§ociology To-
day: Problems and Prospects (New York: Basic Books, Inc.,
1960), pp. 442-58.

George C. Homans, "Social Behavior as Exchange,"
American Journal of Sociology, 63 (1958), pp. 597-606.

Peter M. Blau, Exchange and Power in Social Life
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1965).

15Blau, 1965, p. 91.

l6Malinowski, 1966, p. 26.

17Branislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western
Pacific (London: 1922), p. 92.
18Homans, American Journal of Sociology, 63, pp. 597-
606.

9Homans, American Journal of Sociology, 63, pp. 597-
606.

20Talcott Parsons, "The Kinship System of the Con-
temporary United States," American Anthropologist, 45 (1943),
p. 35.

21Paul J. Reiss, "Extended Kinship Relationships in
American Society," in Hyman Rodman (ed.), Marriage, Family
and Society: A Reader (New York: Random House, 1965),
pp. 204-10.

22Hyman Rodman, "Talcott Parsons' View of the Changing
American Family," in Hyman Rodman (ed.), Marriage, Family,
and Society: A Reader (New York: Random House, 1965),
pp. 262-86.

23David M. Schneider and George C. Homans, "Kinship
Terminology and the American Kinship System,"_American
Anthrnglogist, LVII (Dec., 1955), pp. 1199—1202.

CHAPTER III
RESEARCH PROCEDURES

Data Collection

Data for the study were collected in three different
ways: participant observation, planned interviews, and
relatively casual contacts with pipeliners and peOple who
had worked in the industry at one time or another. Alto—
gether, data used in the thesis have been collected spor-
adically over a period of sixteen years. But the most in-
tensive efforts to collect information were during the 1966
and 67 seasons.

The study was conducted within four different
companies which seem to be roughly representative of the
different sizes of companies in the industry. The observer
worked as an unskilled and semiskilled worker in two medium
sized ("two spread") companies. He interviewed workers and
officials at all levels in two of the largest companies in
Southern Michigan.

The term "participant observation" has a variety of
meanings in social science literature.1 In the present
study, it means that the observer worked as an unskilled and

semiskilled pipeline worker. During the participant period

51

52

he was never viewed by his pipeline associates as a "pipe-
liner" but merely as a potential "pipeliner." He worked for
three months during the summer of 1951. At that time he had
no particular sociological interest in the industry. How-
ever, the experience did result in a future interest. He re-
turned to the pipeline for-a period of seven months during
the 1953-54 construction season. During the later period the
observer's attention had been fairly well focused upon
problems of recruiting and job finding. Following that ex-
perience he published his observations of skill learning in
the industry.2 That study, however, did not explore the
relationship of the kinship-friendship based apprenticeship
system to the major structural features of the industry.

The most serious omission was the consideration of the time
and space conditions of employment which the industry im-
poses both upon the pipeline labor force and upon construction
companies.

Later, through more or less casual contacts with
pipeliners, the importance of the structural factors began
to interest the observer. Casual contacts included those
with several kinsmen and acquaintances who work at all levels
in the industry, and with occasional pipeliners with whom he
was not acquainted. The latter usually were contacted on
"road crossing" jobs where crews are most visible to a
motorist. Road crossings, which permit a good deal of free

time, are convenient situations in which to talk to crew

53

members. The workers on a crossing have the time to satisfy
an observer's curiosity.

The "occasional contact" stage of the study had some
disadvantages. Chief among them was that very little was
learned over long stretches of time. The procedure, however,
had the advantage of leisurely observations. The long
periods between contacts gave the writer plenty of time to
incubate hypotheses which could be compared to subsequent
statements of workers. During the casual contact period the
observer developed a feedback technique which he employed
throughout the entire study. He reported conclusions to the
subjects and solicited their critical comments.

The most systematic and intensive interviews were
conducted from June, 1966, to June, 1967, in Southern Michi-
gan, Nbrthern Ohio, and Ontario, among workers and officials
in the largest and smallest company included in the study.
The main purpose of the interviews, as indicated earlier,
was to discover good informants. The observer felt that,
with a few exceptions, workers and officials gave him ex-
cellent cooperation. Often, company officials were quite
willing to talk especially about recruiting problems. They
generally were interested in the study and often they were
eager for advice on more effective recruiting which, un-

fortunately, the student was unable to give.* He was,

 

*When asked for such advice, the observer was tempted
to reply that the solution to skilled worker shortage was
more rapid training. But the introduction of enough skilled

54

however, able to do a limited amount of recruiting for the
companies from among his sociology students.

Interviews were of two kinds: those with workers
and supervisors on the job, and those with company officials
at offices and restaurants. .Those with company officials
were direct, prompt, and usually easy to tape record.
workers and supervisors on the spread, however, were inter-
viewed on a catch—as-catch—can basis. Whereas company of-
ficials made and usually kept their appointments, spread
workers were reluctant to make appointments; "be glad to
talk to you, come around any time." The invitations from
workers were sincere, but such appointments usually meant
that the student followed the pipeliner around for five or
six hours in order to get one half hour of actual interview
.time. This was exasperating at first, but it turned out to
be useful in that the person being alternately interviewed
and required to work usually restarted the interview by ex—
planations of what he had just been doing. The student at
first had little interest in the technical problems thus
explained. They were not often relevant to his research con—
cerns, and he was fairly familiar with the purposes of most

of the technical tasks. The technical explanations offered

 

workers to satisfy the demand during the heavy season would
no doubt create as many problems as it solved. Enough
workers for the summer months would create high unemployment
.during the rest of the year.

55

by the subject, however, proved to be an excellent means of
establishing rapport. Previously, attempts by the inter-
viewer to use small talk to establish rapport was awkward,
and not very successful.

Interview statements were generally recorded at the
end of the work day. Note taking and tape recording on the
job was inconvenient, and the notes seemed especially to
interfere with the spontaneity of the conversations. The
notebook, bought to carry on the operating spread, was final-
ly used only for addresses and phone numbers--to write down
such information as "you ought to talk to old etc." The
student did, however, tape all of the conversations between
himself and one construction superintendent during an entire
work day. The superintendent went from one gang to the next
throughout the entire day. The tape, switched on and off,
contains approximately five hours of conversation.

NOne of the observations or interviews were con-
ducted with a preselected sample of workers, of gangs, or of
companies. Rather, the respondents were viewed as informants
in the sense that ethnologists have used the terms.3 Indeed,
the interviews became a process of selecting and rejecting
informants--pipeliners to be interviewed in detail. The
student did, however, try to get maximum contact with workers
in all authority levels and skill groups. The student talked
to people who were both satisfied and very dissatisfied with

their occupation.

56

From the student's pipeline experience in 1951
through the effort in 1966 and 1967, contacts were made with
informants from several positional contexts. That is, the
student was able to view pipelining from the perspectives of
worker, relative, acquaintance, and researcher. The result—
ing experiences were very different in the various contexts.
For example, as a newcomer, the student-laborer was subject
to the normal initiation rituals; and among these were often
elaborate items of misinformation. (The pipeliner term is
"bullshitting.") The misinformation, along with other
features of initiation, function to dramatize the newcomer's
status in the organization. Once the student learned the
behavior appropriate to his "place," the behavior of other
workers became unguarded, and, consequently much of the
"back region" behavior of pipeliners at work became avail-
able to him.4 V

It was, of course, necessary to evaluate the relia-
bility of the informants' statements. The most important
hunches came from the observer's cumulative experience.
Informant statements were evaluated against the observer's
knowledge of pipeline folklore. Many honest statements, of
course, were the informant's interpretations of ambiguous
events or hearsay events. The more ambiguous or distant the
event, the more subject it seemed to be to folklore interpre-
tations. For example, several workers told the observer

that the president of a large construction company had

57

inherited the business from his father. The father was
characterized as "the best man you would ever want to meet";
the son was described as a "bronc," and a "bastard." Even
if the relevant terms were defined, the "fine old man-rotten
son" myths are so much a part of American business mythology
that they cannot be taken at face value although they may be
important.5 .As it turned out the company president was not
a son of a former owner.

Finally, and perhaps most important, is the con-
sistency among informants. .After the informant has reported
his idiosyncratic experiences, there usually remains a core
of experiences which he has shared with and viewed much the
same as others in similar circumstances. It is this core of
common experience which seemed to be most valuable for recon-
structing the most important aspects of pipeline life.6

The observer used a type of feedback in which he
formulated hypotheses and had workers to reflect on them.
Direct questions were often quite productive. For example
to the observer's pointed question, ''Do you have any par—
ticular problems as a result of foremen hiring their own
relatives?" one company official replied, "The only problem
we have is that the foremen don't have enough relatives."

As the project progressed, both observations and
questions became more focused in order to get information
about: (1) geographic movement of the labor force, (2)

worker preferences regarding jobs, (3) shipping company

58

requirements as represented by inspectors, (4) contracting
company recruiting problems, (5) kinship recruiting patterns,
(6) other recruiting patterns, (7) statements and actions
related to conflict or strain resulting from the recruiting
and training process, and (8) patterns which seemed to act
to articulate particularistic hiring with the technical re-
quirements of the industry.

The seventh item above was especially important,
since a convincing absence of evidence of strain, especially
of the subjective experience of role conflict among super-
visors, indicates that the labor force has developed
patterned ways to forestall or reduce the impact of such

strain.

Observation and Observer Effect

Several social scientists have indicated that the
observer needs to be examined as thoroughly as any other re—
search instrument.7 This is a difficult procedure and it
probably never yields the objectivity which we might want.
Nevertheless such an examination is probably valuable.
Following is a description of this observer's varying re-
lationships to pipeliners:

The writer's own experience as a participant observer
and later as an interviewer on the pipeline can best be de-
scribed as a movement away from an autistic view of pipeline

life to a more theoretically relevant view of the labor

59

force characteristics of the industry. His first serious
contact with pipelining was in the summer of 1951 when he
worked as a laborer to supplement his income as a public
school teacher. The earliest phase in the writer's experi-
ence as a pipeline observer was an acute awareness of the
"spread" status system. Prestige and power on the pipeline
are relevant to the present study, but they are not as im-
portant as to the worker who's employment represents a con-
siderable and sudden drop in status. (This sensitivity to
status has been an almost universal experience among college
students and occasional college instructors who have worked
during summers on a pipeline.) Later, the observer began to
be aware of the prominence of kinsmen on pipeline crews.
Despite the fact that he obtained his first job as a pipe-
liner through relatives, he tended to see his own situation
as a special case. A

It became apparent that kinship was a principal
factor in crew formation in the whole industry. Moreover,
the preferential hiring of kinsmen seemed to be almost al—
ways openly practiced and uncontested by other workers. Dis—
cussing the hiring of relatives seemed to threaten subjects
not at all. In short, the student failed to find any im—
pressive evidence of sensitivity regarding the hiring of
"kinfolks."

The kinship manned companies which the observer knew

about had been in existence for several years. Consequently,

60

he began to suspect that the staying power of the companies
was due to kinship and other primary group based hiring, not
despite them. Also, it seemed that the people who frequently
hired relatives had ways of doing so without violating either
production standards or primary group obligations, and
furthermore, that the means of satisfying both sets of obli-
gations were built into the informal organization of the
industry itself. That is, the supervisor was not necessarily
dependent upon his own ingenuity to get him out of "fixes."
The unwitting influence of observational procedures
("observer effect") upon the subjects needs to be considered.
_Observer effect in participant observation primarily is
harder to control than the effects of more mechanical pro-
cedures. Despite the difficulty, the observer needs to make
the best judgments possible about the effects of his presence
and activities upon his subjects. In the participant ob-
server phase of the present study, there seemed to be few or
no consequences of the observer's activities as observer.
Indeed, at one period in the observer's experience as
laborer, he ventured to suggest to a group of workers that
he wanted to do a study of pipeline skill learning. The ob—
server's attempt, however, to characterize himself as some-
thing other than a "skid-hustler" backfired. A worker on
the same job claimed to own a new and expensive automobile
which no one had ever seen, and another worker frequently

made oblique references to greater wealth than his present

61

circumstances indicated. The workers were familiar with
blowhards; they responded with an amused "the hell you say."

Observer effect during the later interview period
seemed also to be negligent. Interviewing workers and super—
visors on the job requires much more time "hanging around"
the spread than did the actual interviews. It seemed that
after the initial "who the hell is that" and "are you (a re-
porter) from the Pipeliner," workers went about their busi-
ness in a completely normal way. Indeed, it now seems some—
what grandiose for the observer to have assumed that he
might have changed anything, except that he sometimes helped
to reduce the contents of worker lunch pails.

A much more obvious and important determinant of
what observations could be made was the observer's various
positions with respect to the industry. (Access to much infor—
mation during the participant observation phase was limited
,by the lowly status of the observer. The student found later
that contact with status unequals was much easier to es-
tablish when he was an acknowledged outsider than it was when
he was a participant. -As a new low status worker, the ob—
server's quest for certain kinds of informations from even
his relatives seemed to become more restricted once he be-
came identified as a pipeline worker. Moreover the new and
uninitiated worker is almost certain to touch upon forbidden

topics in his attempts to get information.

62

Between 1954 and 1966, the observer talked to rela-
tives and to numerous other people who work or have worked
on the pipeline. Being kin to a number of pipeliners at all
supervisory and skill levels gave him trust from pipeliners
but at the same time he was not in a position to embarrass
informants or to interfere with the smoother operation of
interpersonal relations by knowing too much. ,Above all,
these chuaintances furnished a leisurely means of "testing"
thoughts in plenty of time to formulate and ask more and
more focused questions.

Being related to pipeliners in management had its
serious disadvantages of course, especially while working as
a participant observer. The reasons for this are quite
obvious. Being the superintendent's son-in-law gave the
student-pipeliner inside dope from the top more readily than
from the bottom. I

.Interview data lacks the richness of content which
the observer was able to obtain by participant observation.
On the other hand, it was relatively easy to interview indi-
viduals at all levels of management and skill. Moreover
interviews gave the observer an opportunity to focus on cer—
tain kinds of data much more clearly than was the case with
participant observation. workers at all levels seemed ac-
cessible. Being accepted as an "observer" seemed to legiti-
mate certain kinds of probing which, as a participant in the
industry, might have gotten the observer classified as a

"nosey bastard."

63

Advantages and Disadvantages of
_Qualitative Research

 

Field studies such as the one reported in this
thesis attempt to achieve depth and penetration rather than
breadth and representativeness. The participant observation
and related techniques of this study, however, do not lend
themselves to the exact testing of hypotheses. Rather, con—
clusions rest upon what Becker and Geer have called "quasi

statistics" (”many," "most," "usually," "rarely," etc.) and

18

upon a "calculus of plausibility. There is, to be sure, a

lack of precision in field studies. Consequently the relia—
bility of observations are difficult to establish. And,
claims to validity are perhaps best left to researchers who
use more systematic techniques. However, as Vidich and
Bensman point out, many of the sources of spurious validity
which are readily recognized in field studies are also
characteristic of other techniques.

The same errors, deception, misinformation,
inhibitions, and role—playing operate even in check-
list research, as is indicated by the differences in
response by the same respondents interviewed by
different techniques. This is equally true of atti-
tude surveys, self-administered itemaires, and fact-
finding census-type interviews. ,In brief, the
central probiem rests in the fact that all answers
to the same question on a questionnaire are not of
'Egual weight and cannot be treated as such.

In his depth studies, the anthropological field
worker, because he limits the extent of his study,
is able to penetrate in depth into various segments
of the community and to weigh the relative im—
portance of different institutional structures,
roles, and individuals, and the linkages between
them. While doing this he is able to check

64

information from a respondent by other information

given by the same respondent at later dates. He

is also able to check the information with that of

other respondents and by observing the behavior of

the informant himself.9

It is not true, as is sometimes asserted, that field

observations are unreliable because they deal with cases
which are unique. Presumably, the observer notes actions
and statements which recur. He notes patterns of behavior,
not necessarily personal idiosyncracy. If his conclusions

have any relevance at all to social science, they can be

checked by other observers who care to take the trouble.

FOOTNOTES

1Participant observation may mean that the observer
participates as a recognized outside observer or as a full
member of the group whose research aims are hidden. All of
the usages, however, imply the observation of social behavior
in natural settings.

C.f. Claire Selltiz, et al., Research Methods in
Social Relations (2d ed. rev.; New York: Henry Holt and
Company, Inc., 1960), pp. 204-05.

 

2Bennie Graves, "’Breaking Out': An Apprenticeship
System Among Pipeline Construction workers," Human Organi-
zation, 17, pp. 9-13.

3John W. Bennett and Iwao Ishino, Paternalism in the
.ggpanese Economy: Anthorpology Studies of "Oyabun—Kobun
Patterns" (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1963).

 

4Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Every-
day Life (Garden City, New York: Anchor Press, 1959), pp.
106-40.

5The myth, of course has some basis in fact. Organi—
zations perhaps are larger and more impersonal during a sons'
tenure, than during the "old man's."

C.f. Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman.

6The commonness of informant reports is an important
reliability criterion for anthropological investigators. We
normally accept such (informant) statements. In them the
anthropologist ascribes regularities, he imputes ends. What
is his justification for doing so: It is primarily the de—
gree of uniformity of his experience as he moves through his
field of social observation.

Firth, p. 22.

 

7Bennett

8Howard S. Becker and Blanch Geer, "Participant Ob-
servations: The Analysis of Qualitative Field Data," in
Richard N. Adams and Jack J. Preiss (eds.),_Human Organi-
zation Research: Field Relations and Techniques (Homewood,
Illinois: The Dorsey Press, Inc., 1960), p. 326.

 

65

66

9Arthur Vidich and Joseph Bensman, "The Validity of
Field Data," Human Organization, 13, No. l (1954), pp. 20-27.

CHAPTER IV
PIPELINE INDUSTRY AND CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Shipping Companies and Construction
Companies

Most construction work is contracted by construction
companies which are owned and operated independently of the
pipeline owning companies. The pipelines themselves are
owned by petroleum, public utility, and pipeline companies.
The owning companies ordinarily award contracts to the
lowest bidding construction company. Although some of the
owning companies have their own pipeline construction and
repair crews, the tendency during the past thirty years has
been to turn over construction work to independent contract—

1 When a contract for a particular pipeline

ing companies.
construction is awarded, the contracting company proceeds on
the job with its own men and equipment, or it may subcontract
parts of the job to other contractors. The contractor may
also rent much of the equipment which he uses in the
construction.

The petroleum shipping companies found the occasional

construction which they needed to be costly and cumbersom

when they used their own crews and equipment. The earliest

67

68

form of "independent" construction company was a relatively
autonomous organization which was subsidized by a parent
petroleum company. The quasi-independent companies con-
sisted of a few officials and some equipment. This was
found to be a satisfactory arrangement for a while because
in the early years of the pipeline industry the equipment
was simple, and men could be hired and mules rented on a
single contract basis. There was little concern about what
to do with men and machines between occasional construction
projects. However the rapid introduction of more and more
complicated and more expensive machinery, and the occasional
need for construction, combined to create conditions which
today give the pipeline construction industry one of its
most distinctive characteristics--a highly skilled and mer—
curial labor force. The pipeline industry has become one in
which the short term intensive need for skilled workers
alternates with equally short periods in which there is no
need at all. It was out of this development that the inde-
pendent contracting company emerged.

The advantages for the shipping companies of con-
tracting to outside construction companies are fairly clear.
The independent.contracting company could own or rent ex-
pensive equipment because it was free to work for any shipper
who accepted its bid. The independent operator was not tied
to the occasional construction job for a single petroleum

company. He could own equipment profitably because he could

keep it working.

69

The shipping company no longer was re—

quired to own expensive but frequently idle equipment, and

its officials were ridded of a chronic labor force problem.

The present day ease with which construction companies

are formed and dissolved are strikingly similar to the pro-

liferation and demise of auto manufacturing companies

in the

early years of the automobile industry.2 A pipeliner who

has,

can

or who can borrow, a few thousand dollars at one time

become a contractor. With considerable frugality he can

earn the necessary money during one season. He often can

buy on credit and rent all of the equipment that he needs.

Pipelining has its rags-to-riches legends and the industry

has

produced one such subject for a biography.3 Almost

issue of Pipeline Construction, the major trade journal

the

industry, contains items reporting the formation of

companies and items reporting the demise of companies.

following two news items represent the ups and downs of

line contracting.

Among pipeliners in and out the office lately
were Earl Saulsman and Jack Slack who are forming a
new corporation, to be known as Saulsman-Slack Con-
struction Inc., for construction of dry-lay and
river crossing lines up to 20-inch diameters. Earl
has been in the business for 24 years, sixteen of
them as spreadman. Jack got into pipeline con-
struction back in 1950 and formerly owned his own
equipment distributorship in Venezuela. They're
setting up their office at 3810 westheimer, Suite
428, in Houston.

"Quail" Partridge has sold his interest in Erie
Pipe Line Construction Co. and reports he is ready
to make some contractor a good hand.

every
of
new

The

pipe-

7O

Along with the appeal to the shoe-string operator of
a contracting company of his own the existing companies seem
to be becoming larger and more differentiated. The result
has been (1) that many companies can handle several con—
tracts at the same time, and (2) there has emerged highly
specialized contracting companies. Some of the latter have
men and equipment only to x—ray arc welds. Others specialize
in blasting, doping (pipe coating), road crossings, and "tie
ins" to gas wells and to distribution systems.6 Despite the
fact that companies are getting larger, the small operator
continues to be prominent despite the high probability of
failure.

Failures are impossible to count. Most of the conr
tractors who do not survive do not often go through formal
backruptcy proceedings. They "sell out," or allow equipment
to be repossessed. As one pipeliner put it: "They don't
actually go bankrupt, they just lose their asses and fade
away"--usually back into the ranks of skilled workers or they

become supervisors for other companies.

Petroleum and Pipelines

Present day pipelines, as reported earlier, ship
numerous products other than petroleum. But the rapid growth
of the petroleum industry in the first half of the twentieth
century has been the great impetus to pipeline construction.7

The petroleum industry had its beginning in the late

71

nineteenth century. Because the petroleum industry's
principal product was lamp oil, however, it at first re-
placed and later almost followed the whaling industry into
relative unimportance as a result of Edison's invention of
the electric light bulb. The petroleum industry, however,
recovered from the encroachments of electricity with the ad-
vent of internal combustion engines. _Along with the rising
importance of petroleum as engine fuel, the industry began
also to compete with the coke industry by making natural gas
available as a fuel to heat homes.

The history of the petroleum industry has been one
of waste, innovation, and conservation. Innovation has pro-
ceeded to the point that the only thing that the refinery
wastes is "the bad smell" it produces. For the first twenty
to thirty years, millions of gallons of gasoline were wasted
because it was assumed that gasoline had no economic im-
portance. Gasoline was too explosive and it couldn't be
used in lamps. Natural gas, often a by-product of oil wells,
was likewise burned off as a useless fraction for many years.
Burning the gas was easier than controlling its flow.
Natural gasoline,variously called "casing head," "drip gas,"
and sometimes "midnight ethel" (due to the fact that people
in the Southwest could easily fill up automobile tanks with
untaxed natural gasoline from "drip valves" on pipelines),
is a good example of a recent development which expanded the

pipeline industry. The natural high octane gasoline, a

72

precipitate in natural gas lines, was wasted for many years.
The lack of lubrication in the gasoline made its use in en—
gines damaging. Beginning in the late thirties petroleum
companies added oil to the gasoline and it is now being sold
by numerous "cut rate" service stations. Despite the demon-
strated potential of natural gas, its conservation was re-
sisted until World War II. For example, in a lengthy report
to Congress, Humble Oil Company officials presented geo-
logical and other "proofs" that the supply of natural gas
was almost unlimited. Humble explicitly withdrew its ob-
jections to conservation shortly after World War II started.
Other large companies followed suit. There was no geological
and other evidence that natural gas was not unlimited, and
state and federal laws have since been passed requiring the
conservation of natural gas.8

Pipelines, at first encouraged and financed by rail-
roads, early began to ship oil at less than one-tenth the
cost of any other means of transport. For a short time,
railroad interests waged a successful legislative battle
against the pipelines. John D. Rockefeller, however, suc-
cessfully contested the railroads through state legislatures
and the Federal Congress.9 By 1907 approximately 45,000
miles of pipelines had been built in the United States.
Since then a world-wide search for oil has proceeded. Large
new fields were Opened up in the American Southwest, the

West, and in other parts of the world especially in the

73

Middle East. The first transcontinental pipeline (24 inch)
was built in 1931 to carry natural gas from the Texas Pan-
handle to Chicago.10

World War II also saw the greatly expanded useful-
ness of crude oil pipelines.11 During the war emergency the
"big inch“ and the "little big inch" pipelines were built to
furnish Northeastern American cities with a ready source of
fuel to replace other kinds of fuel which were needed for
the war. These lines also replaced tankers which were
vulnerable to enemy submarines. Pipeline technology was al-
so developed in theaters of war where allied armies built and
maintained pipelines to supply water and gasoline to the ad-
vancing motorized troops. These lines were made of portable
units. Some of the same techniques that are now used in
river and difficult swamp crossings were developed in combat
zones during the war. ,During the war pipeliners also learned
how to lay pipelines under the ocean. The British used three
inch piping of flexible steel or lead alloy that could be
paid out from drums like an electric cable. The British
laid twenty such pipelines which varied in length from 29 to
66 miles across the English Channel bottom. The lines trans-
ported approximately one million gallons of gasoline per day
at pressures of up to 1200 pounds per square inch.12

The most recent impetus to the growth of pipeline

shipping companies has been the development of the petro—

chemical industry. The manufacture of carbon black and of

74

hundreds of different "miricle" fibers, made from the by-
products of natural gas, have become extremely important in
numerous industries-—plastics, clothing, furniture, and
other industries. Because of that development natural gas
pipelines have been built at a rapidly increasing rate
during the past twenty-five years.

The approximate average cost throughout the entire
world of laying a six inch diameter pipeline, under "normal
conditions," presently ranges between $100,000 and $150,000
per mile. Exceptional circumstances can double or triple
these costs. But despite the high initial expense, pipe-
lines have proven to be the most economical method of over-
land transportation of liquids. Presently in NOrth America
pipelines carry 20 percent of all the land freight moved on

.the NOrth American continent.

Technology_apd the Organization of work

Since the turn of the century the pipeline con—
struction industry has been characterized by a relatively
rapid technological development and equally rapid division
of labor requiring more and more highly trained specialists.
The very first pipelines were made of wood. These were
shortly replaced by cast iron joints of pipe which were
bolted together. Steel pipe with high tensile strength was
developed in the 1920's, and new acetylene and arc welding

mehtods were developed. As a result of welding, leakage is

75

presently a very rare (although costly) occurrence in modern
pipelines. The petroleum industry, at first characterized
by the romantic figure of the wildcatter, is now character-
ized by elaborate and differentiated organizations.* The
widely scattered distances and increasing amount of equipment
needed to build modern pipelines, as noted earlier, has en—
couraged the emergence of independent pipeline contracting
companies. Contracting companies could own small amounts of
equipment, and they could keep the equipment fairly busy
throughout the construction season. Small contractors could
do work within a specific area of the Southwest or elsewhere.

The typical contracting firm seems to be a small
company owned jointly by two or more men who have a great
deal of experience in pipeline construction work, but little
capital. With a few thousand dollars, rented equipment, and
"more guts than brains" almost anybody can become a
contractor.

The early construction crews were simple and they did
not need to be elaborately trained. The only key men on the
pipeline were those who had to have more than a few hours of
technical training to do their work-~the "stabbers," "collar
pounders," "point men," and "tong men." The stabber, the

only specific skill which has survived to the present, was

 

*Turn of the century pipeliners were called "cats."
The word "cat," used to refer to a crawler tractor, is a lay
term. Pipeliners interestingly, call a tractor a "tractor."

76

the worker who made certain that the two joints of the pipe
were aligned so that the collar that screwed them together
would not be cross threaded. This took a great deal of

skill in the early days because there was no alignment equip-
ment to reduce human error. Collar pounders were workers
who pounded the collars which tied the joints together. Ac-
cording to Loos the main skill required of the collar pounder
was the development of a rhythm which gave optimum worka-
bility to the collar as the tong men screwed it onto the
pipe.13 The tong men themselves were not necessarily highly
skilled although the point man was more thoroughly trained.
The gangs were likewise simple. The pipe gang, at the turn
of the century, did most of the tasks that are now done by
several different gangs. The pipe gang put the pipe joints
together, coated the pipe by hand and lowered it into the
ditch. The ditch was backfilled by unskilled laborers with
spades.

The largest companies hire several thousand workers,
and they build pipelines throughout the world. Medium sized
companies hire several hundred workers and they operate in
the United States and Canada. The more numerous smaller
companies hire several dozen workers and they generally con-
fine their activities to the American Southwest, or if they
are specialized, the smaller companies subcontract specific

kinds of work over a wide geographic base.

77

The "spread" is the pipeline work plant. It con—
sists of an organization of enough workers and equipment to
build a single pipeline. Two or more spreads may work on
the same job, but the single spread consists of work gangs,
several skill levels, and a hierarchy of supervisory roles.

The spread is divided into eight or ten work gangs.
These are organized around general work tasks in pipeline
construction. The number of gangs actually working on a job
varies as the job progresses, beginning with one or two, in-
creasing to the maximum near the middle of the job, and.
finally ending with the "clean-up gang."

Jobs may be divided roughly into skilled, semiskilled
and unskilled tasks. This division seems to correspond to
that made by workers themselves and to differences in pay
scales. Tractor operators, some machine operators, and
welders are skilled. Their work is restricted to well de-
fined operations with specified equipment. Training for
skilled jobs takes from several months up to three or four
years.

Semiskilled jobs are not as readily classified as
are the unskilled and skilled jobs. They are not numerous,
and with some exceptions, the need for semiskilled workers
is intermittent. Semiskilled workers are often unskilled
laborers much of the time who travel with the company. Un-

like the skilled jobs, semiskilled work involves no long and

78

elaborate apprenticeships. They may be learned in a few
days or a few hours.

Some unskilled workers are helpers to skilled
workers; others are highly transferable general laborers.
Most of these workers are local since the pay scale for
laborers would hardly permit them to make the frequent moves
from job to job as it does higher paid workers.

Three different classes of supervisors usually are
found on the spread: "spread man," "gang foreman," and
"straw boss." Just below the contractor-owner who sometimes
"bosses a job" is the spreadman. The spreadman usually is
in charge of the entire job. When two or more spreads work
on the same contract, the spreadman will be superceded by a
"superintendent" who is in charge of all of the spreads.
Just below the spreadman in authority are the various gang
foremen (or "pushers"). The "straw boss" is a worker who is
assigned to supervise a small gang of laborers on special
problem jobs which are not handled directly by any of the
standard gangs. The job of a straw boss may last from less
than an hour to several days, depending upon the special
task. Once the task is finished, he returns to his regular
job. Straw bosses are chosen from among workers on the en-
tire spread. They may be, and often are, laborers, "old
heads who know the pipeline."

These official boss roles do not exhaust authority

relationships among the workers. Owning company inspectors

79

and workers with helpers are unofficial bosses. Inspectors,
hired by the owning companies, have power over any worker on
the spread. "They are here to keep us honest." Although
they do not hire workers they can veto appointments and they
specify work quality standards for workers in terms of
company policy. They have the authority to fire any worker
whom they believe to be doing faulty work.

Welders and tractor and machine operators are re-
sponsible for the work quality of their helpers. They do
not hire or fire the workers directly but their preferences
for certain helpers are respected by "real bosses," and they
can-have a helper fired or transferred by complaining to a
foreman or to the spreadman.

The companies compete with one another for contracts
and for skilled workers. Competition for contracts is
carried on mainly among companies of roughly the same size.
Larger companies do not often compete for the I'tie in,"
"take up," and "little inch" jobs which the middle sized and
small companies find manageable and profitable.14 Moreover,
the largest companies subcontract many jobs to smaller
companies. Among medium and small companies, however, compe-
tition is vigorous during the "lean" part of the season.

Competition for contracts accounts for much con-
tractor anxiety, but competition for skilled workers is the
greater concern. One construction superintendent stated:

"To get jobs you have to know your business but getting

80

hands is your real headache. You can't get hands unless you
know where to find them."

Before the construction crews begin work on‘a job
two important things have already been done. Legal claim to
a right of way has been secured and the right of way has
been surveyed and staked. Construction begins when the
"right of way" gang begins to prepare the right of way for
the work. The gang clears brush and timber, and levels the
right of way as much as possible so that heavy equipment can
move easily along its length. The gang redirects small
streams of water and it completes numerous other special
tasks on the right of way. The right of way crew ordinarily
needs one or more tractor crews each of which consists of an
operator and his "swamper" (helper). The gang frequently
uses special equipment such as chain saws and dynamite.

The stringing gang follows the right of way gang.
The stringing gang has a task of stringing the joints of
pipe at places along the right of way where they will be
needed. The stringing gang contains tractor crews and truck
crews.

The "ditching" gang cuts a ditch behind the pipe
stringers. It ordinarily consists of ditching machine, an
operator, and two or three swampers. Next, the pipe gang
has the task of connecting the joints of pipe by an initial
weld called a stringer bead. This gang is ordinarily

equipped with at least two tractors and several swampers.

81

The pipe gang ordinarily has two welders; other welders work
in one of the two welder gangs. The first welder gang con-
sists of "hot pass" welders. These welders (usually two)
place a second bead around the joints of pipe. The "hot
pass" holds the joints together until the regular welder gang
comes along to add "fillers" and "cap.“ At that point the
welding is completed. The pipe gang is followed by the "dope
gang," whose task is to coat the pipe as a protection against
moisture and to prepare it against the corrosive effects of
electrolitic action. The "lowering in" gang lowers the pipe
into ditches. As a precaution against “buckling" due to con-
traction and expansion, the pipe is lowered early in the
morning at which time its temperature is approximately what
it will be under the ground. The "backfill gang" then fills
the ditch with dirt. The clean up gang ordinarily comes be-
hind the backfill gang. This gang has the official task of
restoring the right of way. However, over the years the
clean up gang has generally had the task of mollifying
property owners. Skill in the latter is very often a factor
in the selection of a foreman for the clean up gang. The
clean up foreman usually is one of the most diplomatic indi-
viduals on the pipeline.

Special crews are needed to complete road, river,
and railroad crossings, tie-ins to wells, pump stations, re-
fineries, and other lines, and to install "gate valves."

Most of these special gangs use men from other gangs on the

82

pipeline unless the task has been sub-contracted to other
companies.

A worker's informal power and prestige is most often
a reflection of his formal work role, less often of the gang
in which he works most of the time. His prestige may be in-
ferred from the stereotypes other workers use to describe
him. His power may be inferred (with less certainty) by
watching him negotiate with managers in disputes over pay or
working conditions, and the control he has over who is to
work on the spread.

The welders are the elite on the pipeline. Most of
them own the welding "rigs" which they use. The welder
"hires out" both himself and his rig to the contractor. He
is paid with two separate checks: one for his labor and one
for his truck and welding machine. A few "single hand"
welders use rigs belonging to the contractor and a few other
workers hire out their trucks and other equipment to the con-
tractor;.but welders are the only workers who commonly own
their own equipment and expect to be paid for it on any job
for any contractor.

Welders work as a gang but other skill groups do not.
They often have to meet more rigid work standards than do
other skilled workers. For example, welders are the only
pipeline workers who are tested by the owning companies be—
fore the job starts. Before they may be hired by the con-

tractor, welders must have their specimen welds examined by

83

owning company inspectors who often use x—ray and other
equally searching techniques. Once hired, a welder must en-
grave a code letter on each of his individual welds so that
he may be identified if one of the welds is later found to
be defective.

"Bulldozer'I and "side boom" operators seem to be
next highest in the prestige and power hierarchy. The
prestige and power gap between these operators and welders,
however, probably is greater than that of any other pair of
adjacent positions in the industry. In 1966 salaries for
operators were approximately $4.50 per hour, but the com-
bined income from salary and rig rent of welders, most of
whom work in the welder gang, averaged $8.50 per hour. ,As a
group, operators seem to have little control over the hiring
of other operators since they are distributed among most of
the groups. Negotiation with managers is on an individual
basis. In worker-manager conflicts, the operator is more
likely to identify himself with the gang in which he works
rather than with other operators.

The romantic conception of what pipeliners are like
is probably most often played out by tractor operators.

This fanciful picture of pipeliners is worth some examina-
tion. It is an inaccurate description of the workers, but
it is a part of the pipeline folklore and it probably af-

fects the behavior of some workers, especially the younger

inductees. The clearest statement of part of the stereotype

84

is found in Ball: "This is the pipe-line crew . . . tough,
hard-boiled, and efficient.--They could be arrested for
their songs and jokes . . . They'll get out of hand if given
half a chance, but they'll lay a good line from here to

15 The

there and vanish like smoke when the job is over."
same romantic picture may be seen in the boasts of a young
and newly trained tractor operator-—“What do you want to
study pipeliners for; they're a bunch of no good bums,
drunkards; always on the prowl for women and whiskey. You
take me for instance, I never had two drinks before I started
pipelining. Now I am just like the rest of them."

Tractor operators often become the center of at—
tention in dangerous and dramatic work situations. One re-
curring task is that in which several side boom tractors
work in unison to lift a common maximum load. If one of the
operators releases his part of the load prematurely the other
tractors may be turned over. Another dramatic situation is
one in which right of way dozer operators sometimes work on
precarious cliffs and steep mountain sides. Some "Canada
pipeliners" (United States citizens who work on Canadian
pipelines) belong to an exclusive "Bird Club," an unorgan—
ized prestige group of operators each of whom has success-
fully abandoned his machine after it has started over the
edge of a cliff.16

Nearby workers are allowed to stop work and watch

these and other dangerous operations although they do so

85

without explicit permission from supervisors. This probably
helps to maintain the belief that operators "don't give a
damn for nothing" (not even their own safety), but there
probably are fewer injuries to operators than to their
"swampers" who literally work under the tractors, or to
welders and welder helpers who often work in "bell holes"
which may contain undetected poisonous or explosive gases.
The danger to operators is conspicuous and dramatic, but the
danger to other workers is not.

There is an apparent eagerness among young laborers
to become operators rather than higher paid welders. While
watching an especially intricate performance by a dozer oper-
ator the observer recalls thinking that under different
circumstances the operator might have been a superb ballet
dancer. He did not discuss the possibility, however, with
the operator-—masculinity norms being what they are on the
pipeline.

Other machine operators such as dope, cleaning, bend-
ing, and beveling enjoy less prestige as a group than do
welders and tractor operators. The salaries for dope machine
and bending machine operators are often equal to that of
tractor operators, but the salaries of cleaning and beveling
machine operators are lower. These different operators seem
to identify themselves with the gangs in which they work
rather than with the relevant skill group. These skills

shade off into the semiskilled jobs. Many of the operators

86

do not collect waiting time pay as do the tractor drivers
and welders.

Laborers are the least homogeneous of all of the
skill groups, and there is a distinct prestige hierarchy
among them. A laborer's position in the hierarchy seems to
depend upon whether or not he is an in group pipeliner and
upon the kind of work he does. welder helpers enjoy highest
prestige. They often are paid a higher salary than are
other laborers. They sometimes "go in for ten" (receive
wages for a ten hour day although they have completed the
work in less time) as do the welders: most other laborers do
not. welder helpers identify themselves with their re-
spective welders. When asked who his boss is the welder
helper, who is called a "pimp," is likely to name his welder
rather than a foreman or spreadman.

The dozer, side boom, and ditching machine swampers
are next highest in the laborer prestige hierarchy. They
rarely receive higher pay than other laborers, but occasion-
ally the in group pipeliners among them "go in for ten."

The laborers who are the lowest in the hierarchy work
with spades and place skids under pipes. They do much of the
"dirty work." Most of them are hired for a single contract
only. They never go in for ten nor do they ever receive
waiting or travel time pay.

In addition to prestige associated with formal work

roles, there seems to be three subclasses of in—group

87

laborers. There is the "old head“ who ”knows the spread."

He does all types of unskilled and semiskilled work; he is
often called upon to straw boss laborers on special jobs.

The few of these men that the observer knew had been skilled
workers on the pipeline, but they had not adapted to the
changing technology. One of these laborers told the observer
that he had never learned to drive a tractor but "there
wasn't no job that I couldn't get a job skinnin' them mules."
Another one still boasts about the number of feet per day he
could "rag" (coat) by hand before his skill was replaced by
the dope machine.

Another similar group are the workers who "don't
give a damn for nothing and wouldn't break out in a trade if
you gave them a chance." For example, "you take old H____,
he is likeable; he's had a hundred chances to break out but
he will work along for a dollar an hour before he will go to
the trouble."

There is some prestige attached to gangs. The dope
gang is "dirty" and those workers who prefer the dope gang,
"solid dope hands," are "more than apt to go to seed." The
pipe gang seems to share the glamour of the operators.
Welders are thought to be "smarter than other workers."

They are frequently considered to be smarter or more intelli-
gent than other workers by virtue of the fact that they earn
more money. Tractor operators, however, have the advantage

of a more or less glamorous tradition. Other operators

88

enjoy some prestige over laborers because they "have a trade."
Net everyone, however, wants to become a welder, although a
frequent pattern is to start out in youth as a bulldozer or
side boom tractor operator, and later on to "settle down to
welding where the money is."

It has been impossible to determine any precise rate
of income for pipeliners. Wages are often supplemented by
loans of trucks and other equipment for the pipeliner's own
use, and by "under the table" expense accounts. The follow-
ing are approximate estimates furnished to the writer by an
official of the largest company in which observations were
made. During the 1966 season a welder earned approximately
$5.50 per hour plus $3.00 per hour fee for his welding rig.
Tractor operators earned an average of $4.50 per hour. Other
operators averaged $3.50, truck drivers $3.50, welder helpers
$2.25, and other laborers, $2.00. 1

The workers generally participate in unions only when
they have to. The two companies for which the observer
worked are among the few anti-union strongholds in the South-
west. In the Midwestern companies, all of the workers were
union members, but their attitudes toward unions ranged from
indifference to hostility. The union is seen as an inter-
fering out-group by both management and workers. The workers
see in union participation a loss of overtime work; manage-
ment, although it pays union wages to most workers, sees a

threatening loss of control over workers. In overt conflict,

89

the workers often can be expected to align themselves with
the company. Some Southwestern workers, however, admit:
"Sure, I get union scale and maybe a little more but that's
cause the union is breathing down the contractor's neck. If
he don't pay me union scale he knows I'll join a union."
Several of the Southwestern workers saw no particular con-
nection regarding their present condition and the possible
indirect role of unions. Union membership often means to
the worker simply that dues have to be paid and that he may
have two bosses instead of one.

The fear of union interference with overtime is
realistic. Unions do attempt to restrict the amount of over-
time that can be worked in areas where more men might be em-
ployed. A less frequently mentioned cause for opposition to
the union is the hiring of Negroes. Negroes are hired to do
pipeline work in the South and Southwest along with other
members of minority groups. But they are generally segre-
gated at work, and they do not ordinarily hold supervisory
positions.

Direct labor union action is not frequent in the
pipeline construction industry. This seems to be true partly
because the industry had its greatest development in the
south and southwestern states where unionism has been general-
ly less successful than it has been in the industrial north.
Even in northern states where unions are more active in the

pipeline construction industry, effective unionization meets

90

several problems. Teamster, boiler maker, welder, and vari-
ous laborer and truck driver locals all may represent differ-
ent fragmented groups of workers on a single job. Moreover,
as the worker moves from job to job he is involved with more
and more different locals. Labor union officials reported
that the men are very hard to keep up with, and often there
is no way to know whether or not workers, even in the Mid—
west, are working with or without currently valid union
cards. Each of the unions has jurisdiction over only a

small portion of the workers who make up the operating
spread. A union very seldom is able to tie up the work of
an entire spread by a strike of one group of skilled workers.
The only picketing, for example, which has taken place

during the past several years in the Mid-Michigan area was a
case in which one local picketed another local because of a
jurisdictional dispute. Several of the construction of-
ficials were unable to remember a single time when such union
action was taken against the contractor or the shipping
company.

An extremely important industry characteristic ac-
counting for union weakness in pipeline construction is the
effectiveness of a wildcat strike which the workers call a
"wobble." A wobble usually inovlves an entire gang or an en-
tire skill group. A mere threat of a wobble often is enough

to get what the workers want from the contractor. In any

91

case the threatened wobble or the real wobble is a very
powerful, spontaneous and relatively unencumbered negoti-
ating technique.

It is ironical that the wobble is a contemporary
alternative to union action. The technique, and even the
word itself, seem to be residual influences of the old Inter-
national Workers of the World. It may be, as Brooks argues,
that "troubadours . . . make notably poor organizers" but
the “WObblies” left the direct action wobble for pipeline
gangs and skill groups to use in modern negotiations.

There is little opportunity for workers to identify
in terms of loyalty with the multiplicity of locals in which
they are members in any given season. There is occasional
loyalty to the abstract ideologies of the labor movement or
to labor unions in general. Very few workers, however, have
developed these abstract sentiments. I

The indirect influence of potential unionization may
be seen in the frequent statement "we pay union scale or
better" or "why should I join the union? I make union scale
or better; the union does nothing for me."

The union's role in recruiting is minimal. Occasion-
ally workers and employers make routine checks at union of-
fices and usually the union has a list of workers in a terri-
tory. Recruiting by the unions seems to be merely potential

to the extent that contractors "butter up" union officials.

92

"We don't buy them you understand, but I try to stay on the

good side of union officers."

FOOTNOTES

1The most complete account of the process whereby

construction contracting companies have become independent
is found in:

Larson and Porter, pp. 143-170.

2Eli Chinoy, Automobile Workers and The American
Dream (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1955), Cf.
Chapter 1, pp. 1-12.

3Winalee Gentry, One More River to Cross (Phila-
delphia: Westminster Press, 1955).

4"Pipeline Personal Notes," Pipeline Construction
(August, 1965), p. 63.

5"Pipeline Personal Notes," Pipeline Construction
(June, 1965), p. 51.

6Dean Hale, "Plows, Planted at Record Pace in 1965,"
American Gas Journal, 193, No. 2 (February, 1966), pp. 38—40.

Raymond D. Lewis, "Pipelining Down Pack Mule Trail,"
Pipeline Industry (April, 1966), pp. 57-60.

"Offshore Pipelining," Pipeline Industry, 25, No. 4
(October, 1966, Special issue).

7Gordan A. Purdy, Petroleum: Prehistoric to Petro-
chemicals (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1938).

Goerge Sell, The Petroleum Industry (London: Oxford
University Press, 1963).

8Larson and Porter, pp. 297-326.

9Purdy

10Purdy

11"The Triumph of Big Inch-By Inch," Elie (Sept. 23:
1963), p. 35.

12Sell

13The most detailed description of early construction
technology is found in Loos.

93

94

14The terms "big inch" and "little inch" originally
referred to large and small diameter pipe. But the terms
presently are used to describe the size and duration of jobs
regardless of pipe size.

15Max White Ball, This FascinatingfiOil Business (New
York: The Bobs Merril Company, 1940), p. 33.

lééifs (Sept- 23, 1963). p. 35.

 

CHAPTER V
THE PIPELINERS

The term "pipeliners," as it has been used here, is
confined to men who work in construction. The term does not
include engineers and men who regularly work in pump sta-
tions, refineries, and offshore installations, although
these individuals are sometimes described as "pipeliners“ in
the trade literature. The term "pipeliner," as it has been
used in the present study includes laborers, semiskilled and
skilled workers, supervisors, contractors, and shipping
company inspectors. This definition follows usage by pipe-
liners themselves. The worker term often is "professional
pipeliner." The term excludes many laborers who are hired
locally for particular jobs, but it includes numerous
laborers whose principal occupation is pipelining. Many of
the excluded individuals frequently represent different popu-
lations. The socio-economic origins of engineers and company
officials differ from that of the working class pipeliners.
They have little relevance to the patterns of crew formation,
job finding, and apprenticeship described in this paper.
Their contacts with construction crews are peripheral and oc-

casional. The pipeliner's contacts with the shipping company

95

96

is generally confined to those with the shipping company in-
spector, and the engineers are "long gone" when the con-

struction crews start.

Origins and Characteristics

 

Pipeliners range in age from 18 to 65 with a median
perhaps in the mid-thirties. They are, for the most part,
white Anglo Saxon Southwesterners. Negroes, Mexican Ameri-
cans, and Indians are hired occasionally as common laborers
but they are not frequently considered to be "real pipe-
liners." Rarely are Negroes found in supervisory positions.
The few Mexican Americans who work on the pipelines are con-
siderably less than their representation in the Southwest.
Access to supervisory positions are not as restricted for
Mexican Americans as they are for Negroes. But the "Latins"
are not often found in skilled or supervisory positions.

In New Mexico and Arizona, Navahoes have been used in
construction jobs but almost invariably they have geen given
common labor jobs.1 The population, as noted in the intro-
duction, from which pipeliners are drawn seems to be mainly
Southwestern rural. Even in the Midwest, skilled workers
seem to be recruited principally from Texas, Oklahoma,
Louisiana, and New Mexico. This is especially true in the
case of supervisory personnel. The pipeline crews in Michi-

gan and Ohio have a decided southern accent.

97

The pipeliners come from the same population which
included the dust bowlers of the 1930's. The pipeliners like
others in the region migrated and, at first, families became
fragmented. Anderson has described some of the initial
limited attempts of families to remain together when they
left the dust bowl to seek work in other areas.2 The novel-
ist, Steinbeck, documented the trials of the “Okies” of that
period.3 Vogt_g§_§l. described the Southwestern population
from which the pipelining population is drawn.

The homesteaders (bean raisers in New Mexico)

westward migration from the hill country of the
Southern Appalachians to the Panhandle country of
Texas and Oklahoma and there to the Southwest and
California.

Both Vogt_et_al. and W. P. Webb, the historian of
the Great Plains, stress the individualism of the South-
westerners.5

Perhaps there has been more emphasis upon the South—
westerner's individualism in social relations than may be
justified. The present observer failed to see the "constant
fighting tone (which) permeates the economic, social, and
religious structure of the community" among pipeliners.
Pipeliners compete for jobs, and for workers, and sometimes
they are in conflict with one another. But the pipeliner's
economic survival depends upon his close participation in
communications networks with other workers. The kinds of

interpersonal relations observed, of course, depend, among

other things, upon what social systems the observer views.

98

The Vogt group concerned themselves with aborted attempts of
the bean growers to cooperate to develop. a land use program,
to gravel streets, and to build a high school gymnasium.
But, among the pipeliners individualism seems to be more of
a boast than a fact.

The rural background of workers is perhaps best seen
in pipeline argot: and it is interesting to note that rural
terms seem to predominate over the rich military vocabulary
to which many of the men have been exposed. _A "bronc" on
the line is a worker who does not yet "know the ropes": his
rural counterpart is an undomesticated horse. When the
worker learns a pipeline skill he "breaks out." When a
horse is domesticated he is ”broke to ride" or "broke to
harness." To quit work for the company is to "drag up"; an
expression probably coming from the cotton fields where the
cotton sack is dragged up to the weighing scales before the
row is completed. When the pipeliners stop work for the day
they "go to the house" even though many of them are not going
to any house but to restaurants and recreation places. That
expression is especially reminiscent of the period in the
farm day when the day's work is completed and the farmer
actually goes to the house. The word "spread" is commonly

used to refer to the land and trappings of a cattle ranch.

Organization and Movement

About one half of the workers are in—group "pipe-

liners.“ The remaining workers are "common hands" who are

99

recruited from towns near a particular job. A few of these
remain in the occupation and eventually become "professional
pipeliners"; but most of them simply ricochet off of the
line. Their net effect upon the pipeline way of life seems
slight. Career histories of professional pipeliners seem to
follow a pattern of farm labor, military service and pipe-
lining, with occasional forays into outside occupations.

The pipeline way of life like pipeline contracting
companies is dominated by time and distance factors in the
industry. Life is organized around short term jobs and long
distances between jobs. WOrkers seem to work more often for
one contracting company than for others, but because con-
tracts are often short and irregular there must be a great
deal of movement between companies. (workers, as well as
contracting companies, have made adjustments to contract
irregularity. The pipeline way of life is geared to fre-
quent and rapid movement from company to company. The daily
life of workers and their families requires nothing that can-
not be moved with little trouble.

Most workers with families (of procreation) live in
trailer houses. A few of them rent furnished apartments and
houses in the spread headquarters towns; and a few leave
their families at "home," especially during the public school
term. The single men live in hotels, tourist cabins, and
boarding houses in the headquarters or nearby towns; and a

few live with married relatives. Nuclear families frequently

100

remain together especially during the summer when children
are not in school. But keeping children in.school splits
many families during the school term. Indeed, in many ways
ad hoc groups of kinsmen are more cohesive than are nuclear
families.

The workers and their families establish a few
acquaintances in the towns at which they stop; but for the
most part close friendships are restricted to other pipeline
people. Groups of families tend to cluster together in the
different trailer parks in a town. These groupings often
represent combinations of kinship and friendship. This
gives the appearance of cliques of families rather than of
individuals.

The pipeliners' relationships to the communities in
which they work is one of indifference more often than mutual
hostility. Pipeliner linkages to the community are largely
instrumental--through service stations, restaurants, trailer
parks, rooming houses, and a few other types of service es-
tablishments. The pipeliners see themselves somewhat cor—
rectly as perennial outsiders in the communities in which
they live for brief periods of the working season. Trades-
men are able to exploit the pipeliners in at least minor
waysso that they sometimes feel that they must be on guard
constantly "to keep from getting screwed."

The pipeliners' marginal status in the communities

is reflected officially in trailer park zoning ordinances.

101

It is reflected socially by community indifference. This
marginality helps to cause pipeliner groups, whose members
are scattered over the country, to be the most important,
socially as well as economically, in the pipeliner's life.

In the "heavy season," during which contract awards
are at a maximum, the pipeliners usually work ten or more
hours per day, often seven days per week. The heavy season
is approximately nine months long in the Southwest where
natural gas resources are being rapidly developed. During
the slack season when there is little employment for the
workers they seem not to apply their skills in other closely
related occupations. Rather than "fool around the house"
they work on personal property or private equipment. This
'is doubtless due largely to the slackness of a need for
skills in all related occupations at the Same time. However,
a part of the reason may be the absence of reciprocal con-
nections--of exchange relationships in other industries.
"Hell, I don't know nobody on road work." “I'd rather set
around the house than work on them 'turd lines' (sewage
systems)."

The hourly earnings of pipeliners are high but their
expenses are great. Travel itself is probably the greatest
single expense of the pipeliner. Housing would no doubt run
a close second and indeed, for many workers, it is the most
expensive. Trailer houses(euphemistically called "mobile

homes") cost from four thousand to twenty thousand dollars.

102

The pipeliner ordinarily is seen in a trailer which sells
for six to seven thousand dollars (the two or three bedroom
type). The trailers are much more expensive for pipeliners
than the trailer sales company advertising would indicate
("own your own home outright in seven years"). But this is
partly due to the pipeliner's tendency to live in fairly new
trailers. Their trailer houses depreciate at approximately
the same rate as do automobiles. Banks discount the loan
value of trailers to zero in five to seven years.7 The re-
sale value drops as rapidly. Trailers and automobiles are
one of the few ways that workers can exhibit their success in
the communities where they have little local identity. De-
spite high cost and some inconvenience, the trailers usually
are spacious and comfortable. The design and construction
of these houses has improved vastly over the past twenty
years. They are very different from the cramped inconvenience
of the trailers at Willow Run during the years of WOrld war
II.8

Much of the pipeline way of life can be seen as a
collective and individual struggle to maintain power and in-
fluence, and above all, to maintain advantage in the pipe-
line labor market. The pipeline construction labor force is
informally organized as a set of networks of more or less
fluid social coalitions among individuals and groups. These
are characterized by exchange obligations among members.

Such networks are enhanced by the cohesiveness produced by

103

community isolation. Thus the pipeliners are especially at-
tuned to rumor and they are sensitive evaluators of word of
mouth information. Rumors, an important source of infor-
mation about new jobs, can be checked out. The communication
system within the labor force can be described as one of de-
creasing error in rumor as the pipeliner makes use of his
"contacts." Shortly after it is heard, a rumor is verified,
discounted, or modified as a result of checks made with

other pipeliners.

Except for the ”common hands” who are hired through
local employment agencies and from "off the streets," workers
are recruited by way of informal networks which extend at
least throughout the Southwest, and most of the time into
Canada. One worker boasted, "there's not a job going within
three hundred miles of here that I don't know somebody work-
ing on it." In watching this informal communication system
at work one is reminded of a line from a "hillbilly“ song
which was popular in the Southwest a few years back: “Hey
Okie, if you see Arkie, tell him Tex has got a job for him
out in Californey." workers may be hired through phone calls
or letters between themselves and friends and relatives at
the job location or through direct phone calls to the con-
tractor, spreadman, or foreman.

Pipeline Construction (formerly The Pipeliner), a
trade magazine, publishes information on jobs in progress

and on proposed jobs. The descriptions include the names of

i 104

spreadman and foremen. These lists of names are important
because most of the named supervisors are fairly well known
in the industry and have different reputations. Although

the magazine often contains information that is already known
to in-group pipeliners. fiwhg has the dope" (who is the dope
foreman) or fiyhg has the pipe" (pipe gang foreman), etc.,

and "who all are going up there" are important questions for
pipeliners when they seek jobs. When a worker obtains infor-
mation from the magazine he usually has borrowed a copy. In-
deed, a fairly accurate sociogram might be drawn from finger—
prints on well worn copies of The Pipeliner.

In his evaluations of workers and in his attempts to
recruit.crews the spreadman often thinks of groups of kins-
men ("bunches") and of cliques rather than of individuals.
"Them are good workers" or "I won't work that bunch
unless I have to."

Occasionally, a bunch will dominate a single work
gang, although the members of a kinship group are likely to
be spread out over the entire spread or among several jobs.
One "dope gang" has as its foreman a man whose entire crew
was made up of sons, sons-in—law and a few friends of these.
The entire gang, consisting of both kinsmen and nonkinsmen,
was cohesive. Horseplay on the job was extended into social
relations among the workers after the work day. The leader
of a bunch (the man who is contacted by an employer) is not

often a family patriarch. He usually is a younger man who

105

hires his father, or father—in—law, or who helps other rela-
tives to find jobs.

In many instances, hiring a bunch is inappropriate,
or such bunches are not available when they are needed.
Nevertheless, the spreadman or foreman who is seeking workers
usually contacts people who can contact other workers. Thus,
a spreadman who contacts a single individual often sets off
a chain of messages and inquiries which may result in the
formation of a gang, or even an entire crew.

Bidding, Contracting, Recruiting,
and Job Finding

 

The bid for a particular job is planned by officials
of the construction company and the crew is recruited through
kinship and friendship contact networks. The bid planning
begins well before the shipper advertises specifications
for contracts, and a "hearsay" stage precedes the remainder
of the process. The hearsay stage of the bidding process in-
cludes published Interstate Commerce Commission actions,
published tentative construction proposals, and word of mouth
information about upcoming jobs. The pipeline shipping
company, after securing the right of way, then issues public
invitations for construction contract bids, and it makes
specifications available to interested contractors. The
specifications later become a part of the contract.

The shipping company evaluates the contracting

ecumenies which have submitted bids in order to determine

106

which of the bidding companies can actually complete the job
and which of them may be "biting off more than they can chew."
The lowest bid is accepted from among those submitted by the
remaining qualified companies.

During the hearsay information period the contractor
rules out several potential jobs while considering others.
His shifting depends upon the size of a job, the amount of
equipment needed, the distance between his company's present
job to the next, and the potential availability of workers.
The choice of the area and considerations of distance are im-
portant for contractors when they sift the possible jobs be-
cause long distances multiply costs rapidly.

If the contractor thinks that he can handle the job
and earn a profit he will begin to prepare his bid. During
the bid preparation period, the contractor estimates footage
costs and he determines the amount of profit which the company
wants to earn. The contractor studies the shipping company's
engineering reports and the construction company may have on
its staff or it may hire a consulting engineer to help pre-
pare a bid. The contractor and his key men are very likely
to look over the terrain and to make forecasts regarding
special problems. Such problems include the possibility of
solid rock which must be removed, loose sand, quicksand, and
other problems along the right of way. Next, the contractor
estimates his labor force requirements, and he calculates

the liklihood that the number of workers he absolutely must

107

have will actually be available. The planners for the bid
almost always include the general construction superintendent
and the spreadmen.

The liklihood that contracting company supervisors
below the level of spreadman will participate in bid prepar-
ation decreases, depending upon their positions in the super-
visory hierarchy and upon the liklihood of particular
problems which are expected on the job. Bid planning often
includes the "pipe gang" foreman since the pipe gang is more
likely than other gangs to encounter special problems. Other
gang foremen may participate in the bidding but the hierarchy
of probability of bid participation is as follows: general
superintendent, spreadman, pipe gang foreman, and finally
other gang foremen. This supervisory participation in the
bidding process is an important source of "inside dope."

Such participation makes available to bid participants de-
tailed knowledge about personnel needs and therefore, infor-
mation about available jobs. Such knowledge is an important
negotiable commodity among pipeliners.

Actual recruiting follows a familiar pattern. When
the work on a contract is begun the spreadman is likely to
know a few workers who know about the job, and he will know
how to contact others. Some of these workers will furnish
information about other workers, and if the contacted person
is a foreman he will hire other workers. The spreadman will

"hang around" the office or warehouse an hour or two during

108

each of the first few days of the job to phone and receive
calls. A few days before and a few days after a job begins
married workers come often by auto, pulling trailer houses.
Single workers, and those who do not bring their wives and
children along find rooming houses.

When a worker arrives in the spread headquarters
town he has little trouble finding the warehouse or the
"greasy spoon" where the workers drink coffee before going
to work. He soon joins other workers, all of whom have been
recruited within a matter of hours. Although they will have
comelfrom places scattered over thousands of square miles,
they usually know one another. Within a few days or weeks
they will scatter again.

Table 1 illustrates the time and distance conditions
which the industry imposes upon both workers and construction
companies.

Contracts vary from one or two days to six months or
more but the typical job requires a full skilled labor force
for an average of three weeks. Distance from one job to an-
other may be within one area such as a large gas field, or
between such areas. Often, jobs may be separated by several
hundred miles. Time lapsing between contracts is an im-
portant determinant of whether or not a contractor can hold

workers. Frequently, contractors have no work at all.

109

Table 1. Time and distance during mid-season for one medium
sized company, Amarillo, Texas. Summer, 1955.

 

 

 

Time on Distance to Time between
Place Job Next Job Jobs
(Amarillo, Texas 3 weeks Approx 200 miles 10 days
Hooker, Oklahoma 2 weeks " 60 " 4 days
Liberal, Kansas 4 weeks " 100 “ 4 days
Sidney, Nebraska 2 weeks " 150 " 6 days
Burlington, Colo. 1 week " 70 " 14 days
Amarillo, Texas 5 days " 260 " 12 days
Lubbock, Texas 3 weeks " 115 ” 3 days

 

The contractor who plans to operate a spread of ap-
proximately one hundred men does not need all of the men at
the same time. He will have a few days to form his crew
after the job starts, but he will need a full crew within a
few days. The "right of way" gang needs to complete much of
its work before other gangs can begin. The pipe stringer
gang must have the pipe joints at the right places along the
right of way before the pipe gang can begin. The pipe gang
must have enough head start on the welders so that the
welders will not be idled (at individual salaries ranging
from $8.50 to $11.50 per hour). The welders must be far
enough in front of the dope gang so that the pipe joints in

the welding area are not "jiggled" by the dope machine.

110

The fact that all of the workers on the spread do
not have to be recruited at once gives only slight leeway to
the contractor and his supervisors. The few who are needed
at first are "just the right men at just the right time."
Even if the company could hire a full crew all at once to
"keep on ice," such a reserve labor force would be too costly
in most cases. The contractor often can and does, in some
cases, pay "waiting time," but ordinarily waiting time is
confined to supervisors and to key skilled workers.

The transferability of workers is an important factor
in crew formation. A worker can be transferred from one
gang to another depending upon his particular skill. Trans—
ferability is roughly inversely related to the skill hier-
archy. _Laborers can be used in all of the gangs. This does
not mean that all of the laborers can expect to be employed
throughout the contract. In fact the need for all levels of
workers increases until the pipe gang finishes its work and
then the need for all skills decreases. But some workers
can expect longer employment as a favor from supervisors.

From the middle to the end of the job, the supervisor
is in a position to pay off favors which he has incurred, and
he is able to obligate pipeliners to himself for possible
use when workers become hard to find. That is, the super-
visor can both “pay off debts and put money in the bank" by
the retention of some workers for as long as he can keep

them.busy.

111

Table 2 shows estimates of the labor force needs of
a two week "average" job in Nerthern Ohio, summer, 1966.

The estimates were made by the company's bookkeeper.

Table 2. Estimate of the number of days each gang can ex-
pect to be employed on a 12 working day job.

 

 

Day from beginning
of job 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ll 12

 

Gangs Needed:
Right of way x x
Stringing x
Ditching
Pipe
Bending
Hot Pass welders

xxx
xxxx
xxxx

xxxx

x
Firing Line Welders x x
Dope x x
,Lowering in x
Backfill x x
Clean up x x x x

 

Selective retention of workers by transferring them
from one gang to the next is not only the principal way in
which a supervisor can reward obedient and loyal workers, it
is the way he can favor relatives and friends. During the
busy mid-season a supervisor can lure workers in a variety
of ways. He may lend them trucks with which to pull trailers,
or he may lend them a variety of other equipment. More im-
portant, the supervisor can make available his knowledge of
future jobs or his contacts with other companies in exchange

for the worker's willingness to "get him out of a tight."

112

Before a job is begun, the pipeliner has available
to him the "scuttlebutt" which is always present, and the

listings in Pipeline Construction. Neither gives him the

 

reliability which he needs when moves are distant and costly.
Consequently the worker often depends upon a friend, rela-
tive, or acquaintance whom he believes to be reliable. When
the worker receives a job offer, he also seeks trustworthy
estimates of length of job, overtime, and information about
other work about to start in the area. The amount of pipe-
lining in the area is an important determinant in the at-
tractiveness of the job. Many jobs in an area means that
the pipeliner can shorten the time and distance between
future jobs.

The industry is characterized by a labor force supply-
demand cycle. The cycle is important in determining both the
availability of jobs for workers and the availability of
workers for construction companies. Most of thw work is
done during the "season" from about March through December.
The greatest industry need for workers occurs during the
summer months. The need is small at the beginning of the
season, increases up to early summer, remains constant until
late summer, and then diminishes. The consequences of this
cycle for the industry, construction companies, and workers,
are clear. Jobs are scarce for workmen near the beginning
and end of the season, while the contractor can find workers

easily. During the middle of the season, workers are scarce

113

and pipeliners can "set in just about anywhere." During the
summer months, workers are able to "pay off" their obligations
to supervisors by making themselves available for work; in
spring and autumn, supervisors can pay off their obligations

to workers by keeping them as busy as possible.

FOOTNOTES

Sasaki.
Anderson.

Steinbeck.

a. to m p.

Evon Z. Vogt and John M. Roberts, "A Study of
Values," Scientific American, 195, No. 1 (July, 1956), p. 26.

5walter P. Webb, The Great Plains (New York: Grosset
and Dunlap, 1931) pp. 227-243.

6Vogt, Scientific Americag, 195, No. 1 (July, 1956),

p. 27.

7Arch w. Troelstrup, Consumer Problems and Personal
Finance (3d ed.; New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1965),
pp. 267-78.

8L. J. Carr and J. E. Stermer, Willow Run (New York:
Harper and Bros., 1952), pp. 89-110.

114

CHAPTER VI
LABOR FORCE DYNAMICS

A description of the labor force, no matter how de-
tailed it might be, cannot explain how the workers are dis-
tributed and redistributed throughout the season among dozens
of construction companies. The present chapter attempts to
describe the dynamics of the pipeline labor force--the
organization within the labor force itself which accounts
for much of the unofficial (but job related) behavior of
pipeliners at work, in crew formation, and in skill training.
The principal questions are: (1) How does a construction
company, whose total staff at the beginning of the season
consists of the contractor himself, a spread superintendent,
and a bookkeeper, manage to have up to two hundred men work-
ing for him within a few days? (2) How does a pipeliner go
about getting what he wants from an industry which is
scattered over the North American Continent?

Pipeline labor force movement becomes understandable
when it is viewed as consisting of workers bound together by
mutual but informal obligations to one another. The for-
mation and persistence of these interpersonal networks be—

comes understandable only within the contexts of the industry,

115

116

the operating spread, groups of kinsmen, and friendship
cliques.

The industry itself affects labor force movement pro-
foundly by the time and distance conditions which character-
izes the construction season. The season begins late in
.March or early in April and ends about the first of January.
Some pipeline work is done the year around especially in the
southern half of the United States, and a few construction
jobs are done in winter by preference. .In parts of the Mid-
west and in Canada some jobs are deliberately put off until
swamps are frozen. In these few cases the convenience of a
firm working surface outweighs the disadvantage of cutting
through frozen mud. Despite these specialized exceptions,
however, most pipeliners can look forward each year to a

stretch of two months or more of unemployment.

The Labor Supply-Demand Cycle

The number of skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled
workers who make up the pipeline labor force is fairly con-
stant. Some workers leave the industry, and a few are re—
cruited and trained each year. Nevertheless, the labor
force is relatively constant in numbers, whereas the need
for pipeliners is cyclic. The heaviest part of the season,
from early May through September, marks the greatest need
for skilled workers. During that time, contracting companies

usually want more help than they can actually get, and there

117

is an abundance of jobs for workers. From October through
January, however, the available number of skilled workers in
the labor force begins to exceed the contractors' needs.
During the light part of the season, when many workers are
available, it would seem that the construction supervisors
could select only the very best and "loyal" workers from
among those in the labor force. It would seem, likewise,
that during the heavy part of the season the workers should
be free to take only the highest paid job, the longest job,
or the job with the most overtime. The catch, however, is
that in a few weeks the supervisor will be required to ask
workers to work for him as a favor. And the same seasonal
conditions of the industry restrict the worker's freedom to
take only the most attractive jobs. The following editorial
is slanted in favor of construction companies rather than
workers. But it gives a good illustration of the influence
of the cyclic pipeline season in mid-season.

Late last year, it became apparent that pipeline

construction work would again be of the "bits and

pieces" variety; short loops, many jobs, and all

companies in a rush to get their pipe in the ground

and in service. Though such developments were fore-

seen and anticipated by contractors, manufacturers

and suppliers, the number of jobs was underestimated.

Between June 13 and July 21, Pipeline Con-

struction tabulated 79 new construction projects

aWarded to pipeline contractors. In the June issue,

we reported, in addition to new contract awards, 124

pipeline projects in various stages of completion in

the United States and Canada. Above figures do not

include pipeline construction abroad.

As such contracts have developed, it has focused

attention even more sharply on chronic soft spots in
the pipeline construction industry. Of these, the

118

most serious is the lack of skilled pipeline workers.
Based on reports from virtually all jobs, a good
pipeliner can set in just about anywhere he wants to
work. welders, office help and "swing" operators are
needed badly. Tie-in and lower-in foremen and
mechanics are hard to locate. Some contractors, we
understand, are operating with about half the number
of welders needed. Competition for a limited number
of workers will drive labor costs up.

Yet, bid prices for pipeline construction con-
tinue to drop. One contractor mentioned to us that
his firm bid on a job in Pennsylvania, was third
from low. This in spite of the fact that the bid
was 10 cents per foot less than the price for the
same size job, in the same area, that his firm did
in 1957.

Thus, in spite of the volume of work under con-
tracts, most contractors are able to bid additional
work. When contractors become loaded with work, bid
prices go up. But because of the short length of
the lines and the rush to get them in, contractors
are forced to keep their work load up with sheer
volume. To do this, they feel they must bid lower
and lower against their competition.

Equipment, material and labor costs are up. Yet
prices for pipeline construction continues to drOp.
Increased production, per dollar spent, has made up
the difference in most cases. But contractors say
they have reached the limit of such economies.

The long-range forecast for pipeline construction
calls for more of the same "bits and pieces" with an
increasing volume each year. In 1966, worker shortages,
lower prices, and a scarcity of construction equip-
ment will be worse than it was in 1965. It will be-
come progressively worse each year until some treat-
ment for these chronic ills is found.

The labor supply-demand cycle affects large and small
companies in almost exactly the same way with respect to re-
cruiting. Although large and small companies do not often
compete for the same contracts, companies of all sizes com-
pete for workers because they have the same problems in'
bringing men and equipment together at the right place at

the right time. Once any job starts, very expensive machines

119

are either used or remain idle, depending upon whether or
not there are workers to operate them. Even the large con-
tracting firms who own most or all of their equipment can
-111 afford not to use it. The unmanned machinery might have
been rented to other companies for high fees. The principal
effect upon the large company of the short Supply of
manpower during the heavy part of the season is lost income.
Whereas the principal effect upon the small company of an
inadequate labor supply often destroys the company. A few
days or hours of idle machines, rented at high fees, can
bankrupt the small company.

Because of the time and distance characteristics of
the industry, the pipeline labor force is necessarily fluid.
“A few pipeliners remain, or try to remain, in a small part
of the American Southwest, and a few refuse to travel farther
than a few miles from "home." Just the opposite are those
pipeliners who prefer to travel as much as possible. They
are "always looking for work in Arabia or Canada." Most of
the workers, however, neither stay at home nor travel for
the sake of travel. Rather, they travel in order to earn as
much money as possible throughout as much of the season as
possible.

Despite the necessity of frequent travel, the nation-
al "community" of pipeliners know each other about as in-
timately as do the members of a small but ecologically co—

herent community. "Hell, I know somebody just about

120

everywhere." Several features of the pipeline way of life
other than common occupation help to sustain this in—group
identity. First, despite frequent separations by great
distance, the pipeliners just as frequently remeet on this

or that job. No two successive crews are identical. The
fluidity which scatters pipeliners over the continent also
brings individuals together again and again. Secondly, the
pipeliner and his family are largely isolated socially in

the communities where they live for brief periods. They are
treated with indifference rather than hostility in most
cases. (There are of course exceptions such as a situation
in which the pipeliner rents a house in an expensive neighbor-
hood and parks his welding truck in front of it each evening
for several weeks.) The pipeliner's contacts with members of
these communities are largely secondary; his primary con-
tacts generally are confined to other pipeliners. Finally--
and this is a central argument of the thesis--the pipeliners
must know each other fairly intimately in order that the
labor force might be distributed among the various companies
throughout the season.

Most pipeliners think of themselves as "from some-
where." There is always a "back home," a town to which the
worker returns when the season ends for him. But except for
"old acquaintances" he is almost as isolated back home as he
is in the communities in which he spends only a few weeks.

The pipeliner often sees his back-home status and his status

121

in other communities as "pipeliner" at best, and "migrant
worker" at worst. The only way he has to distinguish him-
self in either of these communities is through ownership of

expensive consumer items.

Occupational Contact Networks

Sets of relationships among pipeliners which may be
called "occupational contact networks," are the principal
organizing and dynamic characteristics of the pipeline labor
force. The term "occupational contact network" was used by
Katz to describe an informal system in which professionals
found jobs and in which firms found professionals.2 Other
writers have described similar job finding-recruiting net-
works in several different kinds of organizations.

The pipeline contact networks consist of relation-
ships among people who are associated with one another
through mutual aid obligations. The obligations are found
among kinsmen, friends, and former friends, and they center
largely around recruiting and job finding. The relationships
may be sustained at a fairly intimate level, or they may,
after a while, be reduced to the level of mutual economic
exploitation, a type of relationship which Katz called
"other directed friendship."3 The contacts are exploited
when a worker wants a job or when a construction company

supervisor needs workers.

122

Kinship Organization in the
Pipeline Industry

 

Although many pipeliners have no kin relations at
all in the industry, kinship as a basis for mutual aid among
workmen is quite apparent within the industry. Pipelining
favors groups and networks of kinsmen who are more or less
economically dependent upon one another. The kinsmen help
one another to find jobs and to recruit crews. Less fre-
quently, they lend each other money, automobiles, and trucks
for moving. And, often for short periods of time, they live
with each other.

Mutual aid among kinsmen takes two different forms
in the industry. The most common pattern is that in which
several workers, who recognize each other as "kinfolks," are
dependent upon, and obligated to one another. The individuals
may or may not travel together and work on the same jobs.
Whether they do or not depends upon the particular job. They
are often separated, but they generally know how to get in
touch with each other within a few hours. They are aware of
their work related dependence upon one another, but they
ordinarily are not recognized as "bunches" by other workers.
These networks of individuals usually include non-kinsmen.

The second pattern is that in which a genuine group
of kinsmen travel together and work together, usually on the
same spread or gang. The groups recognize themselves as

bunches, and they are recognized as bunches by others. Al-

though the bunch may contain group members who are not

123

kinsmen, it is either identified by a surname (the Jones
bunch) or simply as Charlie's bunch. The bunch is a genuine
social group. In addition to identity, bunches are charac-
terized by group goals and an internal division of labor.

Both the pairs of individuals and the bunches con—
sist of individuals who recognize mutual kinship. Recog-
nition of kinship, beyond one's wife and children, seems not
to include particular behavioral prescription among cate-
gories of kinsmen. Both the networks and the bunches con-
sist of such combinations as two or more brothers, cousins,
brothers-in—law, fathers and sons, grandfathers and grand—
sons, and combinations of these.

Bunches, because they work and travel together, are
more available for direct observation than are the most geo—
graphically scattered kin networks. The most likely possi-
bility, in any given case, is that the members of the bunch
will be found working in several gangs of a spread, but they
often are found to be concentrated in "right of way," "dope,"
or "clean up." Technical requirements are less stringent in
these gangs than in others; mistakes can be more easily cor—
rected or disguised. Following is a brief description of
what seem to be fairly typical examples of bunches and their
relationships to the industry.

The Jennings bunch (a pseudonym) was organized around
a clean up foreman, the "old man." The old man's bunch con-

sisted of himself, a brother (laborer), a brother-in-law

124

(laborer), a son (tractor operator), and a son-in-law
(tractor operator). The members had worked on the same
spreads for a single company throughout two seasons at the
time the observer knew them. All of the bunch members could
and did work on the clean up gang for only a few days on
each contract. But they were used throughout the duration
of each contract because they were transferred from gang to
gang. This was easy to do because laborers and operators
can be used in most of the gangs.

The result of the spreadman's willingness to keep
the Jennings on resulted in their being able to work through-
out most of each contract, and therefore to stay together.
Members of the bunch, despite their preferential retention,
probably did not work as consistently or earn as much money
as they might have had they moved more often from company to
company, but they chose to avoid the problems of much travel.
The company made certain of a cleanup gang when it was
needed, and the old man could "handle" property owners.
"They (farmers) come out on the right of way mad; before he
(the old man) gets through with them they're telling him
where the watermelon patch is."

The bunch described above, because its members ex-
ceeded the number of workers needed on a clean up gang, and
because the clean up gang is needed for only a short period
of time did not often work directly under the old man.

Their advantages, however were due mainly to his special

125

relationship to the company, not theirs. A second bunch
(the Smiths), however, usually did work in a single gang,
the dope gang. The central individual in this gang (the
foreman) usually had a crew consisting of two of his sons,
two sons-in-law, a brother, and two "friends of the family."
This bunch not only worked together in the same gang, they
usually did not work in other gangs when the dope gang had
finished. Technically, they could have, since only the dope
and cleaning machine operators, and the "pot fieman" had ex-
clusively dope gang skills. The dope gang, however, ordi-
narily takes longer to complete its work than does the clean
up gang. Consequently, an entire dope gang can move from
company to company without losing nearly as much work time
as would the clean up gang if the latter only worked on
clean up.

Bunches on gangs, other than right of way, clean up,
and dope, seem to be less prominent in the industry. (And
when individuals on more technically demanding gangs such as
"pipe," and "welding" are identified as a bunch they seem
rarely to number more than two individuals although several
such pairs can be identified.

Most of the time, bunches are labeled with a family
name, and the name more or less accurately describes the
group. Occasionally, however, a bunch will be larger than
the typical ad hoc kin group, and it will be identified with

a town or a geographic location. The area around Lansing,

126

Michigan, it is reported, gets most of its crews from
Tennessee, whereas 35 miles south in Jackson, Michigan,
crews are reputed to consist mostly of Texans. The most
striking example of a bunch identified with a place is found
further north in Central Michigan. Dope gangs in the area
are identified as "Bald Knobbers" because the gangs come to
Michigan each summer from Bald Knob, Arkansas, a city whose
1960 population was 2,096. Several Bald Knob bunches have
worked off and on in the area for several years. Local
company officials probably exaggerate somewhat when they say
that "all.the dope hands come from Bald Knob," but the follow-
ing statement seems to be fairly accurate. If you need a
good dope man (foreman) and you can't find one around here,
there usually is somebody in Bald Knob who can help you out."
Bunches are a frequent type of informal group in the
industry. But most of the particularism which is relevant
for the industry occurs among pairs of individuals. These
pairs may or may not consist of kinsmen, but the paired indi-
viduals have built up a set of mutual obligations to one

another.

-L§bor Force Allocation: The Dynamic Problem

In order to understand the complicated set of adjust-
ment which workers and companies make, it is necessary to ex-
amine the minimum needs of contracting companies and the job

related wishes of pipeliners. The officials of a contracting

127

company, first of all, need enough technical knowledge to
bid wisely and to organize the work efficiently. Beyond
this, however, the contracting company needs the following:
At the beginning of a contract, the contractor needs a crew
of workers in fairly precise proportions of various skills.
‘A few days before each job, the spread superintendent may be
the company's only full time employees other than the book-
keeper (who may be the contractor's wife). Even in the
largest companies, the construction crew may number no more
than three or four individuals at the beginning of each con—
tract. It is the job of the one or more individuals to re—
cruit a crew rapidly.

The company not only needs a crew with the appropri-
ate skills but it needs a loyal crew. The company's super-
visors need to be able to depend upon the workers to remain
on the job until it is finished and to cooperate with him in
his competition with competing companies and in his company's
frequent conflicts with unions, inspectors, public officials,
and property owners. One of the persistent dangers to the
company with a full crew is that word will get around that
another company is permitting more overtime. ("You take
some of these bastards will drag up the minute they smell a
little overtime.") Frequently, the only thing that will
keep workers from quitting to pursue overtime is whatever
personal loyalty the supervisor can command. The loyalty

which is useful to the company usually is to the person of

128

the supervisor, not to the company. A company which cannot
use a crew for more than a few weeks or a few days can
hardly engender loyalty in its workers.

The supervisor needs a minimum of authority. His
official authority, of course, is clear. workers know who
is in charge and they recognize the authority as legitimate.
Legitimate authority, however, rests upon consent, and the
pipeline supervisor's authority is potentially weak because
of the short time in which he has official control over
workers. A worker who, during the heavy season, is dis-
satisfied can quit without losing more than one or two days
work; he will lose no more time if he is fired. One of the
most frequent worries of supervisors is the mass "drag up"
in which a large portion of the crew or gang stops working.
The supervisor's problem is, then, one of how to buttress his
official position sufficiently to successfully command the
efforts of a crew. The short supply of workers during the
heavy season not only makes workers hard to find but it also
makes them hard to control on the basis of the supervisor's
official position alone.

Time is a persistent preoccupation of the workers.
When pipeliners are asked about what kind of a season they
want, they very often mention certain places they would like
to go. But the most frequently mentioned characteristics of
a good season are in the order of their importance to pipe—

liners: (1) plenty of overtime, (2) jobs of long duration

129

(two or three months), (3) little lost time between jobs,
(4) the shortest distance between jobs, (5) a long season,
and (6) good bosses, "the kind of man you like to work for."

Overtime is a constant concern of pipeliners. The
observer once asked a worker to tell him the difference be-
tween a "professional" (or real) pipeliner and a non-
professional "hand." He answered: "when he (the pipeliner)
goes crazy over overtime." The observer recalls once during
an especially difficult river crossing when the "summertime
college boys" complained about the long hours; two of them
“drug up." No complaints, however, were heard from the "pro-
fessionals." In fact they seemed to exhibit some exhiler-
ation, expressed in increased horseplay despite great
fatigue.

Often companies are compelled to grant overtime in
order to keep crews until a job is finished. hSome con-
tractors express fear that "overtime is going to get out of
hand." The following editorial expresses this fear:

In his message, President Johnson said that im—

posing a double pay penalty after 45 hours' .
would bring a significant increase in employment
. . . without impairment of operating efficiency
. . . by distributing to new employees work which
presently is performed through excessive overtime:

Undoubtedly this proposal will be welcomed by

a large segment of our circulation list, those who
work for various contractors on an hourly basis.
Their initial thought will be that this will mean
more money in the pay checks each week.

That first thought is deceptive. As in virtual-

ly every pie-in—the—sky proposal submitted by

dreamy eyed, unrealistic workmen on the payroll of
the chief social arbitrator of the 'Great Society,‘

130

there's a big fishhook hidden in an attractive gob
of bait.
The pipeline workers would suffer. Their pay
would drop, drastically, because pipeline con-
tractors would cut down the working hours to stay
within the time allocated. Pipeline companies
would not construct many new facilities with con-
tract labor.4
During the summer months (the middle of the season)
the worker has a great range of choices for jobs. Rarely is
a skilled pipeliner without work during this period. At the
beginning of the season, he has decreasing difficulty and
near the end, he has increasing difficulty finding jobs.
The worker sees his main economic problem for the work year
to be that of squeezing as much work time out of the season
as possible. He knows that he can usually expect to be with-
out work for two winter months at least. He also knows that
time between jobs and time spent in travel will reduce his
actual paid working time to less than six months of the year.
Uncertainty is constant companion to the pipeliner.
Each season may bring large incomes, but it also brings huge
expenses. Many of the pipeliners find it necessary to main-
tain two residences. Wives and children may remain back
home while the pipeliners live in a variety of rooming houses,
apartments, and motels. Or they may keep their families with
them. Housing cost here may exceed three hundred dollars per
month, especially since pipeliners buy and trade mobile homes
in much the same way they buy and sell automobiles. The

trailer is traded in within three or four years after it is

bought. Since the mobile homes depreciate at a rate of only

131

slightly less than that of an automobile their trade-in
value drops rapidly. Hence a mobile home which costs $6,000
new may be worth $3,500 to $4,000 only a year later. Food,
very often, is more expensive for the pipeliner than it is
for other people. The worker often eats two meals daily in
restaurants. If his company does not furnish "jungle lunch"
at noon, he will often eat three.

The pipeliner's earning power varies from year to
year, depending upon the kinds of contracts awarded for a
particular year. But his earning power is increased if,
through his contacts, he can complete the season within a
radius of one or two hundred miles. If he can reduce the
distance between jobs he can reduce much of his expenses.

”Although the pipeliner can be almost fully employed
throughout the summer, this does not guarantee that he will
be able to work overtime. Contracting companies do not like
to pay overtime although they often are compelled to do so
in order to meet construction deadlines, to make up for in-
complete crews, to get the pipe in the ground before the
"snow flies," or (during the heavy part of the season) to
hold crews. .Labor unions discourage overtime because it re—
duces the number of workers needed. WOrkers, however, know
that they can increase their earnings greatly through over-
time. Overtime permits the pipeliner to allow for many con-
tingencies. There is, for example, no sick leave pay unless

the worker can claim workman's compensation for injuries

132

received on the job. Table 3 indicates the worker's stake
in overtime.

Modern technical innovation seems to be cutting down
the length of time spent on each job and the amount of over-
time which is available for some workers. For example the
most transferable worker,on the spread, except for general
laborers, is the tractor operator. He may work in several
different gangs on a single contract. When the pipe gang
has finished its work, he can transfer to the dope gang then
to one of the other gangs. However, the increasing use of
helicopters in mountainous areas is reducing (not replacing)

his skills in the stringing of pipe.5

Exchange

In order to understand the movement of the pipeline
labor force, it is necessary to view it in terms of its own
organization. The informal systems involve workers, con—
struction company supervisors, and shipping company in-
spectors, all in sets of reciprocal relationships with one
another. It is through these sets of relationships that the
pipeline labor force becomes distributed among the many
companies operating in the industry. Informal organization
within the labor force centers around the worker's attempts
to exchange his skill, and his loyalty for "good jobs," and
around the supervisor's willingness to grant special ad-

vantages to workers in exchange for "good work," loyalty, and

133

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134

support for his authority. Many things, of course, are ex-
changed by pipeliners as well as by other people, such as
respect, privacy, and affection. Among pipeliners, however,
many exchanges, while not involving income directly, are
nevertheless ultimately negotiable. The pipeliner, if he is
to "make any money," must seek advantage in an alternately
expanding and shrinking set of opportunities for income.

The company supervisor, likewise, must actively seek con—
tinuing alliances with workers, and groups of workers in
order to insure himself an adequate crew during periods in
which jobs excede workers.

The worker feels at least a minimum responsibility
to the company and he usually can be depended upon to carry
out most of his job assignments efficiently. Pipeliners take
universalistic standards of competence seriously. Abstract
sentiments of duty, however, do not insure the degree of
power which supervisors actually need in order to muster
crews. The authority which construction companies grant to
their supervisors does not extend beyond a single contract.
The supervisor's official ability to reward and punish
workers gives him authority on a particular job, but in it-
self it does not give him access to needed workers when it
is time to man crews during the heavy partof the season.
The supervisor can acquire the power necessary to run his
spread or his gang through his involvement in systems of

exchange which characterize the whole pipeline labor force.

135

Likewise, the worker must depend upon his involvements in
interpersonal networks as well as upon his skills and his
willingness to submit to legitimate authority.

The networks originate in a variety of extra-industry
relations-kin ties, friendships, and others. But, the
worker's informal relations usually eventually become bar-
gaining relationships. Hence, bargaining seems to be the
principal dynamic pattern of exchange for most of the be-
havior of the pipeline labor force. The most conspicuous
concrete expression of the networks as bargaining systems
can be seen in (l) the interpersonal behavior of workers in
the day to day schisms and coalitions which characterize the
operating spread. WOrker actions may conflict with the
company at times and support it at times, or groups of
workers may be in simultaneous cooperation with and conflict
with the companies at the same time. (2) A more elaborate
and durable set of exchange patterns are those through which
crews are formed. It is through these that supervisors re-
cruit workers, and workers find jobs. (3) The most durable
pattern of all is the informal apprenticeship system--a pro-
cess which necessarily involves the trainee in prolonged
network relations.

The following field descriptions illustrate patterns
of schism and coalition as these are exhibited from day to

day.

136

Schism and Coalition

The current job was almost completed and the next
job could not be started for several days. The contractor
had decided to lay off the men rather than to pay them wait-
ing time; possible because this was during winter slack
»season when workers were easy to hire. On the day when the
workers heard this news the welders held two spontaneous
meetings. The first of the two meetings was concerned with
the possibility of blocking the lay-off through the union.
The union steward said that he thought the union could do
nothing since the contractor would not have an active con-
tract when the current job was completed. One of the
welders, directing his remarks to the union steward who was
an avowed "union man," said: "yeah, that's the way it is,
the union knows what to do when it comes time to pay dues,
but when you need help, you can go to hell as far as the
union is concerned." The union steward only shrugged his
shoulders and went back to his rig. The "flare-up" broke up
the first meeting and the men resumed work. Later in the
day, however, the union steward came to the welder who had
made the derogatory remarks and said to him: "I'll check
with the union tonight but I don't think it will do any good;
it's like a contractor wasn't even in business if he don't
have a contract." The other welder replied: "Yeah, I just
popped off." Meanwhile the other welders had come up to the

pair and the conversation, at first a catalog of the faults

137

of the contractor, soon turned to other topics unrelated to
the conflict. The rate at which the welders ordinarily
worked began to slow down perceptibly.

What the welders did or talked about after the day's
work is not known, except that the steward called a union
official who confirmed his own belief about union power in
the conflict. There was some speculation among other workers
however which indicated much concern by management regarding
the possibility of a "wobble." The spreadman was heard to
say that he would never hire any of the welders again.

The next day all of the welders reported for work
but their progress was conspicuously slow. Often after each
weld they got together and talked, with little or no talk
about the lay-off. Their strategy was now implicit. One of
the welder's helpers started to do some minor task during
one of the bull sessions. His welder shouted at him: "What
are you trying to do, work yourself out of a job." The
helper laughed and stopped. .Later in the day, the spreadman
stopped his pickup truck on the top of a small hill and
watched the welders. One of them remarked: "We're being
'bird dogged'“ (watched). Another one replied: "yep." No
move was made to go back to work until the spreadman drove
away. Later he came to the group and called for the union
steward; they both left in the pickup. They came back a
little later, the steward got out, and the spreadman drove

away. The steward asked the assembled welders: "You guys

138

want to settle for travel time from here to home?" They all
agreed to settle and work was resumed at the regular pace.

“Pace setting," similar to "rate setting" in
factories, is used only infrequently for output restriction.
The reason probably is that gangs often reach a point on the
line where they can go no further. When this happens,
skilled workers and in-group laborers "go in for ten." (i.e.,
they actually work less than ten hours but are paid for a
full ten hour day.)

Welders use pace setting in at least three ways:

(1) to maintain a norm of an "honest day's work for an
honest dollar," (2) to restrict the number of welders hired,
and (3) to reject certain other welders. Of the three uses
of pace setting, the first most resembles the rate setting
found among factory piece-workers. The proper pace is not
explicitly stated except when a manager makes "unreasonable"
demands, when a welder has to be told that he is "working
himself out of a job," or, as happens infrequently, when a
worker has to be told that he is too slow and that he is
"making us all look bad."

Pace setting to restrict the number of welders hired
seems rarely to be practiced. workers talk of a few cases
in which it has occurred; however, the observer was present
several times when the welders were dissatisfied with the
number of welders being brought into the gang, but their ob-

jections were not carried into action.

139

The use of pace setting to reject disliked welders
is probably more common than its use to restrict the number
of workers. The observer was able to watch the following
incident: Five new welders were brought into the spread
from another one operated by the same company. One of the
new welders happened to be a well-known and disliked "wind
bag.“ He was assigned to a group of welders which had been
working on the spread since the beginning of the contract.
Early in the morning, the old welders got together and de-
cided to "weld out" on the rejectee. This was done in the
following way: They began to move from "set-up" to "set-up"
by going "round about" instead of "single file." (A "set-up"
is the length of pipe a welder works on before he moves his
truck; "round about" moving means that each welder completes
his set up and then goes all of the way to the head of the
line of welders for another set-up; "single file," the common
mode of movement, means that none of the welders change po-
sition until all of the welders are ready to move up; then
each welder follows the welder in front of him.) Each of
the welders, in this case, began to work hard and rapidly,
and without regard for the progress of each other, but the
rejectee kept up with the pace until his truck became bogged
down-in the sand. It is common practice for a stalled welder
to be helped by other welders, but the rejectee was passed
by. (After the day's work the welders gathered at a filling

station where they often refueled. One of them remarked:

140

"well, we welded out on old P ." Another one replied,
"Yeah but he had to get stuck in the sand; one thing you got
to say for the sonofabitch, he's a 'welder.'"

Property owners can slow down the work by threatened
litigation or by insisting that the workers and machinery
remain strictly on the right of way. work can proceed much
faster sometimes if the contractor has more "elbow room"
than is afforded by the legal right of way. The property
owner in such cases is dealt with by favors such as dirt
moving work or money payments.

workers, inspectors, and supervisors can cooperate
in frustrating attempts of union representatives to carry
out union policy. For example a crew had been working in a
pump station for two days. The main line had been completed
and most of the spread's workers had been brought to the pump
station to help with a number of complicated "tie ins." The
regular pump station employees were unionized and the owning
company had an agreement with the union that non-union
members were not to work within the area. During the first
two days of work at the station the union steward had been
checking the workers for currently valid union cards. Very
few of the men had them. On the third day the steward
threatened to have the job shut down, but the owning company
officials persuaded him to talk it over with the contractor
first. The steward then came to the spreadman and asked

where he could get in touch with the contractor. Although

141

the contractor was standing nearby (just a few seconds be-
fore, the spreadman and contractor had been talking) the
spreadman answered: "Hell I don't know: Last I heard of
him, he was in New Mexico." The contractor left soon and
didn't return to the job. The union steward mingled with
the workers during the few days required to finish the job.
.As far as the observer was able to tell, the steward never
learned that the contractor had been in the area. The job
was completed without further conflict.

Most of these "team performances" represent silent
conspiracies--implicit agreements to deal with particular
situations as a “team."6 It was understood, for example, by
members of a ditching gang that Indian graves uncovered by
the ditching machine on the Navaho reservation were to be
disguised as rapidly as possible and not discussed in town.
The secrecy about the graves occasionally unearthed by the
ditching machine was designed to avoid the legal requirement
that these must be reported. When reported, officials, in-
cluding Interior Department officials could and frequently
did stop the jobs until the nature of the graves and their
possible legal significance and archeological value were

determined.*

 

*These examples, of course, pose an ethical problem
for the observer. It is fairly easy to extend the attitude
of cultural relativism to pipeliners when the only thing re-
maining in the grave is a rectangle of black earth. The ob-
server's tolerance, however, may be strained when he hears
that an intact pithouse has been bulldozed into oblivion. The

142

Many of the performances are explicit conspiracies.
For example, a company official often drives in a radio
equipped automobile a mile or so in front of a truck that is
illegally overloaded. If the official sees a police patrol
car he radios a disguised danger signal to another radio
equipped car just behind the truck. The second car then
signals the truck driver who turns off onto a side road.
Most pipeline truck drivers know the safest routes around
ports of entry at a dozen state borders.

A railroad crossing job provided an illustration of
broad cooperation on the part of an entire crew. On one
railroad crossing job, the railroad fill proved to be an
especially difficult one to bore through. The fill con-
tinued to cave in, and to become dangerous to the railroad.
In this case the spreadman assigned a worker to do nothing
but watch for railroad officials who might have the job
halted. Another time, a county road commissioner delivered
an ultimatum to a contractor that a job would be stopped if
safety signs were not placed along the road which ran along-
side the pipeline right of way. The spreadman could not
meet both the safety standards and his contract deadline.
Consequently, he and one of the gang foremen drove to town,

discovered that the commissioner was alcoholic and that his

 

quaint theory of an extinct race of peOple "no mor'n a foot
and a half high" which pipeliners have evolved to explain
the pits does not make up for the observer's discomfdture.

143

drinking pattern was of the "hinge" type. The commissioner
was reported to remain alternately sober for a few weeks and
then drunk for one or two weeks. The supervisors also
learned from townspeople the commissioner's favorite brand
of liquor, visited him to consult him about types of road
signs, got him drunk, and finished the job without making
any changes in safety signs.

The function of a nationwide recruiting system for
the industry is obvious. .The short term jobs and the speed
needed to recruit a crew cannot be met by any kind of formal
recruiting agency. Union locals come closest to furnishing
formal recruiting channels, but their participation in the
process is minimal. In order to meet the demand for welders
the Pipeline Contractor's Association has founded a pipeline
welding school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The school plans to
train and recruit but it is too early to evaluate its impact
upon the industry.7

The payoff for the construction supervisors' partici-
pation in the informal networks is more ready access to crews
needed during the heavy summer season, crews for unattractive
and dangerous jobs, and crews for very short jobs in places
remote from concentrations of pipeline jobs. By cashing in
a worker's obligations to himself for past favors or by
granting and withholding favors the supervisor can extend his
power beyond the authority of his official position. The

supervisor can also command the loyalty his company needs in

144

gaining advantage in his dealings with unions, other com-
panies, inspectors, and public officials. It is difficult
for the worker to think of "my company," when during a single
season he may work for a dozen different companies. The
supervisor, however, can muster kinship and friendship loyal-
ties to the company. .Loyalty to the supervisor, whether it
is based on kinship or friendship, for all practical purposes
becomes loyalty to the company.

The supervisor has several kinds of favors to use in
labor market trade. He can grant overtime to some workers
and withhold it from others. He can make a particular job
last longer for some workers than for others. Tractor oper-
ators are needed on a job at first in increasing numbers and
then in decreasing numbers as the job progresses. The super-
visor can use a few operators from "kickoff to tie in." Less
favored operators have shorter jobs. The supervisor can
trade detailed knowledge of future opportunities and the
higher he is in the company hierarchy, the more likely it is
that he will have participated in the bidding process. Con—
struction superintendents are almost certain to help de-
termine the bid which will be submitted. Gang foremen are
consulted much of the time. These officials, then, have
knowledge of future opportunities in proportion to their
rank in the company. The supervisor frequently can make
opportunities available for training other people's sons and

other relatives. He can trade all of these things for

145

submission to authority, loyalty, and a willingness to toler-
ate mosquito-ridden swamp jobs and other equally undesirable
jobs. The worker, who is willing to "help out," can expect
more overtime, longer periods on particular jobs, opportuni-
ties for his relatives and knowledge about future jobs.

The inspector's role in the exchange is often im-
portant. He can "make it hard or easy" on construction
company officials. The inspector has considerable latitude
in-interpreting the quality of work. Some of the latitude
the shipping company gives to him (e.g., his "judgment"),
and some he assumes (e.g., his duplicity in c00peration with
construction company officials). The inspector usually is an
ex-pipeliner who has given up high income in favor of settled
residence. He usually knows many of the pipeliners personal-
ly, and his sentiments often are those of the pipeliner's
despite the fact that his duties lie with the shipping
company. He is in a position to receive favors from pipe-
liners such as having his son trained in a pipeline skill.

There remains the question of how these systems of
advantages which rest essentially upon particularistic re-
lations are integrated with the universalist production
standards of the industry. The integrative aspects of pipe-

lining are examined in Chapter VIII.

FOOTNOTES

1William R. Quarler, "Editorial," Pipeline Con-
struction (August, 1965), p. 2.

2Katz, p. 317.
C. W. Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1956).

Joseph Mitchell, "The Mohawks in High Stell" in
Edward Wilson, Apologies to the Iroquois (New York: Random

House, InCI, 1959), pp. 3_380

Myers.
Sasaki.

Warner.

3Katz, p. 319.

4Editorial, Pipeline Construction (June, 1965), p. 3.

 

SLewis, Pipeline Industry (April, 1966), p. 57.

6Goffman, pp- 77-105.

7"National Pipeline welding School Begins," Pipeline
Construction (August, 1965). p. 22.

146

CHAPTER VII

APPRENTICESHIP: A LONG RANGE CONSEQUENCE

OF THE EXCHANGE NETWORKS

This chapter undertakes a description of the social
relationships involved in becoming a skilled pipeline con-
struction worker. The industry offers a convenient oppor-
tunity to study the informal and direct training of workers.
Construction companies do not sponsor formal training pro-
grams, yet most of the skilled workers in pipelining prob-
ably were trained on the job while working as laborers.
Moreover, the skills are fairly complex and in order to
learn one of them, the learner must have instruction and he
must have access to the equipment and materials with which
to practice. The process of skill learning then, has been
examined in terms of the trainee's status relationships to:
(1) previously trained workers who can give or withhold in-
struction, (2) supervisors who control access to the materials
and equipment for practice, and (3) inspectors who control
work quality.

Groups of families (bunches) and cliques often travel
together from job to job. In this way, the groups remain

fairly cohesive despite the frequent moves which must be

147

148

made. This is fortunate for the pipeline apprentice be-
cause he is very dependent upon such primary groups through-
out most of his training. The group usually contains his
main instructor and it keeps him informed about new jobs and
jobs in which he may practice his goal skill. In addition,
friendship-kinship group members often supplement his salary
by furnishing him with food, lodging, and money for other
expenses. Even with his advantages, the trainee, like other
workers, often is unemployed. Consequently his laborer's
salary alone is not always enough to meet his expenses.

.The pipeline skill aspirant may learn a trade in one
of four generally recognized skill categories. These are,
in the descending order of their income and prestige among
the workers: welder, heavy equipment operator, pipe pro-
cessing machine operator, and truck driver. He may acquire
the necessary training in trade schools (welders only), in
other industries, or by "breaking out on the line" while
working as a laborer.

Most skilled workers probably are trained on the
line while working as laborers. Trade school welders are
not favored and, despite the fact that most of the pipeline
skills are found exclusively in other industries, entry of
outside trained workers is restricted by pipeliners' un-
favorable attitudes toward them. The attitudes probably are
reinforced by outside trained workers' initial ignorance of

pipeline routines. Outsiders are seen as inferior in skill

149

and as workers who will not live up to their obligations to
contractors and the transmission companies. "Not only is
their work had, but they don't give a damn." An observer
can hear a number of statements such as "I never saw a trade
school (or shop) welder who was worth a damn." "The only
time I've ever worked a trade school welder was when I was
in union territory." "They know everything, you can't tell
them nothing; send them to the dope gang to weld a piece of
equipment, they can't find it; you got to show them. They
don't know a dope pot from a granny rag. (And besides it's
not just knowing how to weld, you got to know the pipeline."
An incident which occurred between two unemployed
tractor operators demonstrates some of the attitudes held by
in-group pipeliners which help to restrict jobs to those
workers trained on the line. The two workers were sitting
around talking and drinking whiskey in an apartment house
living room. Although getting off the subject occasionally,
the conversation remained generally on pipelines and pipe-
liners. One of the men becoming expansive, stood up and
said in a loud voice, "If I don't get a job pretty soon, I
ain't gonna' remember how to pull them levers (steering de-
vices on a tractor)--better get a little practice." He then
got two chairs, set them side by side in front of another
chair, sat in the third chair and began to operate the
imaginary tractor. He furnished sound effects and mock ex-

ertions. In a little while, another unemployed worker,

150

affecting what was taken for the walk and speech of a farmer,
walked up to the "tractor operator" and asked: "You reckon
a feller could get a job on this here pipeliner?"

"Had any experience?" asked the operator.

"Shore have," answered the "farmer." "I reckon I've
drove them Farmalls a thousand miles."

"How many levers them Farmalls got?" asked the
operator.

"Bout as many as this here Caterpillar," replied the
"farmer."

"Well," said the operator, "you can go to work but
you'll have to get used to these levers; the first one will
be a 'idiot stick' (long-handled spade) and then sort of

work up these here on a tractor."

Breaking Out

Upon first examination pipeline skill-learning ap—
pears to be loose and unorganized because unskilled workers
seem to pick up skill techniques just here and there. Pipe-
liners themselves tend to see the acquisition of skill as
cumulative experience on the pipeline plus some help from
skilled workers. This seems essentially to be true but
getting a trade is selective rather than random, and it is
made to conform to workers' beliefs about what it takes to

be a pipeline welder or an operator.

151

The social relationships involved in pipeline skill-
learning may be described as a series of changing status-
role relationships between the trainee and the pe0ple who
help him to break out: skilled workers, supervisors, and in-
spectors. The process seems to consist of at least three
distinct stages. First, and with few exceptions, the trainee
must be a kinsman or a friend of some pipeliner who can
either train him or to someone who can arrange to have him
trained. Next, he goes through a period of training and
practice in which he is a laborer officially, but, in which
he has special privileges and duties other laborers do not
have. During this time he is recoqnized as a "bronc breaking
out," and other workers often are obligated to help him when-
ever they can. He is among the last of the laborers to be
laid off during the progress of the job, and he is hired
over other laborers on new jobs. The third, and most criti-(
cal, stage is that in which he must make a transition from
dependency to competitive relationships with bosses and

other workers.

The First Stage

There is little need to distinguish a first stage if
the trainee is kin to the person who helps him most. If,
however, he is not kin to someone who can help him, he must
establish a training-strategic friendship with some pipe-

liner or become a member in a pipeliner clique. Of course,

152

all such friendships are not made by skill aspirants; never-
theless, it is acceptable on the pipeline to "get next to
somebody who can break you out." Because some unskilled
workers seem deliberately to establish friendships in order
to break out, this may be considered as a first stage in
some workers' training.

If the way in which a skill aspirant goes about
getting next to someone is conspicuous, he may be seen in
one of two ways by in-group workers. He may "grape up" to a
skilled worker. This is conspicuous, but not censured. He
may "suckup“ to a boss, in which case he is a "brown nose."
This is censured and the subject is exposed to frequent and
colorful innuendoes concerning his relationship to his bene-
factor. He is able to learn a skill but his progress de-
pends largely upon a single in-group pipeliner.

The opportunities for establishing training-strategic
friendships may be found both during and after the work day.
Recreation places and restaurants are convenient locations
for friendships to be established. Local hands often help
the unmarried pipeliners to find dates in towns near the job.
A local hand's instrumental value as a go-between may turn
into a friendship which may later permit him to learn a skill.

The work day affords opportunities to establish
friendships through "horseplay." A worker may get himself
typed as a "smart aleck" or a "pretty good old boy" depending

upon the way he enters into horseplay. Horseplay on the

153

line consists of hitting, wrestling, clod throwing, name
calling, tightening Vises with long "cheater pipes," and
urinating on welding rods (dried ureia is invisible on the
rods and it produces a strong and startling odor when the
welder fires up). Horseplay is permitted on the line if it
does not interfere with work. Consequently, much of it is
not formally controlled, but the informal control of horse-
play approximates something like the "pecking order" found
among chickens.2 It is often carried on between status un-
equals, but the low status person does not initiate it.
There are long-standing friendly feuds among workers but the
time and place for acting these out are chosen by the upper
status workers when status discrepancies are broad, as in a
feud between a laborer and an operator.

The time and place control of non-technical behavior
by upper status workers sometimes extends to conventionalized
greetings as in the following example: During a lull in the
work, a fairly new laborer walked up to a truck in which a
welder and the observer were sitting. He asked the welder:
"who is that bird with you, is he worth a damn for anything?"
(A common innocuous remark on the line.) The welder neither
answered nor looked at the worker: The worker stood with his
foot on the truck's running board for a few minutes and then
walked away. During the next few days that he worked on the
spread, the laborer made several other attempts to enter in-

to the horseplay and banter of the in-group workers. It is

154

doubtful whether he was rebuffed so completely as he was by
the welder, but within a few days he “drug up (quit) for no
reason and borrowed money to get home on."

A foreman, commenting on the worker, said: "I've
seen that kind before: they get out on the line and want to
fool around. Who the hell does he think he is?" The fool-
ing around that the worker tried to do was apparently no
more than the horseplay that in—group workers carry on, but
he was labeled an “overbearing smart aleck" because "common
hands don't act like they owned the pipeline." Out-group
workers probably cannot get into a position to learn a trade
by remaining passive. But the skill aspirant must often use
great discretion in his aggressive attempts to learn.

The extent and manner in which an unskilled worker
enters into horseplay is perhaps more of an index to his
standing than it is a means to achieve status, but decorous
participation may enhance his chances of getting next to a
strategic person. For the most part, this means that he must
wait for the time and place cues, and be a cheerful target
for practical jokes.

There are at least two other types of work situations
in which an unskilled worker may become a friend of some
pipeliner who can help him break out. Probably the most
common is that in which a skilled worker trains his helper.
This seems especially to be true of welders. Physical stress

situations, such as river crossings, also give some outsiders

155

an opportunity to become in—group pipeliners. Once started,
many crossings must be completed before the workers quit
work for the day. Consequently, they often spend many con-
tinuous hours on a crossing with only the sleep afforded by
thirty or forty minute naps taken in pickup trucks, on
tractor and dope pot trucks, and on the damp river sand.
There is an apt saying among pipeliners that a river crossing
“separates the men from the boys." Many unskilled workers
are free to "go to the house" (quit for the day) during a
crossing and those who remain on the job for continuous
periods of up to 80 hours gain some prestige. At least
their names become known to other pipeliners. workers may
even be recognized as in—group pipeliners because "only a
pipeliner is that crazy about overtime."

In addition to proving their physical prowess and be-
coming known by being seen continuously, laborers who work
on river and difficult road crossings have the advantage of
a less rigid informal status system. Although formal work
roles are maintained, normal work routines are changed.
Social distance between bosses and workers, and between high
and low status workers, is lessened perceptibly. In—group
out-group distinctions seem to disappear altogether. workers
become more and more compatible with one another as their
fatigue increases. Any joke, no matter how old and often
heard, produces laughter. werkers become tolerant of each

others' mistakes and clumsiness. The laborer who was unable

156

to enter into the horseplay during a regular work day proba-
bly could have done so easily during a river crossing.

Group morale seems to be higher on crossings than it is in
other work situations. This high spirit.and cordiality may
be caused in part by the overtime pay that workers get on
crossings. Or it may be a reaction to the danger of "getting
on each other's nerves." In either case, it seems that such
physical stress situations offer important opportunities for

the induction of out-group workers.

The Second Stage

Once the trainee becomes recognized as a man break-
ing out (the second stage) he learns by instruction and
practice of the skill. If he is learning to weld, he can
observe the techniques employed in that skill daily. At
slack moments in the day's work he can weld on scrap pipe
and perfect his own technique. If he is learning to operate
a side boom or dozer, the practice consists of operating the
machines where expert work is not too important. During
this stage, the trainee may receive instruction and super-
vised practice from several skilled workers in a single day.
Indeed, under certain conditions, any skilled worker is
obligated to help the trainee. For example, if an operator
has a task to do in which the work need not be expert and
there is a trainee present who needs the practice, the

skilled operator is more or less obligated to let him do the

157

work. In many cases, it might seem that being thus "spelled"
(relieved by a trainee) gives the skilled operator an oppor-
tunity to rest, but often it is an added responsibility

". . . it is easier to do the work yourself than to worry
around with some bronc."

This seems true for all trainees except those learn-
ing to weld. Welder trainees, although they may not be
trained by the kinsmen or friend who help them to get in.
tend to get their training from a single welder. Whereas
operator trainees enjoy fairly free access to equipment,
welder trainees are more restricted as to the equipment they
may use and the conditions under which they may use it.

This, perhaps, is due to the fact that most pipeline welders
own their own rigs whereas the tools used by other skilled
workers are owned usually by the contracting company.

Occasionally, trainees are restricted to bits of
technical information, doled out piecemeal. One welder sent
his helper-trainee back to the welding truck several times to
get a single piece of equipment. A part of the running
conversation between welder and trainee during the incident
was approximately as follows:

Welder: "Get me a 'round about."I

Trainee: "What's a round about?"

Welder: "It's in the truck get me a round about."

Welder: (After trainee returns with the wrong tool.)

"That ain't no round about."

158

Trainee: "well, I don't know what a round about is."

welder: Walking to the truck to get the tool (a de-
vice used to mark pipe for cutting). "Boy, if you gonna'
weld on the pipeline, you gonna' hafta learn what a round
about is."

Perhaps such instruction helps to account for the
fact that it often takes up to four years to master pipeline
welding. The foregoing example is not, however, simply the
result of pure malice on the part of the welder. Many such
deliberate blocks to skill learning seem to be based upon
the assumption that "you aughtn't to have to show a bronc
everything."

Throughout the second stage of training, the trainee's
status is recognized by management largely through super-
visors' implicit permission to use time, expendable materials,
and equipment in practicing. It is recognized by owning
company inspector's through their tolerance of substandard
work.

Often the supervisors participate more actively in
the bronc's training. For example, if an assignment does
not interfere with other work, a skilled worker will some-
times be assigned to a special task admittedly because he is
breaking out a bronc. Road crossings furnish an especially
convenient setting for welder trainees. Very often a welder
on a crossing will be waiting more than working, thus giving

his bronc a chance to practice on scrap pipe. In addition

159

to time, the pipe is placed inside of a protective casing
which is made and fitted to the particular road. Since its
main function is to keep dirt from scraping the dope from
the pipe, the welding does not have to be expert, and the
trainee can do much of the actual work.

Management's support is not entirely due to direct
kinship or friendship and other ties. Most managers have
attained their own position through one, or a series of, on
the job apprenticeships. Consequently, the trainee has the
advantage of the belief that such training is the only way
to become adequately skilled. In addition, after the trainee
has worked as a laborer for several weeks, he usually has
acquired some knowledge of the routines of pipelining. As a
result, he is sometimes assigned to straw boss groups of
laborers on special jobs which are not handled directly by
any of the standard gangs.

The inspector's interest in the bronc's achievement
usually is more remote than is that of the contracting
company boss. Inspectors tend to remain in one area. Conse-
quently, they are much less likely to be kin to the trainee
than are bosses. Occasionally, an inspector will arrange to
have one of his kinsmen trained by a pipeline skilled worker,
but the key to the inspector's participation in the ap-
prenticeship system seems not to be in any extra job relation-
ship between himself and the trainee; rather, it comes about

as a result of his necessary cooperation with contracting

160

company managers. Superficially the interests of managers
and inspectors are antagonistic. Managers want to make a
profit as quickly as possible, whereas inspectors want
enough time spent to maintain their companies' standards.
But, in order to get the work done, the two groups of workers
cooperate in many ways. For example, they must deal often
with recalcitrant private property owners and public of-
ficials. Much of this cooperation is necessarily covert and
informal because some of the negotiations are against trans-
mission company policies, or they are illegal (e.g., fre-
quent bribery). It seems that the inspectors' support of
the bronc is an extension of this cooperative tendency.

That is, it seems to be a situation in which the inspectors
reason: "You help me out, and I'll help take care of your

boy."

The Third Stage

The third stage of the trainee's progress seems to
be the most critical. He works as a skilled worker whenever
he can, but often he must work as a laborer. He may go from
company to company trying to find skilled jobs in which more
expert workers are unavailable. The trainee and the people
who have helped him sometimes judge his competence differ-
ently and there is more interpersonal conflict in this stage
than in the other two. This is illustrated in the following

lament by a foreman who helped the subject of his comments.

161

I broke that bastard out on a dozer; know what he
done? Tried to get me to put him on a dozer on
that B job. You know yourself it takes a
"operator" for a job like that. He couldn't under-
stand that. Hell no, he's going to take a dozer
and go out and conquer the world. Hasn't spoke to
me since; to hell with him! .

In addition to differing judgments of competence,
the trainee may not understand adequately the changed role
expectations which apply to him and to people who have
helped him. At this stage, he is thrown-into the competitive
labor pool without the necessary competence, and with his
source of help cut off by prohibitions with respect to the
"brother-in—law" hiring of skilled workers.

When nepotism extends into a skilled position, as in
the following incident, there may be a lack of consensus
among workers. The contractor wanted to finish a job before
the end of the day. This, and an agreement with the in-
spectors, caused the spreadman to hire a trainee as a fully
paid welder for the part day. The inspectors agreed on con-
dition that the bronc "set up on two." The other welders
were "setting up on three." That meant that the bronc would
make only two-thirds as many welds as the other welders. The
inspectors' reasoning was: "If he sets up on two he may be
able to do good work; just make sure you plug up his holes;
you pay the salaries."

The welder with whom the observer was working at the

time was unhappy at the arrangement, and the fact that he

had to reweld some of the trainee's welds during the day

162

caused him to be more dissatisfied. He admittedly tried to
have the trainee fired. He criticized him at every oppor-
tunity. Each time inspectors came by the welder made state-
ments such as: "Boy, this is the first time I ever saw a
welder get by with pure murder; welding over his puddles is
like trying to weld up a screen door." Each time the spread-
man came by the welder said something like: "Boy, it must
be nice, knocking down a welder's salary without doing
anything." ‘

The disgruntled welder's complaints were not entirely
personal. Bosses are occasionally reprimanded by superiors
for hiring "phoney hands." The welder called repeatedly up-
on standards of competence which would have applied under
slightly different circumstances. After the work day he
tried to solicit support for his criticisms. The other
welders agreed with him outwardly but one of them told the
observer later that he couldn't see anything wrong with the
bronc's working and that the critical welder "just hates to
see anybody get something he don't get."

Appropriate behavior in this case was not clearly de-
fined. The bronc undeniably lacked the competence ordinarily
expected of welders. On the other hand, the inspector was
satisfied with his work and the bronc had not "rolled" any-
‘body. That is, he had not taken the job from someone thought
to be more deserving. This is only one example of the kind

of ambiguity which characterizes the bronc's third stage of

163

training. He never quite knows when he has lost the privi-
lege of irresponsibility.

The friction which often marks the third stage of
training seems due to the uncertainty arising from two sets
of hiring standards in pipelining: that of trainees in
terms of relationship criteria, and that of other workers in
terms of production criteria. The two sets of standards are
fairly well segregated throughout the first and second
stages, but their distinction tends to become obscured among
both workers and managers during the third. This is due per-
haps to the lack of any "graduation" ritual or other very
clear symbolism which might mark a transition from the status
of bronc to that of fully skilled worker.

Broncs who can do skilled work, "but not too good"
are sometimes advised to go to other companies and not to
work for the one in which they broke out until they "get
pretty good." The assumption among workers is that "you
learn faster when you get out on your own." Aside from its
effect upon learning speed, leaving the primary group probab—
ly serves the important function of taking the newly trained
worker out of uncertain relationships wherein "old buddies
all of a sudden start throwing their weight around." More-
over, it probably relieves some supervisors of the uncertain—
ty of their roles with respect to trainees. As long as the
trainee is clearly recognized as a man-breaking-out, the

supervisor can treat him in terms of who he is or whose boy

164

(protege) he is. But, when the trainee begins to compete
with skilled workers, supervisors are expected to view him
in terms of production criteria. In addition, the super-
visor's confusion often is compounded by his own kinship to
the trainee during the third stage of training.

It is perhaps during this period of partial compe-
tence and interpersonal uncertainty that the pipeliner de-
velops a surprising indifference to being "run off" (i.e.,
fired). One tractor operator told the observer, "I'll tell
you how you break out on a tractor; you climb upon a tractor
and get your butt run off (fired) till they don't run you
off no more." His experiences were duplicated to some ex-
tent by most of the skilled workers interviewed. There
seemed to be little or no reluctance to recount the personal
experience of being fired. The observer remarked to a
welder that such frankness surprised him. The welder re-
plied "you ain't going to find nobody out here with a
cherry."* The only worker known by the observer who tried
to conceal a similar failure (to pass a welding test) was an
object of amusement and pity to other workers. They "felt
sorry for him because he let the test failure get to him"
not because he failed.

People who aid the bronc must do so carefully. Most

pipeline workers probably are hired with some regard to

 

*The term cherry is a metaphore referring ultimately
to an undeflowered maiden.

165

their extra-job relationships to bosses and other workers.
But they usually must meet certain minimum technical re-
quirements. Such hiring ranges all the way from a foreman's
offhand judgment of a worker's strength to the impersonal
verdict of an x-ray machine. In spite of this dominant mode
of hiring, however, the apprenticeship system remains par-
ticularistic. Common sense observation has produced the
statement that "it's not what you know, but who you know"
that often accounts for your getting ahead; but both workers
and managers recognize the threat of wholesale nepotism to
contracting companies. The belief in this threat may be
seen in comments about unsuccessful contractors. For ex-
ample, "the woods are full of contractors who went broke be-
cause of too many phoney personnel," or "too many brother-
in-laws." A spreadman told the observer how he "learned his
lesson." "I run a old boy off once just so old B

could have the job. I don't know why I did it; to this day,
I can't look either one of them in the face. A boss who'll

do that's got no business pushing men."

_Integrative Functions of the System

Rather than being as disruptive as it might seem,
the apprenticeship system seems to circumvent a great deal
of conflict which might otherwise result from large kinship
groups working in a highly competitive industry. By absorb-

ing much of the kinship-friendship hiring, it probably keeps

166

incompetent workers from doing much inadequate or damaging
work and it keeps them from competing "unfairly" with skilled
workers. Moreover, the trainee trains when there is "not
much else to do and it won't hurt." His training can be set
aside at any time for "more serious business." His special
privileges are given to him at such a low level that the ef-
ficiency of the spread probably is not diminished.

The apprenticeship system frees bosses from having
to decide whether or not to hire workers on a kinship-
friendship basis or to hire more skilled workers. In many
cases, bosses may hire workers on the basis of both sets of
standards if kinsmen or friends can be placed in skill learn-
ing situations. The boss is expected only "to use his head."
This means that he must be able to distinguish those situ—
ations in which trainees may be dealt with in terms of
relationship criteria and those in which they must be dealt

with in terms of production criteria.

FOOTNOTES

1This conception of recruiting is taken largely from
Theodore Caplow, The Sociology of Work (Minneapolis: The
University of Minnesota Press, 1954), pp. 102-106.

2C. Murchison, "The Experimental Measurement of a

Social Hierarchy in Gallus Domesticus," Journal of General
Psychology, XII (1935), pp. 3-39. “

167

CHAPTER VIII
AUTHORITY JUDGMENT AND TECHNICAL COMPETENCE

Competition and worker Evaluation

Efficient production in modern American industries
is dependent upon some minimum maintenance of relatively im-
personal standards of quality and efficiency. Quality and
efficiency ordinarily are supported by universalistic cri-
teria for evaluating the efforts of workers. _And both
workers and managers are committed largely to universalistic
and specific production norms. That is, the norms have be-
come institutionalized. The same individuals are committed
also to the particularistic norms which regulate interaction
among kinsmen and in primary grdups. Workers are thus po-
tentially committed to conflicting legitimate demands made
upon them unless the occasions for performing in the roles
are segregated.

The model relation between impersonality and ef-
ficiency, if carried to its logical extreme, would require a
labor market consisting of individuals whose relation to one
another and to organizations would be one of pure competition
based upon competence. There are, however, several reasons
for believing that factors other than pure competition within

work forces operate in all organizations. Race, sex, and

168

169

ethnicity, of course, modify the objective evaluations of

job applicants. The social and personal strains of pure
competition often are officially recognized, and procedures
such as seniority systems are instituted to reduce them.

The ubiquitous phenomenon of output restriction by workers,
and the frequent failure of piecework incentive plans to
stimulate production indicate reduced competition among
workers. Output restriction, especially, is bound to have a
leveling effect on personal ability and motivation. Informal
agreements to hold production to certain levels restrain the
best workers from doing their best, and cause the less capa-
ble worker's efforts to be indistinguishable from that of

the better. Thus output restriction obscures both exception-
al ability and mediocrity. And finally, competition itself
is a threat to the objective selection and reward of workers.
Although the principal value commitments of workers and of-
ficials may be to universalism, their personal efforts are
often designed to gain advantage despite objective rules of
the game.

Despite evidence that universalistic norms operate
imperfectly it would be difficult to argue that modern Ameri-
can industries could survive in the face of unencumbered
nepotism or other forms of particularistic hiring. Herein
lies the integration problem. How, precisely, are potential-

ly conflicting role commitments mediated within the concrete

170

organization in such a way that they do not destroy the

organization or undermine morale?

Supervisor's Role Set

Favoritism can be largely a matter of subterfuge, or
it can be open. Where subterfuge is involved, the main
problem for the conspirators is that of "not getting caught."
When favoritism is Open, the principals have the problem of
achieving the explicit or implicit consent of other people
who may be affected by the transaction. In pipeline con-
struction, the preferential treatment of kinsmen and friends
is mostly open, and it is generally approved by others.

Open and approved favoritism is, of course, a more compli-
cated arrangement than is subterfuge. It must be investi-
gated in terms, not only of the relationships themselves, but
in terms of the technical requirements of the industry, and
in terms of all of the individuals who might be affected by
the transaction. In pipeline construction, the behavior of
people in authority with respect to preferential treatment
of workers is especially important. (A supervisor, who hires
a worker in response to a particularistic obligation, must
generally receive the consent of his supervisors and the
shipping company's inspectors. The consent usually is im—
plicit, but it is no less real. Although a supervisor may
be allowed a few instances of "bad judgment," too many in-

stances will threaten his own job and reputation.

171

In addition to the authority of supervisors and in-
spectors, the supervisor who uses his position to pay off
particularistic obligations must take into account other
workers who might have been hired, and workers who must work
with the “bronc" and undo his mistakes. The present chapter,
then, explores what can be called the aid giver's achieve—
ment of "role set consent."

The particularistic basis for hiring on the pipeline
seems not to interfere seriously with production standards,
nor do they pose a threat to workers who expect to have
their technical competence rewarded with preferential em-
ployment, above all they seem not to pose personal dilemmas
for bosses. .Recruiting and apprenticeship, the most visible
patterns of network based employment, seem to be organized
in such a way that they channel particularistic hiring into
areas in which it interferes neither with production standards

nor with morale.

Particularism and WOrk Quality Standards

Despite the particularistic basis for hiring on the
pipeline, there are three sources of support for universal-
istic production standards—-the quality requirements of
shipping companies, the efficiency requirements of contract-
ing companies, and the standards of "fair play" imposed by
workers themselves. The shipping company has its interest

represented on the operating spread in two ways. Quality

172

standards are maintained by a corps of inspectors who are
present on the spread from the time the project is started
to the time it is completed. Increasingly, this corps of
inspectors is being supplemented by subcontractors who per-
form one of several inspection tasks. The most common type
of subcontracted inspection is that of pipe weld x-rays.

The principal inspection standby, however, continues to be
the inspector, with ruler, long-handled mirror (to look at
the weld underneath the pipe), and, as some pipeliners would
have it, a "beady eye," and a "suspicious nature." The in-
spector's official job is to see that the pipeline is com-
pleted according to contract specifications and that it is
installed in such a way that the pipe will not rust, the
welds will not break, and the pipe is not dangerously close
to other pipelines and power cables. Inspectors, along with
construction supervisors, are responsible for the maintenance
of state and federal safety standards in the pipeline
installation.

The inspectors, despite their duties, become involved
in many of the exchange systems which characterize the pipe-
line labor force. Most of the inspectors come from the
ranks of pipeliners. Becoming an inspector is one way to
hold a steady job with lower pay and to avoid some of the
rigors of active work on the pipelines. Many inspectors re-
turn to work on the pipelines. Their sentiments very often

are with pipeliners rather than with the larger and more

173

impersonal corporations whom they are hired to represent.

The inspector's obligations, based on personal relationships
to other pipeliners, however, are limited by his own value
commitments to duty. Moreover, the number of agreements he
can become involved in is limited by the increasing presence
in the industry of precision inspection techniques and de-
vices. While an inspector might be willing to "take it easy"
on a particular contractor out of sympathy, the x-ray ma-
chine "tells no lies." The "jeep,“ an electronic device,
gives very precise information on the quality of the bitumin
coating which is applied to the pipe before it is buried.
Precision inspection includes such techniques as a "cold
water test" in which a length of pipeline may be filled with
.cold water and allowed to heat during a normal day's period.
The resulting expansion places far more pressure on the line
than the nine to fifteen hundred pounds of pressure which
gases and fluids will exert later on. A faulty arc weld or
a weak seam will break under these conditions before the
line is buried. More and more frequently welders have their
work tested by increasingly accurate and revealing techniques.
This includes sawing through sample welds, chemical tests,
x-ray examination, and various other equally searching tech-
niques.. Such inspection technology has the effect of making
universalistic standards harder to disregard. Even when
inspector-supervisor relations are friendly the duties of

inspectors usually are in some conflict with the duties of

174

supervisors. The main job supervisors have is to get the
work done as rapidly and as cheaply as possible. Speed and
thrift, however, are among the major sources of inadequate
work. The inspector acts as a brake on both thrift and
speed. The contractor, then, needs some balance of speed
and efficiency.

The inspector's involvement in the pipeliner net-
works is the principal modifier of his strict adherence to
universalistic quality standards. The standards are modi-
fiable to a certain extent because the inspector is allowed
some lattitude for interpretation in the performance of his
duties, and he assumes some use of judgment on his own. He
often is willing to violate the letter of company regulations
while maintaining the essential standards. For example, if
he thinks the shipping company has been too stringent regard-
ing the acuteness of an angle in a curved section of pipe-
line, he can allow the contractor some leeway on his own
account.

The same profit motive which requires speed and ef—
ficiency also requires a ready labor force who can take
orders and be loyal. This is where past favors and future
promises pay off. But too many errors which have to be cor-
rected, too much waste, or too much ineptitude can be costly.
"When you get a contract, you got to get in and get out; if
you don't you lose your butt." The needs for both efficiency

and a ready labor force are in potential conflict but they

175

are mediated by several factors on the pipeline. (A "bronc"
welder can be allowed to weld road-crossing casing because it
does not require the degree of skill which pipe welding re-
quires. .The bronc can be allowed to cut-and bevel pipe
joints for the same reason. Bronc dozer operators can do
much of the rough backfill work. Bronc sideboom operators
can haul equipment and handle pipe "when nobody's working
under the pipe.“ In every skill on the pipeline, there is a
fairly broad range of degrees of skill which are actually
needed. Much of the ineptitude created by particularistic
hiring is drained off by selective task assignment which
matches the relatively inept worker's skill with the require-
ments of the task.

(An important source of pressure on gang foremen in
the largest company in which observations were made is a "bid
footage--completed footage ratio." The contracting company,
which is a large one, makes bids on construction jobs based
on estimated footage per day. Gang foremen are accountable
at the end of each day for any discrepancies between bidded
footage and actual constructed footage. The ratio seems to
be a very important source of strain in this particular
company. Much of the contracting is over-bid to give gangs
some leeway but it may not be over-bid to the point where a
‘boulder just under the surface of the earth on a right of way
may not stop a gang for several hours. Stopping a single

gang on the pipeline is a more or less serious setback

176

depending upon which gang is involved. The gangs which work
near the front of the line are more important in this re-
spect because a "dead gang" in front can stall all of the
gangs behind it. .If something happens with the right of way
gang, especially if the work is organized so that the string-
ing and pipe gangs come right behind the right of way gang,
then the right of way gang can hold up production for sever—
al hours. Sometimes when an obstruction is too complicated
the rest of the spread can go around it and later tie in
that part of the line. However, if the pipe gang cannot do
its work several dozen workers may be stopped. Moreover,
these stoppages involve the idle cost of equipment. Super-
visors' attempts to avoid stoppages generally receive worker
cooperation.

One frequently used surveillance technique is called
"birddogging." Birddogging consists of making frequent,
more or less silent, but visible checks upon the work of
either a person or an entire gang. Birddogging may be used
in situations in which there is doubt about the worker's
ability or willingness to work, and in conflict situations.
Birddogging is generally seen to be a surveillance technique
to speed up workers but it sometimes is used for harassment.
"I just don't want them sonsofbitches to think they're
getting by with anything."

Much cooperative subterfuge seems to be used in such

a way that workers are able to meet production schedules

177

which they would not be able to meet if universalistic norms
completely governed their relationships to the company. Il-
legal actions, for example, require close cooperation among
‘workers, supervisors, and inspectors. Such actions have the
tacit approval of officials of both the contracting and
shipping companies despite the fact that they are illegal
and "strictly against company policy."1

The workers themselves are not so completely self—
centered, or committed to kinship or friendship that they
cannot see the boss's "point of view." Pipeliners, like
workers in other industries, maintain a conception of a fair
day's work for a fair wage.2 No relative or friend expects
unlimited privileges. There are, however, "misunderstand-
ings" regarding duties and privilege. These breaches occur
especially during the pipeline skill trainee's third stage
of apprenticeship when his relationships to supervisors and
other workers are not clear.

Whether or not a particularistic personnel selection
will be approved by other workers depends partly upon how
they view it as possibly affecting themselves. Each such
action is evaluated by other workers on the spread. The ob-
server once had occasion to work alternately in two spreads.
(One was making a river crossing while the other was com-
pleting the line on either side of the river.) This furnished
opportunity to hear offhand comments about the two spread

superintendents. One of these (a part owner of the company)

178

was described as a man who hired "brother-in—laws" (kinsmen
generally) and he was condemned on that count. The observer
noted that the condemned spreadman had working for him only
two relatives, whereas the "best spread-boss you'll ever
work under" had no less than five. The speaker was not
among them. Later conversations disclosed the belief that
.the part owner "had just as soon roll you as not" (replace
you with a kinsmen), whereas, the favored boss apparently
gave acceptable recognition to impersonal criteria. Sanc-
tions against nepotism in the form of verbalized sentiments
are brought to bear depending upon how friends and kinsmen
are hired--not whether or not they are hired.

Since expectations based both upon relationship and
production criteria impinge upon the spreadman and foreman
one might expect rather chronic expressions of role conflict.
But little evidence of this could be found. Rather, there
are four ways out of the dilemma. (1) The boss may place
his relative in a skilled job if the worker is conspicuously
competent. (2) He can place him in a job for which almost
anybody is competent (common labor). (3) He can use his ex-
tensive contacts in other companies to help his friend or
kinsman. (4) He can have some other skilled worker to train
his kinsman or friend. The pipeline apprenticeship system
as a way out of potential dilemmas deserves special note.

It furnishes most of the skilled workers for the industry
and it combines all of the alternatives for bosses discussed

above .

179

A supervisor cannot afford to get a reputation as an
unfair boss, either with respect to treatment of workers or
in the way he hires crews. Occasionally the boss who sus—
pects that he does not have role set consent when he hires
relatives directly, may be especially severe with a kinsman
to show that “he ain't no better'n nobody else out here.“
The observer recalls one bronc (tractor) who had his tractor
assigned to someone else in the middle of a job. He thought
that his own work had been adequate. Consequently, he com-
plained to other workers. Later in the day, however, he
said, more to himself than to anyone else, "hell, I know why
he done it; he didn't want nobody to think he's playing

favorites."

FOOTNOTES

lBensman and Gerver show how technical standards are
circumvented with the implicit approval of highly placed

officials:
Joseph Bensman and Israel Gerver, "Crime and Punish-

ment in the Factory" in Bernard Rosenberg, Israel Gerver,
William Howton (eds.), Mass Society in Crises (New York:

The Macmillan Co., 1964), pp. 141-151.

2Miller and Form, pp. 280-81.

180

CHAPTER IX

SUMMARY

This thesis has attempted to describe patterns of
kinship and friendship which function (1) to adapt the pipe-
line labor force to the structural characteristics of the
pipeline construction industry, and (2) to demonstrate that
the same patterns generally integrate the particularistic
obligations of kinship and friendship with the universalistic
demands of the industry. Groups of kinsmen, cliques, and
pairs of individuals who exchange job related favors, act as
recruiting "agencies" for construction companies. The par-
ticularistic obligations of kinship and friendship are dis-
charged in such a way that they ordinarily do not interfere
with the workers' business of getting the work done to the

satisfaction of shipping and contracting companies.

Pipelines and Pipelininqi

Pipelines are used to transport products ranging
from fruit juice to automobile parts, but the lines are used
mainly for the transport of petroleum products. The major
growth of the pipeline construction industry, from 1900 to
the present, has paralleled and depended upon the growth of

the petroleum industry. During the early years of the first

181

182-

major growth of the petroleum industry, the pipelines were
built by the companies that owned them. As pipeline con-
struction became more and more technically specialized, the
companies found that organizing occasional units to build
pipelines was cumbersome and expensive. In the 1920's
Humble Oil Company of Texas, and later most other companies,
organized semi-independent pipeline construction companies.
These were financed by the parent companies, but they had
their own boards of directors and accepted contracts from
shipping comapnies other than their owner. Mbst of the semi—
independent companies still exist, but the shipping industry
found that an even more satisfactory solution to the occasion-
al need for construction was to encourage the formation of
completely independent construction companies and to deal
with them on a contract basis. Thus, the major result of
rapidly increasing technical specialization and increasing
cost of construction equipment was the emergence of inde-
pendent construction companies. Some of these have grown
into major corporations, but many of them have remained
small.1
In the 1960's construction companies owned by one or
a few individuals do most of the construction work. The am-
bitious pipeliner, who has or who can borrow a few thousand
dollars, and who can rent enough machinery to complete a job,
can become a pipeline contractor. Perhaps most of these

individuals are unsuccessful. Many gang supervisors and

183

spread superintendents are former contractors who have be-
come bankrupt or have "sold out." Some who had invested
little equipment and money may have just stopped being con-
tractors. Nevertheless, enough of these small entrepreneurs
are successful for periods long enough to give the con—

struction industry one of its main characteristics.

Technology, Time, and Distance

Two major features of the pipeline construction
industry influence the behavior of its labor force: (1) con—
tinually increased specialization, and (2) the time and dis-
tance peculiarities of the industry. Only a few years ago,
numerous pipeliners could do several of the tasks required
on the pipelines. Even today there are a few "old heads,"
usually spreadmen, or superintendents, who can operate dozers
and sidebooms, weld, or coat the pipe. Most of the con-
struction tasks, however, have become sufficiently compli-
cated so that very few of these universally trained pipe—
liners now work in the industry. The present trend is toward
greater complexity of tasks and greater specialization. The
consequences for the labor force has been (1) to restrict
workers to particular skills and (2) to shorten the amount
of time necessary for any worker to complete his particular
task on any contracted job. Welders, on a job lasting four
'weeks, will be needed for only two weeks; most of the
tractor operators will be needed for no more than three

weeks. Only about two-third of the workers can outlast the

184

need for the gangs in which they started, and only unskilled
laborers can expect to work in more than three gangs. Some
very specialized workers such as pipe cleaning machine oper-
ators and "stabbers" have completed their work when their
respective gangs ("dope" and "pipe"), are finished.

Pipeline construction jobs are often short and far
apart. Even a cross country line of several hundred miles
is usually divided into several spreads which can do the job
within a few weeks. Often segments of longer lines are con—
tracted to separate construction companies. More typically,
the entire project will be contracted to one company which
then subcontracts parts of the job to several smaller
companies. The net effect of the shortness of jobs is to
present both small and large contracting companies with the
recurring task of recruiting crews for a few days or a few
weeks work. The same time and distance factors present
workers with the recurring task of finding several different

jobs throughout the construction season.

Bunches, Cliques, and Networks

Three emergent structures other than the contracting
firm have been identified: Ad hoc groups of kinsmen which
form around kin ties, friendship cliques, and networks of
two person exchange partners. NOne of the resulting groups
of kinsmen can be described as extended families. More

often they consist of a variety of combinations of kinsmen.

185

The formation and persistence of the kin groups depend as
much upon the time and place characteristics of the industry
as upon recognized kinship. Although these ad hoc groups,
which pipeliners call "bunches," consist mainly of indi-
viduals who are kin to one another, they usually contain
some group members who are unrelated by kinship to the others.
Friendship obligations which arise in cliques account for
much of the job finding and crew formation activities of the
pipeline labor force. Here friendship is defined as one of
mutual attraction in which interpersonal obligations of
friendship, like those of kinship, extend beyond the context
of work into recreation, housing, and money lending. (3)
NEither the bunches nor cliques, however, accounts for all of
the contact networks which help to move the pipeline labor
force. Kinship, although prominent on the pipeline, seems
not to be extensive enough to furnish most of the workers

for the industry. Friendship, based on mutual attraction,

is not durable enough to furnish a dependable labor force
over an extended period of time. Indeed one of the con-
sistent observations made during the investigation was that
the contact networks seemed to operate effectively regard-
less of the interpersonal feelings of the participant. The
networks function effectively although the participants
frankly dislike each other. Even kinship networks often in-
volve frank mutual dislike among the participants; yet they

continue to function as job finding and crew recruiting

186

channels. The justification for the term "friendship" to
describe mutual exploitation is that the non-kin networks,
no matter what their present interpersonal tone, often origi-
nate in mutual attraction, or "trade offs" based upon at-
traction. A "trade off" is the discharging of an obligation
to an exchange creditor indirectly by helping his relative
or friend. Thus, the persistence of a particular network is
not so much due to the original reasons for coming into being,
but to its pecuniary functions. The obligations of network
members to one another are ultimately translatable into
money.

The networks, then, seem to originate in ad hoc
social groups of kinsmen, and in cliques of friends which,
at first, involve activities and obligations which extend
beyond the business of job finding and crew formation. Some
of these groups are stabilized and made permanent by their
functional relationship to the pipeline construction industry.
Even if the groups do not become permanent, the pecuniary
relationship established among members becomes sufficiently
important to the workers to insure frequent future communi-
cation despite both interpersonal antipathies and intra-
kindred schisms. Consequently, breaches of friendship and
kinship roles, such as occasional officiousness, are not as
completely disruptive as they might be if the relationships

lacked persistent economic significance to the pipeliners.

187

The overall effort reported in the thesis has been
to formulate hypotheses regarding the character, origin and
dynamics of the networks, and their functional relationships
to the industry, to the construction companies, and to the
workers. The term "occupational contact networks," borrowed
from Katz, has been used here to refer to communications
systems among workers who are informally organized, and who
sustain more or less persistant relations among themselves.2
The networks are the channels through which workers find the
kinds and number of jobs they want and through which con-
tracting companies fill out their work crews. WOrkers who
participate in the networks are most often white men who are
characterized by southwestern, and rural, backgrounds. The
networks seem to originate in particularistic, diffuse, and
emotionally involved kin ties and friendships. The operation
of the networks do not, however, depend upon continued dif-
fuse and emotionally involved relations, but they do con-
tinue to be particularistic.

The principle dynamic feature of the networks is a
system of (usually implicit) exchange arrangements among
individuals. Each individual involved in the networks has
something which he can exchange for something he wants. The
nonsupervisory worker can exchange his availability during
the heavy season, his loyalty to supervisors, and his will-
ingness to take occasional unattractive jobs. In return he

assures himself some preferential treatment from construction

188

supervisors. From supervisors who are indebted to him for
past favors, the worker expects employment during periods in
which jobs are hard to find, some overtime, the longest
possible employment on any given job, and the longest possi-
ble season. The supervisors, within certain limits, are
able to dispense favors to workers in exchange for the
latters' availability when workers are hard to find, their
loyalty, and their extra—official support for his authority.
The supervisor controls several things which are negotiable,
the most important of which are his knowledge of future job
openings and his ability to hire because of his authority.
Any two exchange reciprocals are indebted generally, rather
than precisely, to each other for favors, past and promised.
Favors are repaid at the discretion of the debtor; only oc-
casionally are they demanded by the creditor. The repayment
of favors need not be immediate or direct. A foreman may
hire a friend or a relative of his own creditor as a form of
payment. In fact the indirect payment of such obligations
often become even more complicated. A single favor may af-
fect several individuals.

The "bunches" of kinsmen and the cliques are genuine
social groups. They can be described in terms of the most
inclusive criteria of groups.3 They are characterized by
"continuity." Although their formation is an ad hoc ar—
rangement, the members remain together most of the time.

The members are mutually aware of each other and think of

189

themselves as group members, and outsiders identify them as
bunches. The groups are characterized by an interpersonal
structure which is dependent upon, but distinguishable from,
their occupations. The bunch, for example, is usually
identified by its leader's name. The groups have formed
regular communication routes, hence this observer's emphasis
upon contact networks. They are characterized by group
norms which are particularistic and diffuse. And, finally,
the groups develop group goals-~"Where are we going after
this job?"

Several characteristics of the industry both facili—
tate and restrain the formation and continued existence of
bunches and cliques. .Many, perhaps most, of the informal
relationships related to job finding, skill learning, and
crew formation cannot be described in terms of long persist-
ing identifiable groups. Many workers participate in net-
works in what can be described only as "pair relationships."
Two people recognize each other as exchange partners. Each
of the two are also involved in other dyadic relationships.
Consequently any worker may, at any given time, be obli-
gated by past favors to other workers and supervisors, while
at the same time he may expect favors from as many exchange
partners. The interwoven sets of relationships constitute
systems which cannot be described in terms of bunch or
clique membership. The potential for conflict between these

network relations, and their role in effectively moving the

190

labor force is, however, the same as those within the groups.
.There seems, then, to be a dual tendency within the
labor force for the interpersonal exchanges, which originate
in kin ties or friendships, to become circumscribed either
with respect to the number of exchange partners with whom a
worker maintains contact or with respect to the extent of
obligations involved in the relationships. If the worker's
principal interpersonal relations remain either within a
bunch or a clique, the range of the personalistic responses
the group member is expected to make to others is fairly
complicated. th only is his relations to other group members
particularistic, they are affectively charged and diffuse.
These personalistic responses are manageable because they are
limited largely to the members of the group. If, however,
the pipeliner's continued and advantageous employment de—
pends upon a great many individuals, the sheer weight of
personalistic responses to others tends to force the disso-
lution of certain of his primary group ties to other workers.
One theoretical alternative to primary group relation-
ships which workers experience as cumbersome and inconvenient
is for primary group relations to dissolve entirely and to be
replaced by universalistic, specific, and nonaffective re-
lations among former group members. Changes in intragroup
relationships, however, seem not to go this far among pipe—
liners. Interpersonal relationships within the bunches and

cliques continue to be characterized by particularism,

191

diffuse obligations, and emotional involvement of members.
In the fragmented alternative, interpersonal relations con-
tinue to be particularistic within the context of work, but
they do not continue to be affectively charged, or diffuse.
We need not seek to understand the bifurcation of
interpersonal relations among pipeliners in terms of indi-
vidual differences or of processes unique to specific groups.
Rather, whether or not a primary group with more than two
individuals will continue to exist in the industry seems
most understandable on the basis of the individual members'
relationships to the organization of the operating spread.
The lower the skill level of a worker, the more likely he is
to be a member of a bunch. The lower the skill proficiency
required by a particular gang, the more likely is the gang
to be manned almost entirely by a bunch or a clique. A
simple skill, because it can be mastered by a greater number
of people, means that the person is more likely to be able
to work on a job with his bunch. "Right of way," "cleanup,"
and "dope" gangs, for example, are manned by a variety of
unskilled, semiskilled, and skilled workers just as are
other gangs. But these workers need not be as proficient as
the workers with the same skills in other gangs. "All you
really need in dope is a good dOpe man (foreman)--the oper-
ators just have to road the tractor" (follow the contour of
the dtich). Tractor Operators on the "pipe gang," however,

need to be highly skilled. They are, in fact, often viewed

192

as the prima donnas among operators.* welders have less
skill leeway than do truck drivers. Laborers and semiskilled
workers are easily included in bunches which work on the same
spreads, and even on the same gangs. Dope, cleanup, and
right of way gangs frequently are manned by a single group
of kinsmen and their friends.

The difference in the extent to which some skills
and some gangs can incorporate workers who range broadly in
proficiency is due, of course, to the fact that the pressures
for universalistic standards need not be as great. In these
skills and gangs there is either a good deal of performance
leeway or the results of mistakes are easily corrected. The
pressures for universalistic selective criteria are not
great because the technical requirements are not great. In
skills and gangs in which technical requirements are greater,
a foreman's aid is more likely to be indirect. That is, he
helps the aid recipient, not by giving him a job, but by
giving him valuable information about jobs or by having some-
one else place him. Thus it is the laborer, the apprentice,
the semiskilled worker, or the member of a dope, clean up,
or right of way gang who is likely to travel and to identify

himself with a bunch.

 

*Pipeliners use the term "hotshots" rather than
"prima donna." They would reject the analogy and the language
of ballet as being too effeminate. But to this observer, the
coordinated precision of the operators of the pipe gang makes
"pipe" the most esthetic of all the gangs. ~And the similari-
ties between the rythmic movements of the pipe gang and those
of a ballet company are striking.

193

The worker's number of primary group relationships
is not likely to be unwieldy if he can travel with a group.
However, if he is not so propitiously located in the industry
he encounters a dilemma. He must maintain a sufficient
number of particularistic contacts to remain employed, but
if these relationships are confined to primary groups in
which each relationship is special and diffuse, the sheer
weight of personalistic knowledge which he must have becomes
a major burden for him. The pipeliner, so situated, seems
to resolve his dilemma by reducing his involvement in his
relationships to a point where only particularism is left.
A relationship which originates in friendship is affective,
diffuse, and particularistic. Bunch and clique members
"have fun" together, hold each other to a wide range of obli-
gations, and hire, or otherwise help each other as a require-
ment of the relationship. Changes in the worker's relation-
ship to a group seem to approach the following patterns: The
affective component of the relationship is, for a variety of
reasons, the first to dissolve, after which the range of
obligations (diffuseness) disappears from the relationship.
The particularism among former members remains because the
worker is dependent upon the relationship for a successful
season, and companies and their supervisors are dependent
upon particularistic recruiting for their very survival as
organizations. It is particularism, not universalism which

moves the labor force. In short, the exchange "negotiables"

194

which at first include such things as gratitude, pleasure,
and the admiration of subordinates finally become restricted
to the exchange of work related favors. The process of
bunch and clique dissolution probably differ from one an-
other only in the degree to which diffuse expectations dis-
appear. Workers who recognize kinship with one another con—
tinue to be somewhat generally obligated "to help out if you

can. "

Kinship—Friendship Relations and Conflict

Theoretically, the technological requirements of the
pipeline construction industry and the particularism of net-
work hiring should conflict with each other more than they
seem to do. And, indeed, despite the functions of the pri—
mary groups and networks in distributing the labor force,
potential for conflict between the two sets of standards ex-
ists and sometimes surfaces. But despite potential conflict
and its occasional expression, the particularistic obli-
gations seem to be discharged most of the time without
(I) seriously interfering with the technical requirements of
the industry, (2) without creating for supervisors the ob—
jective or subjective experience of role conflict, or (3)
without undermining worker motivation to learn skills.

Particularistic placements are not made indiscrimi—
nately. They represent a form of controlled particularism.

Aid recipients are placed in positions, or series of

195

positions, for which they do have the necessary minimum
skills. The simplest examples of controlled particularism
are to be found in day to day placements on the job. The
most elaborate example is the apprenticeship system, in which
the person is assigned a sequence of increasingly demanding
responsibilities, all of which he is able to meet.

Controlled particularism is possible partly because
the pipeline spread furnishes a range of aid possibilities,-
both direct and indirect. A foreman usually can place a
friend or relative in a position for which he is trained, or
he can have one of his exchange partners place the man. In-
direct aid probably is more frequently given than is direct
aid.

Much of the same variety of organizational and tech—
nical characteristics of the operating spread which fosters
the survival of bunches and cliques create several aid
alternatives. The variation in the degree of skill pro—
ficiency needed for tasks among the separate skills offers
opportunities to place the less apt skilled workers. Weld-
ing, for example, offers little leeway for variations in
skill. Tractor operation offers somewhat more leeway be-
cause tractors are used in all of the gangs and in many
different ways. A "bronc operator" can be assigned to a
tractor in the dope gang because he can afford to make more
mistakes than can the tractor operators with the pipe gang.

Level and unencumbered terrain requires less tractor operator

196

skill in any gang than does forested, mountainous, or swampy
terrain. The mid-season of the industry almost always re-
quires more workers at all skill levels than are available.
During mid-season the mediocre welder,.0perator, or other
"bronc“ often is the best man available, and whether or not
he gets the job through pull has little relevance.

Particularistic aid usually is backed by subcultural
legitimation, and the aid giver usually can expect to re—
ceive role set consent for his actions. The supervisor can
grant particularistic preference by "using his head." The
experienced and successful supervisor usually can recognize
occasions for giving direct aid, indirect aid, or no aid at
all. He not only "knows the job," but he is intimately
familiar with the abilities of many workers. Special privi-
leges given to a friend, kinsman, or a friend of a friend is
approved by other workers and supervisors by Statements such
as "everybody had to learn sometime." Each of the other
workers has learned his own skill through identical arrange-
ments. And the individuals making up the aider-boss's role
set very often are indebted to him for past favors.

While a great deal of favoritism is tolerated by em—
ployers, inspectors and other workers, the frequent appli-
cation of stringent universalistic criteria in hiring and
firing are tolerated by potential aid recipients. No worker
expects unlimited advantage. The supervisor who gives par-

ticularistic aid must learn to distinguish between situations

197

in which he can or cannot give particularistic aid if he is
to remain in the industry. The aid recipient, likewise, is
pressed to learn to distinguish among such situations.

The networks are an integral part of the pipeline
construction industry. They distribute and redistribute the
labor force where it is needed throughout the season. lSome
contractors might argue that the networks do not distribute
the labor force efficiently because "you either got too many
or not enough hands." However the "too many—too few" problem
is due to the combination of a numerically stable labor
force and the curvilinear character of the seasonal need for
workers (the labor supply-demand cycle). The supervisor's
successful involvement in networks furnishes him with avail-
able and dependable workers. He can muSter the worker's
kinship and friendship loyalties to himself for services to
the construction company. Moreover the networks underpin
the supervisor's official authority because they extend his
ability to reward and punish well beyond any particular job.
The networks furnish workers with a few exchange partners in,

to paraphrase Malinowski, the far off dangerous regions ("up

4 The worker can, if

north where the people are unfriendly).
his contacts are sufficient, insure that he will get the
longest jobs by traveling the shortest distance from one to

the other, be able to work a maximum of overtime, and enjoy

a long season.

198

Latent Functions of the Networks

The special significance of kinship in the pipeline
construction industry is indicated by the prominence of
people who are ICUI to one another on almost any job. The
major function which the networks seem to serve for kinship
is the stimulation and maintenance of kin relations which
extend beyond the nuclear family. The networks insure some
economic as well as other significance for the members of
bunches.

The industry, being dependent upon the networks,
gives to kinship a personal relevance which it does not
ordinarily have for Americans. The important entity here,
however, is not the extended family which, according to some
recent investigations, have survived the encroachments of
industrialism.5 The pipeline bunch is not a family governed
by the traditional roles of family members. It is a group
of kinsmen which includes brothers, cousins, brothers-in—law,
cousins-inelaw, or any combination of these. Some bunches
are characterized by three generations of working male
members, but this is quite accidental. Generation has
nothing to do with the division of labor within the group,
or with its relation to the pipeline industry.

The geographic mobility required by modern American
industry is thought generally to have a fragmenting influence
upon kinship.6 However, when mobility is so intense, as it

is within the pipeline labor force, there is likely to be a

199

great deal of face to face contact by relatives. The in-
creased contact can then act to enhance the relevance for
members of fairly large kin groups which have been formed
on an ad hoc basis.

There is little doubt that the labor union movement
has had profound but indirect influence upon pipeline work.
The frequently heard "we pay union scale or better“ attests
to union influence. Many of the pipeliners recognize such
labor union benefits although they may be anti—union in
sentiment. One of the reasons for the limited success of
unions in controlling the labor force has been the fact that
the networks seem to furnish alternatives to many union
services. The more cumbersome recruiting machinery of the
unions cannot distribute the labor force as rapidly as its
dispersion and reformation demand. The networks are freer
to offer overtime, preferential employment, and ethnic ex-
clusion, and to influence wages and working conditions.
Ethnic exclusion is of concern to the southern pipeliners,
and they often see greater union influence as a prelude to
Negro and Mexican-American entry into the skilled trades of
the industry. Above all, the workers fear union interference
with their pursuit of overtime.

Workers rarely get as much out of the industry as
they want during a season: contracting companies rarely get
as much skilled help as they want during mid-season. Never-

theless the labor force and the industry seem to achieve an

200

optimum adjustment year after year. The companies get
enough workers to stay in business; the workers get enough
work to remain in the occupation. And despite the potential
for mutual disruption, the particularistically organized
labor force and the companies have managed to achieve a

workable equilibrium.

Networks in Other Industries

 

The existence of communications networks similar to
those in the pipeline industry have been reported in a range
of industries wide enough to encompass university professors
and fruit pickers, top executives in industry and automobile
assembly line workers. Such networks seem to operate at all
skill and authority levels, and they operate on an informal
base of particularistic obligation. This is not to say that
considerations of technical competence are ever disregarded.
Rather, the particularism often simply determines whether or
not a person is allowed to compete on a technical basis.7

While the existence of recruiting networks has been
reported frequently, the problem of the integration of par—
ticularism with the technical requirements of positions has
received considerably less attention. MDre attention has
been given to the malintegrative problems caused by con-
flicting action alternatives which are inherent in situations

in which particularism and technological requirements are

not clearly segregated.

 

201

There is, however, both theoretical and empirical
reasons to study integration. Goode has argued, on a theo-
retical basis, that the inept are protected everywhere, and
at all levels. He argues further that modern industrial so-
cieties are not necessarily more efficient because organi-
zations hire the most able, but because they use the inept
more efficiently.8

A scattering of empirical studies have demonstrated
functional relations between the preferential hiring result-
ing from networks and the objectives of organizations.

McGee discovered that "faculty inbreeding" results in de-
partmental continuity as well as career disadvantages for
inbred faculty members.9 Myers pointed out that building
tradesmen, recruited on an informal basis, created congenial
crews who worked more efficiently than would crews formed
purely on the basis of objective judgments of skill pro—
ficiency.10 Only one study known to the writer has at-
tempted to discern the processes whereby technical standards
are maintained in an occupation in which hiring and firing
are not confined to considerations of official objectives.
Mitchel, in his study of the Mohawks who work in high steel,
described an apprenticeship system which could be described
as controlled particularism. Beginning early in summer, a
seasoned construction crew trains one new steel worker.

When the first novice has been trained he is replaced by an—

other. The process continues until, by the end of the

202

summer, an entire new crew has been trained. This "one at a
time" procedure assures each apprentice exclusive attention
from an entire crew of experts when he needs it most. Such
attention no doubt also reduces the number of costly and
dangerous mistakes the apprentice makes.ll

Closer investigation of numerous industries should
disclose (l) the extensive presence of particularistic net-
works, (2) that their relationship to efficient organization
is more functional than disfunctional, and (3) that the oper-
ation of the networks are patterned so that particularistic
recruiting does not seriously interfere with the technical
requirements of the jobs. We should expect to find the
above conditions in industries or occupations which: (1) re-
quire a migratory labor force, (2) are characterized by con—
spicuous ethnic homogeneity, (3) contain many workers who
are related to one another through kinship, (4) industries
for which most of the skilled workers are informally trained
on the job, (5) industries which are seasonal, (6) industries
which require low skill levels, and (7) industries in which
there is high geographic mobility.

All of the industry characteristics listed above
make difficult the formal and impersonal evaluation of talent
and skill. It would seem that informal and more personal-
istic considerations fill niches created by certain industry
characteristics. However, the question of whether the organi-

zations often simply "live with" some inefficiency and

203

tension needs further investigation. The writer's hunch is
that conflict mediating structures exist in industries much
more extensively than the one sided preoccupation with role

conflict would suggest.

A Note on Procedure

 

In keeping with the limitations of the participant
observation method the conclusions offered in the thesis are
necessarily tentative. More systematic research on the re-
lationship of particularistic recruiting to the pipeline
industry would require (1) a more precise delineation of the
industry's labor force and (2) a sample of workers selected
to represent various skills and positions in the supervisory
hierarchy. Such a sample would be necessary because of the
possible different industry experiences of these. It would
be desirable to attempt to discover the characteristics of
interskill and interpositional pressures toward certain kinds
of interpersonal relationships. That is, perhaps the follow-
ing question could be answered: What precise relevance do
particular positions have for the incumbent's participation
in networks? Hence, more confident statements could be made
regarding supervisory access to valuable information regard-
ing future opportunities and positional restraints upon
nepotism and other forms of particularism.

Work histories of the sample of workers, rather than

informant reports, could be examined for their support of

204

hypotheses regarding kinship, and network involvement of
workers. These histories should focus upon the role of par—
ticularism in job placements, skill learning, and supervisory
promotion, and upon more systematic examination for the
following hypotheses: The worker is more likely to be a
member of identifiable groups ("bunches" or cliques) (l)
nearer the beginning of his pipeline career than later, (2)
during the first two stages of his apprenticeship than later,
and (3) during his first entry into a supervisory position.
First entry in the industry, beginning skill training, and
first entry into supervisory positions all seem to require
the worker's greater dependency upon the personalistic sup-
port of others. The longer the worker remains in the
industry, the more likely are his job related relationships
to others to be characterized by network relations which
have fewer primary group characteristics than before. That
is, his friendships are likely to continue to be particular-
istic, but not diffuse and affectively charged.

It is easier, however, to discuss a more systematic
research design than it is to pursue it seriously. Select-
ing a sample of pipeliners in itself would perhaps be diffi-
cult. Actually finding the members in order to interview
them might prove to be impossible, and if possible enormously
expensive. APipeliners do not remain still long enough to be

counted and probed. It may be that controlled research

205

procedures for some.aspects of organization is less practi-
cal than are ethnological procedures in which the observer

has prolonged and intimate contact with the organizations.

FOOTNOTES

lLarson, p. 54.
Loos, pp. 215—51.

2Katz, p. 317.

 

 

 

3Olmsted, pp. 13-14.
4Malinowski, Argonauts . . . , p. 92.
5Litwack, American Sociological Review, 25, No. 1,
pp. 385-94.
Litwack, American Sociological Review, 25, No. 1,
pp. 9-12.

Reiss, pp. 204-10.

The view of kinship groups discussed by Sussman and
Burchinal is similar to the view adopted in this thesis.
Their formulation centers around "kin family networks,"
rather than "extended families."

Sussman and Burchinal, pp. 124-33.

Sussman, pp. 333-40.

6Parsons, American Anthropologist, 45, p. 34.

7Katz, p. 320.

8Goode, American Sociological Review, 32, No. l, 5-
l9.

9

McGee, pp. 483-88.

loMyers, pp. 126-36.

llMitchell, pp. 3-38.

206

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GLOSSARY OF PIPELINER TERMS

The following terms are those used in this thesis.
They do not exhaust the pipeliner's lexicon. Some of the
terms are universal in the industry. I'Spread," "drag up,"
"wobble" and many other terms seem to mean the same things
to any pipeliner. Other terms, perhaps, have only local
meanings. Nevertheless, the terms included here could serve
as a guide to the world of pipelining for the outsider and

as a scource of amusement for the pipeliners.

Backfill gang. A small gang which is responsible

 

for covering the pipeline after it has been placed in the
ditch.

Bell hole. “An inverted bell shaped hole in the

 

ground in which a good deal of repair work is done.

Bevelinq machine. A machine equipped with acetylene
cutting torch; used to prepare the ends of pipe joints for
welding.

Big inch. The term has two meanings: (1) Large
diameter pipe; (2) A long lasting job.

Bird dog. Conspicuous watchfulness, practiced by
supervisors and inspectors to let workers know that they are

being watched.

217

218

Break out. To enter pipelining, to learn a skill,
or to become a supervisor.

Bronc. Anyone who is inept. Used to refer to in-
fants, skill trainee, and incompetent_workers.

Brother—in—law. Term used to refer to any male
relative hired or promoted because of kinship to a supervisor.

Buckling. Damage to pipe because of rapid tempera-

 

ture changes.
Bullplug. .A plug placed in the end of a pipe to
keep out foreign material.

"Canada pipeliners." United States citizens who work

 

on Canadian pipelines.

.EEB' The final weld beaded on a pipe weld.

.QQE' An older term for pipeliner. The term is not
used to refer to a Caterpillar tractor.

Cheater pipe. An extension for a toOl; used to gain
leverage.

Cleaning machine. A machine used to prepare pipe
for coating.

Cleanup gang. (A small gang which restores the right

 

of way after the pipeline job is completed.

Collar pounder. A worker who pounded the threaded
ring used to screw pipe joints together. The skill has been
made obsolete by welding.

Dead gang. A gang which, because of some special

problem, cannot continue to work.

219

Ditching gang. Gang which cuts, drills, and blasts
ditch to receive the pipe.

.2222: A term applied to any pipe coating other than
plastic. Pipeliners distinguish "hot dope," with a coal tar
base, from "cold dope" which has an asphalt base.

Dope gang. The gang which applies the protection
coating to the pipe.

Dgpe machine. A machine which applies bitumen or
other protective substances to pipe.

Dope pot. A large mobile pot used to melt and keep

 

"dope" heated.

.22E2E‘ A crawler tractor equipped with an earth
moving blade.

Filler. Weld beads placed on top of the "hot pass"
and under the "cap."

Gang foreman. Supervisor of one of the construction
gangs.

_§§te valve. A valve which controls the flow of gasses

 

and liquids.

Granny rag. (A paper strip used to coat segments of

 

pipe which are inaccessible to the dope machine.

Grape up. To be ingratiating to someone with
authority.

Grease wagon. Usually an older pickup truck used to

carry fuel, lubrication, and other materials to the gangs.

220

Hot pass. The second welder bead connecting tow
joints of pipe.

Idiot stick. A long handled spade.

 

Jungle lungh. Lunch bought by the contracting
company for an entire crew. Jungle lunches consist of
groceries which need little preparation.

Kickoff. The beginning of a job.

Little inch. "Little inch" has two meanings: (1)

 

Small diameter pipe. (2) A short term job.

,Lowering in gang. The gang which places the con-

 

nected joints of pipe into the dtich.

Materials hustler. Man whose responsibility is to

 

keep the gangs supplied with fuel, lubrication, spare parts,
and supplies; usually a favored relative, friend, or favor
creditor.

Old head. _An old timer; a worker who has been a

 

pipeliner for many years.

Pace settipg. An informally determined rate of

 

production.

Phoney personnel. Incompetent workers.

 

Pig. _A plug which is blown through a section of pipe—
line to remove rust, dirt, and small animals.
Pimp. A welder's helper.

Pipe gang. The gang which makes the initial con-

 

nection of joints of pipe with each other.

221

Point man. The chief tong man who sets the rhythm

 

of a gang which screwed joints of pipe together. The skill
no longer exists.

Pot fireman. A semiskilled worker who operates the
dope pot.

Prime Contract. The principal (first) construction

 

contract awarded by a pipeline owning company.

Right of way gang. Gang who prepares the right of
way for other gangs.

_3911. To roll someone is to replace him with another
worker.

Run off. To fire a worker.

Set up. The number of pipe connections which a
welder can weld without moving his truck.

Sideboom. A crawler tractor with a winch and boom

 

fixed to its side.

_§ipg1e hand welder. A welder who does not own his
own rig.

(Spread. The organization of enough men and equip-
ment to build a pipeline. The spread includes all of the
gangs.

.§p;ead man. The general superintendent who super-
vises the entire construction project.

Stabber. A skilled worker who aligns the two joints
of pipe to be welded with an initial stringer bead.

Stalk. A very rusty joint of pipe.

222

_Straw boss. A worker who is assigned to supervise a
small gang of laborers on special problem jobs which are not
handled by any of the standard gangs.

Stringer bead. The first bead used to weld two
joints of pipe together.

Stringing gang. Gang which places the joints of
pipe at the locations where they will be welded together.

Subcontract. A contract, usually for some special-
ized task, awarded by a construction company which holds a
prime contract.

Suck up. To be ingratiating to a boss in a way
which is seen as objectionable by other workers.

.§E§11° To relieve a worker so that he can rest for
a short period of time.

Swamper. A helper to a skilled worker.

Tie in. Connections to wells, pump stations, re—
fineries, and other processing plants, and to residential
consumer networks.

Tong man. A skilled worker who operated the tongs
used to screw pipe together. Tong men have been replaced by
welders.

waiting time. Wages paid to nonworking pipeliners in
order to hold them for future work.

Welder gang. Consists of three classes of welders:
(1) "stringer bead" welders who work with the pipe gang,

(2) "hot pass" welders who weld a second bead around pipe

223

connections, and (3) "firing line" welders who complete the
welds. Firing line welders are usually referred to as the
"welder gang." Other welders are members of other gangs.

Webble. A wildcat strike.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

mm:"(mmmummmn1"meleI

93 0306