Many people lack autonomy because they work jobs that deny them significant and meaningful control over what they do. The negative impact of this can be ameliorated, to a degree, by the relationships that people often form with co-workers: that is, workplace sociability can itself enhance workers’ autonomy while also helping them tolerate heteronomous work by making it more bearable. In addition, workplace sociability is also a potential resource for advancing the cause of working people’s autonomy, acting as a basis for developing forms of workplace solidarity which workers can then use, through strike action and other forms of militant activity, to improve their working conditions. In this paper, we identify the tension between, on the one hand, the ameliorative and therapeutic value of workplace sociability and, on the other, sociability’s potential instrumental role in expanding workers’ autonomy. We argue that developing workplace sociability into more purposive forms of solidarity involves putting at risk those other functions performed by such sociability. If expanding their autonomy is something workers have reason to care about, navigating the varied and complex functions performed by workplace sociability is thus an important dimension of workplace organizing.

许多人缺乏自主权，因为他们从事的工作使他们无法对自己所做的事情进行重大而有意义的控制。这种负面影响在一定程度上可以通过人们经常与同事建立的关系得到改善：也就是说，工作场所的社交能力本身可以增强工人的自主权，同时还可以通过使工作更容易忍受来帮助他们容忍他律工作。此外，工作场所的社交活动也是推动工人自​​主事业的潜在资源，它是发展工作场所团结形式的基础，工人可以利用这种形式通过罢工行动和其他形式的激进活动来改善他们的工作条件. 在本文中，我们一方面确定了改善和治疗之间的紧张关系工作场所社交的价值，另一方面，社交在扩大员工自主权方面的潜在工具作用。我们认为，将工作场所的社交能力发展成更有目的性的团结形式，会危及这种社交能力所发挥的其他功能。如果扩大他们的自主权是员工有理由关心的事情，那么驾驭工作场所社交所执行的各种复杂功能就是工作场所组织的一个重要方面。