Carrol wrote:
Borderline cases tend to corrupt analysis. Management (as I would describe it) is simply part of the capitalist class, their share of surplus value coming to them in the form of salaries. But Management is also a rubber-bag category that can be stretched weirdly. According to a Supreme Court case faculty at private schools are part of "management" and therefore not protected by labor law. The essential thing is to see that class is first and last a relationship, not a tin can into which one sorts red marbles, green marbles, red/green/purple marbles, etc.
=========================== It is possible to be a little more precise.
Top managers rely as much on their options and other investments as on their board-determined salaries to maintain their income and have more autonomy and effective decision-making authority in the staffing and operations of the workplace. The great majority of "managerial and professional" employees are generally grouped together in management-determined classification and pay bands, enjoy less autonomy, and lack effective control over staffing and operations. Labour legislation in many jurisdictions accounts for these distinctions in determining which professionals - generally referring to those with university degrees - are to be classed as "employees" rather than "management" and, hence, eligible for union membership. It's a grey area, as you note, around which there is a large body of labour jurisprudence. As you might expect, the Europeans and former British colonies, with their labour and social-democratic tradition, are far in advance of the Americans in extending bargaining rights to this fast growing more highly educated and better-paid strata of the workforce.
