The Whitecoated Worker: Professional Autonomy in a Period of Change.

This paper adopts a similar position to French (1987:401) who emphasises the "any differences between engeneers and scientits and the rest of workeforce are differences only in degree and only in certain dimensions". Indeed, it suggests further that the degrees of difference may becomming smaller as the result of a process of "deprofessionalisation". The paper will argue that conflict at Pharmex, at least in the short term, is less likely to be a product of constraints on professional autonomy and more likely to be the result of competitive pressures in the sector leading to cost-cutting, industrial restructuring and changing technologies which in their trun will have a major impact on the lives of those employed to carry out scientific work in the pharmaceutical sector