A third challenge facing modern workers as they struggle to work with dignity is the possibility of incursions on their autonomy. Autonomy is particularly important for professional and craft workers whose jobs depend on the daily exercise of autonomy in relation to tools, techniques, and work priorities. A professional or craft worker can often be the only person on site with the requisite skills and knowledge to make appropriate decisions about production – decisions that sometimes have life and death consequences. For these and other reasons, the defense of autonomy is of utmost importance to professional and craft workers.

The skills of professional and craft employees are essential for effective functioning in many organizations because these workers possess important skills that are required to solve ongoing problems in production. As a result of their unique skills, they are typically allowed a significant degree of independence at work. Professional and craft workers thus have greater input into decisions about how work is to proceed than workers in settings organized around direct supervisory control or around bureaucratic rules. The fact that their skills are essential to the organization, however, also makes them a problem for managers who may resent being dependent on them. Managers thus frequently seek to limit the autonomy of professional and craft employees in order to gain control of work and to organize it according to their own agendas. Managers attempt to control the work of professional and craft workers through bureaucratic rules or through direct supervision.