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Analyzing the case of a factory located in Brittany in the 1960s and 1970s, this article shows how the traditional organization of labor based on industrial discipline and hierarchical control of the productive process is strengthened by a negotiation of the positions and the professional statuses within manufacturing workshops. Within relationships of strict subordination, discussions about the manufacturing order are limited and conditioned by the detention of specific professional resources. The instability of professional positions, which arose from a paternalistic management of the workforce, leads to the development of interpersonal negotiations over side issues in the productive process between workers and middle management in order to obtain professional rewards. The possibilities and the content of such negotiations vary according to the type of personalized relations which unite workshops’ members.