The bases of the article are the results of an empirical study about traditional work places in industry. There were made group discussions and special qualitative interviews with workers and employees of a German factory. The article tries to interpret and to integrate these subjective concepts in the actual discussion of theoretical perspectives in sociology, social psychology, and adult education. The theoretical discussion refers to German, Austrian, French, and American social scientists. The result of this discourse is a theoretical construction of a hidden informal lifeworld, which is embedded in the concrete industrial working process. These informal lifeworlds influence the cooperation of the workers and the relationship between work and learning.