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Work and Technological Change

Robert Blauner — alienation and technology

Robert Blauner's study of American manual workers in Alienation & Freedom (1960) adopts the view that worker's attitudes are an indication of their degree of alienation; that is, he does not adopt the Marxist view that workers in a capitalist society are automatically alienated owing to their objective economic position. Signs of alienation are indicated by (1) the degree of control over work; (2) the sense of purpose in it; (3) the degree of social integration with other co-workers; (4) the degree of involvement with the work.
He analyses four occupational situations by means of questionnaires given to workers.
(1) He uses the printing industry (prior to the onset of computerized technology) as an example of a pre-industrial craft technology. He found that only 4% of print workers found their work dull and monotonous. Their work is in his view not objectively alienating. Printers have control over the work, and do not feel powerless in it. They work largely free of external supervision; there is no high degree of division of labour or specialization. They are not socially isolated and participate actively in trades unions and craft clubs. He concludes that “Work for craft printers is a source of involvement and commitment. It is not chiefly a means to life, but an expression of their selfhood and identity.”
(2) The textile industry is his example of an industry still at the early stages of industrialization. Textile workers are nothing better than machine minders, and they are objectively alienated, experiencing a high degree of powerlessness. Being tied to machines, textile workers have little freedom of movement and supervisors act effectively to police the work. The standardization of the product prevents workers taking a pride in their work. However, despite the objectively alienating character of the work, textile workers are not subjectively alienated. This is because they live in small communities with strong ties of kinship and religion. They tend also to be less well-educated than the average American and have low aspirations. They expect work to be monotonous and live accordingly.
(3) Blauner uses assembly line production in the automobile industry as an example of work that is most alienating. 34% of manual workers in this industry find their work alienating, but this figure rises to 61% for direct assembly line workers. The machines control the pace of the work; supervision is a form of policing; workers experience powerlessness; the product is standardized; tasks are mundane and repetitive; workers are socially isolated; there is a clear distinction between management and workers. Assembly line workers do feel hostility to their work and adopt an instrumental approach to work — regarding it simply as a means to obtaining money.
(4) Blauner uses work in the oil and chemical industries as examples of automated continuous processes. Here he claims that the taking of automation to its extreme has reversed the trend in alienation, and that the business of checking automated processes and making adjustments restores to the worker responsibility and independence. He claims that process workers do not experience social isolation, and they are not interested in unions and are loyal to their employers. “Since work in continuous process industries involves control, meaning and social integration, it tends to be self-actualizing instead of self-estranging.”
Technological Determinism
Blauner regards technology as determining the behaviour and attitude of workers. Hence he claims that alienation can be reduced if production technology is introduced. He also suggests that work can be made less alienating if there is (1) job rotation and (2) job enlargement — that is, increasing workers' responsibilities.
Criticism of Blauner
Blauner uses a non-Marxist concept of alienation. Alienation is an attitude to work. For Marx, alienation is an “objective” situation defined by the worker's relation to the means of production. A Marxist will not be impressed by Blauner's ideas.
Secondly, Blauner's study is based on questionnaires — and these are notoriously difficult to interpret; they tend to introduce bias; and workers may be reluctant to express dissatisfaction with their work, since such an admission might undermine their self-respect.

Studies of the impact of Automation

Theo Nichols and Huw Beynon- the chemical industry
Nichols and Beynon made a study of seven chemical plants in Britain. In contrast to Blauner, they did not find any significant reductions in alienation in this supposed example of automated continuous process industry. They claim that about 50% of work in the chemical industry is wholly unskilled manual labour. Those workers whose job was to monitor and check control dials were also alienated. They do not agree with Blauner that process technology reduces alienation.
Goldthorpe and Lockwood et al — work orientation
Goldthorpe and Lockwood made a study of affluent workers in Luton. They rejected Blauner's deterministic approach in which it is claimed that workers behaviour can be predicted from the technology employed in their work. They adopt a social action perspective — workers give their own meaning to their work, and this creates their attitude towards it. They studied assembly line workers at the Vauxhall car company, machine operators (etc.) at the Skefko Ball Bearing Company and process workers at Laporte Chemicals. They claim that there are significant differences in the intrinsic satisfaction of these jobs — for example, skilled maintenance work is intrinsically more satisfying. However, despite these differences, Goldthorpe and Lockwood found significant similarities in all the affluent workers' attitudes. They all tended to adopt an instrumentalist attitude — regarding work as a means to an end, to obtaining money and raising their living standards. They were all loyal to their employers, and grateful for above average wages and relatively secure employment. They did not tend to form close relationships with their co-workers, since they regarded the work-place as primarily a place for making money. They adopted an instrumental collectivism in their attitudes to unions — unions exist to obtain higher wages and better working conditions, and no more. Thus they reject Blauner's distinction between isolated alienated assembly line workers and integrated non-alienated process workers. These manual workers tended to regard their families and family life as central — they work in order to maintain these sources of satisfaction.
A Marxist might counter by arguing that the instrumental attitude of the affluent workers is an expression of their alienation; but Goldthorpe and Lockwood argue that workers with instrumentalist attitudes are attracted to highly paid 'alienating' work.
They are consumption orientated individuals prepared to undertake an alienating type of work for the reward of higher pay. They also reject Marcuse's criticism; and claim that there is nothing false about workers' desire “for decent, comfortable houses, for labour-saving devices, and even such leisure goods as television sets and cars”.
However, there are some methodological considerations that should be taken into account when considering Goldthorpe and Lockwood's work. The sample was not random — the majority of the men were between 21 and 46, and men in this situation are more likely to be married and more likely to adopt an instrumental view of work. Workers in Luton, a “town of migrants” are drawn by the opportunity for higher wages, and since they have left their home-communities, are more likely to be family centred. The workers contained a higher proportion of downwardly mobile individuals, who are more likely to be concerned about maintaining living standards since their reference groups remain other white-collar workers. The sample contained no women. In conclusion, the sample was by no means random.
Wedderburn and Crompton — technology and work
Wedderburn and Crompton studied a chemical complex called 'Seagrass'. Their sample was genuinely random. Most of the workforce had lived in the same area for most of their lives. Wages in this group were below the national average. Despite the differences between this sample and that of Goldthorpe and Lockwood, they also found that workers adopted an instrumentalist attitude to their work, and valued the level of pay, the security of the job, the good welfare benefits and the good working conditions mostly.
Technological and social determinism
Keith Grint defines the doctrine of technological determinism as one where technology is “an exogenous and autonomous development which coerces and determines social and economic organizations and relationships.” Blauner typifies a technological determinist.
On the other hand social determinism is the view that “technological changes are themselves socially engineered and/or work relationships are, in any case, derived from, and ultimately determined by, cultural and/or social aspects.” Goldthrope and Lockwood represent social determinists, arguing that it is workers' attitudes that shape their relationship to a particular technology.
Most sociologists adopt a middle view.
Automation, Class and Society
Sociologists have been interested in the effect of automation on work. Blauner sees automation as necessarily reversing the trend towards instability and division at work; replacing dissent between management and workers by consensus. He believes that the worker in an automated process develops a social personality that is increasingly middle-class in nature.
However, the French Marxist Serge Mallet disagrees. He argues that automation will accelerate the development of class consciousness and hence conflict. Automated workers will be increasingly aware that they are the ones with the real control over industry, and they will experience greater solidarity, and this will lead to them demanding control over enterprise. Automation will revitalize the trades union movement along syndicalist lines — that is, with the aim of the worker control of industry.
The British sociologist, Duncan Gallie, attacked the work of both Blauner and Mallet for the poor quality of their research. He describes the data on which they based their research as “perilously frail”. In his work, In Search of the New Working Class, he studied two oil refineries in Britain and two oil refineries in France. In both Britain and France oil refinery workers had high wages in comparison to other workers, but 90% of British workers were satisfied, and 66% of French workers dissatisfied. There were 24 strikes during 1963 to 1972 in the French refineries compared to 1 in the British refineries. Part of the French worker's pay was made up of a 'merit bonus' which was at the discretion of management and a source of mistrust; French workers were significantly more dissatisfied with pay differentials than British workers. Both British and French workers were indifferent in their attitude to work, and believed continuous round-the-clock shift work was unhealthy and disrupted their family life.
Thus Gallie's study supported neither Blauner nor Mallet. The nature of the social relationships in an automated process were not determined by the process, but by the underlying culture. In Britain, workers' attitudes were closer to those described by Blauner, in France closer to those described by Mallet. The explanation is that (1) working-class subcultures differ in the two countries - the French are more egalitarian in their attitudes than British. (2) French management was more authoritarian and paternalistic and fostered conflict. (3) French wages were negotiated nationally, British wages were negotiated locally. (4) Some French unions are committed to the “overthrow” of capitalism; British unions are concerned with better pay and conditions. Thus, “automated technology itself appears to have little effect on wider social issues.”

Computers and Work

In the Age of the Smart Machine
Shoshana Zuboff (in her work, In the Age of the Smart Machine) is an American sociologist who between 1981 and 1986 studied eight organizations that were introducing or developing information technology. The organizations encompassed blue-collar workers, clerical workers and managers. She found that for manual workers the physical effort in work was becoming less important, so old skills were becoming redundant and new, intellective, skills were becoming more important. For blue-collar workers the effect was to erode social relations, as workers increasingly worked on their own at a screen. The effect was that workers complained of eye-strain and nervous exhaustion, for example. However, in stock brokers and insurance companies computers were seen as increasing the volume of business through automation.
Companies faced a decision as to whether to use information technology as a means of further control over the workforce or not. She calls such an approach the information panopticon — this follows an architectural design by Jeremy Bentham in which a central tower controls the activities of wings of a building. On the other hand, companies can use information technology as a means of empowering workers. For example, DrugCorp introduced a computer-conference system called DIALOG which “helped create a new culture of information sharing and discussion”.
Whilst management appears to have a choice in whether to use information as a means of coercion or as a means of making work more 'creative', it is arguable that in the long run it is the creative aspects that must win out.
Critical Junctures
Jon Clark, Ian McLoughlin, Howard Rose and Robin King made a study of the impact of new technology on telephone exchange workers in Britain. They adopt an engineering systems approach to technology — it is not the technology itself that determines social relations but the whole way the technology is implemented — the system as a whole. They monitored the effect of the replacement of the Strowger telephone exchange system by the electronic TXE4 system. The skills required changed — refined manual skills were replaced by mental diagnostic skills. Teamwork was encouraged by the change.
They evolved the concept of a critical juncture — finding that at certain key moments the social relations of different worker groups were determined by a power struggle. Once the critical juncture has been passed the losing group cannot recover its position. After the juncture “social chance becomes frozen within a given technology.”
This idea of the critical juncture is supported by the work of American sociologist Rob Kling, who is opposed to technological determinism. In various studies of the introduction of computer technology (with other collaborators) Rob Kling has concluded that there is no one determined outcome arising from the introduction of computers into a workplace. He claims that there has been no computer revolution. For most white-collar workers there have been alterations in “interesting procedural ways without radically restructuring the organization of work.”
Discourse Analysis
Keith Grint and Steve Woolgar also attack technological determinism. They argue that the discourse surrounding a technology is what shapes its use. Those people who have the power to impose their discourse are the ones who are able to define the use of technology to their own interests. They state: “We do not have contrary interpretations of the same machine; what the machine is and what it will do are social constructions such that we actually construct different machines.” It is the so-called “experts” who generally have the power to define what use is to be made of a given machine.

Post-Fordism

Fordism and Post-Fordism
The development of mass production techniques, with a moving assembly line, in which the tasks are broken down into simple routines that require little training or skill, is associated with the car manufacturer, Henry Ford, and is called “Fordism”. According to Braverman the deskilling of production methods makes it easier for management to control labour.
However, Michael J. Piore argues that we have entered a post-Fordist era, in which work is organized on principles of flexible specialization. This development is associated with changes in production and management techniques in Japan. The change is said to be in response to changes in consumer demands — with consumers increasingly demanding more specialized products. This in turn means that companies require a more specialized and flexible work force. The organisational structure is also less hierarchical and more flexible. Work is said to be more varied and workers enjoy more job security. Management adopts a more participative approach, which is linked to the Japanese concept of quality circles, in which workers and managers meet together to improve company performance. Workers may also be included on company boards, and there are profit sharing schemes as well. Job satisfaction is said to improve, and conflict is said to decrease. There is also a movement away from large companies to smaller businesses. C. Sabel regards the north of Italy (known as “Third Italy”) as a region that particularly exemplifies post-Fordist production, with a network of small and medium sized businesses working together.
The flexible firm — core and peripheral workers
The British economist John Aitkinson has developed a theory of the flexible firm. He argues that the recession of the 1970s and 1980s made flexibility more desirable. It takes two forms: (1) functional flexibility means that managers can transfer multi-skilled workers between different tasks within the firm. Such workers form the core of the company's workforce, and comprises, usually, managers, designers, technical sales staff, quality control staff, technicians and craftsmen. (2) Numerical flexibility refers to the ability of management to recruit non-core, peripheral workers as and when required. Peripheral workers are also divided into two groups — those with full-time jobs, but less job security than core workers; and those with part-time jobs and temporary contracts. According to Aitkinson, core workers do enjoy more autonomy in the work place and are less alienated. He does not agree with Braverman that work has been deskilled.
Anna Pollert is very critical of Aitkinson's theory. She does not agree that there ever was a period in which Fordist production methods predominated, and flexibility has always run alongside mass production. The cost of new technology limits the rate at which post-Fordist methods can be introduced. Once new technology is introduced there is no one deterministic outcome, and either side “can wrest gains and suffer costs in the negotiation of change.” She regards the theory of flexibility as oversimplified. She disagrees that companies are making greater use of a peripheral workforce, and argues that the amount of temporary work has not increased significantly; in fact, she claims that part-time working declined in British manufacturing during 1979 to 1986. Companies have always employed peripheral workers.
Stephen Wood is also critical of Aitkinson's theory. In his study of two British steel-rolling mills he found the introduction of new technology did not significantly increase the skills of the workers. On the contrary, he argues that new technology has by and large had a negative impact on the British work-force, including “job losses, unemployment, tightening of performance standards, labour intensification, changing employment contracts and a reduction in the power of trade unions and workers' representatives.”
A less critical view is offered by Paul Thompson, who accepts that “the modern worker does frequently have to be more flexible” but claims that the degree of flexibility has been over-exaggerated. His research at the Leyland Volvo plant showed some evidence of multi-skilling and multi-tasking, but he also claims that new methods of control have been introduced — for example, at Nissan UK workers monitor each other, and companies also use more intensive recruitment processes, such as psychological testing. Japanese companies have succeeded in making workers work harder, and production targets are regularly increased.
Maryellen Kelly in an attempt to evaluate the claims about post-Fordism studied industries in the US that use computer-controlled machinery. Her study was based on questionnaires conducted in 1986-7. She claimed that there were three types of company: (1) factories using strict Taylorist control; (2) factories where there was worker-centred control; and (3) factories where there was shared control. No one pattern of control was dominant, though worker-centred control was more likely in smaller firms.
It is possible that the experience of work is not developing in any one direction; it may be that some occupations are being deskilled, whilst others are becoming more flexible and skilled. It is possible that no one pattern predominates.