Trade Union Technology Policy between the Protection of Status and Work Structuring

Abstract

This article deals with the consequences of rationalization in the field of labour policy brought about by information technologies as well as their impact on the trade unions' planning policies. The West German machine-building industry has been chosen as the empirical field for studying this new type of rationalization and control strategies, 'computer-aided production planning and production control'. This study shows that the overall labour process in companies is less characterized by a consistent 'novel' production concept as detailed in Kern and Schumann's recent analysis of the 'end of division of labour'; labour relations and utilization of labour rather seem to be regulated by a multitude of variants in the field of labour policy. Centralized control and freedom to decide and act on the part of decentralized units in companies may complement one another. Above all the process of implementing information technologies (project manager/project planning) and the dependence of the technological and social resourcefulness of these systems on human knowledge and abilities must be considered as factors of wide-ranging importance for fields of policy and negotiation, modes of regulation and industrial relations which have been established in a company. This novel state of affairs especially demands a better understanding on the part of the trade unions of fields of policy and new bodies responsible for these policies in the companies.