TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 151 New Technology and the Process of Labour Regulation. By Eric Batstone, Stephen Gourlay, Hugo Levie, and Roy Moore. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. ix + 262; tables, bibliography, index. $49.95. These detailed case studies of the introduction of new technology in a British chemical plant, brewery, machine shop, and insurance company add useful data for weighing technology’s effect on labor utilization and unions’ ability to influence the nature of that effect. Eric Batstone, Stephen Gourlay, Hugo Levie, and Roy Moore intro duce the case studies by reviewing ongoing social science debates on the link between changing technology and relationships in the work place. “Many writers have argued that capitalist development has involved, and indeed depended upon, the progressive reduction of worker skills and an intensification of effort” (p. 1), and some have argued that new technology is introduced for the purpose of reducing worker skills and increasing management control. The authors par ticularly address these arguments, which they believe their Endings challenge. In each case study, they describe the company studied, the existing production methods of work process, and the factors (usually shifting market forces and financial motives) that led to thoughts of modernization. They trace the steps by which specific technology was chosen and decisions made about its implementation. Did the union have any influence on such decisions as choosing the new technology, deciding to recruit new workers or retrain current ones, and selecting implementation methods that would reduce or increase the skill levels and autonomy of workers? Union influence varied greatly in the four companies. The authors explore the reasons for this by explaining the broader relations between union and management, the internal structure of each union most affected by the innovations, and the members’ attitudes toward the unions. A historical approach to recent events, by focusing on firsthand observation and inquiry concerning the change process, offers many advantages not available either to survey researchers (including larger numbers of cases but losing individualizing detail and perspective) or to historians of the distant past (who gain perspective but cannot follow new avenues of inquiry unless the data exist). Survey research ers and historians of more conventionally “historical” studies of technology and culture will find useful leads for their own work in case studies like these. Batstone et al.’s interpretation of their findings suggests that labor considerations were not central to management’s thinking in the decision to adopt new technology. This indicates that new technology is not always introduced to reduce worker skills or to increase management control, which is a partial negation of theses proposed 152 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE by Harry Braverman and Richard Edwards, among others. Even though labor considerations were not central to management, many readers may conclude that Braverman and Edwards still have a leg to stand on. The authors also find that unions that are already effective in dealing with management on other issues are also more effective in protecting their members, or even improving their members’ position in relation to skill and autonomy, when new technology is adopted. Sometimes our research findings, though a necessary confirmation of the obvious, remind us of the princess who couldn’t cry. When someone did draw her tears by peeling an onion in her presence, everyone else said, “I could have done that!” But, of course, they hadn’t. Frieda Shoenberg Rozen Dr. Rozen, an assistant professor in the Department of Labor Studies and Industrial Relations at Pennsylvania State University, is completing a book on the effects of changing technology in the airline industry. The Process ofTechnological Change: New Technology and Social Choice in the Workplace. By Jon Clark, Ian McLoughlin, Howard Rose, and Robin King. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp. xiv + 250; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, appendixes, index. $49.50. The last two decades have been especially challenging ones for the British Post Office. Indeed, it is arguable that during this period the institution has experienced more change than in any comparable period since the generation that included the establishment of the Penny Post in 1840, Post Office Savings Banks in 1861, and the nationalization of the telegraphs in 1870. Interestingly, in...
Read full abstract
Jun 17, 2023
Ya D Zelyakh + 3
Open Access