sebarber@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Barber) (05/05/87)
Tony Marriot asks for some examples from Scandinavia describing the use of "co-determination" in technology design. Two of the three examples from the video tape I saw were (I forget the third): - An aircraft maintenence shop, the computer system in which was redesigned to allow the machinists to plan their own work. The results were an increase both in productivity and job quality (pretty important for airplane repairs, no?), which was attributed to the greater control allowed the workers in scheduling and to some notion of increased morale and sense of worth or importance. This last point is not to be overlooked, as anyone who has ever managed anyone (especially programmers!) can attest. - A bank, who while in the process of largely automating away their tellers, also developed an intergrated software/computer system (with NCR/Scandinavia) to turn the remaining tellers into "customer service reps", with more autonomy and authority and could deal with a broader range of services and responsibility. Now, given that this is a rather limited range of examples and that I know virtually nothing of Scandinavian society, I was taken by this model of "cooperation" in technological development. Co-operation is almost euphemistic in this context: what's really going on is that in the continuing struggle of labor vs. management, labor seems to be a far more powerful social group there than it is here. The society recognizes labor's claims as legitimate, and provides public monies and institutions (such as laws and a labor-oriented R&D center). Within companies, union input is necessary for the introduction of any new "technology" (I wish I knew how they define that). In America, labor has come up with less power, and has accepted management determination of the use and form of technologies (computers included) in exchange for mith NCR/Scandinavia) to turn the remaining telre in that the constant influx of relatively cheap immigrant labor dilutes the power and solidarity of the workforce in the U.S. When talking about the appropriateness of automation, there are several perspectives to consider: that of management, responsible to their shareholders and/or themselves; labor, responsible to themselves and their families; and that of the society at large which, depending on your viewpoint, may be responsible for the well-being of all, or at least concerned with maximizing productivity. Most automation causes displacement in the workforce, at least temporarily. The concern is to balance management's desire for more productivity with the worker's "desire" for steady employment. Maybe we'd be all better off if menial jobs were automated away so that we could leverage our productivity, and maybe not. If jobs lost in one sector are not replaced by jobs in another sector, then people are disemployed, wealth becomes more concentrated, and the society will destabilize. If there is a lag in job creation, the same thing can happen. My interest in these issues stem from my interest in user-interface and other software system design. Most software automates existing tasks, and it is, in my mind, a duty of the designer to understand what he is automating and why, so that the "how" is carried out correctly. To me, a system designed to increase productivity by de-skilling the worker is bad for the worker, who is de-motivated, and for management who now has a disgruntled workforce and ultimately lower quality output. The basic assumption here (borne out by history: examples on request) is that technologies don't just spring into existence, their forms determined by "science", but that they are expressions of the goals and relative power of those who designed and implemented them. I submitted the previous article to let you folks know what people with similar concerns were talking about, and to provide an alternative discussion from the dreary "literacy" discussion that has been going on for over a month. The major question: Who does the computerization of society benefit, and why? -Steve Barber sebarber@athena.mit.edu or ..!seismo!cbmvax!hutch!barber (Some further reading along these lines: D.F. Noble, "Forces of Production" and "America by Design"; Lewis Mumford, "Technics and Civilization"; Sherry Turkle, "The Second Self"; Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason"; Robert Howard, "Brave New Workplace")
MJackson.Wbst@Xerox.COM (Mark Jackson) (05/13/87)
Steve, while it's true that labor unions in this country have been more
focussed on security and pay than on larger workplace issues this has
not been entirely by choice. The UAW made a bid for something like
"participative management" I think at Ford in the late 40's or early
50's. The idea was killed essentially by middle managers, who were
jealous of their own "rights" in the workplace.
One might speculate that the ease with which worker participation can
function in a society is inversely proportional to the degree of
rigidity and overtness of that society's class structure. Thus England
has *terrible* labor relations, whereas in Scandinavia humanization of
the assembly line has a substantial history.
So that this note not be *entirely* unrelated to "Computers and Society"
(although Dave has been inviting us to comment on Gary Hart, so
obviously his standards are rather loose :-), let me note your closing
comment: "The major question: Who does the computerization of society
benefit, and why?" Neil Postman, in /Amusing Ourselves to Death/, has
this to say:
Although I believe the computer to be a vastly overrated technology,
I
mention it here because, clearly, Americans have accorded it their
customary inattention; which means they will use it as they are
told,
without a whimper. Thus, a central thesis of computer
technology--that
the principal difficulty we have in solving problems stems from
insufficient data--will go unexamined. Until, years from now, when
it
will be noticed that the massive collection and speed-of-light
retrieval of data have been of great value to large-scale
organizations
but have solved very little of importance to most people and have
created at least as many problems for them as they may have solved.
Now clearly there is a lot to argue with here (I believe, for example,
that the general inability of humans to form effective, humane
organizations on a large scale is an enormous problem for *everyone*),
but I assume that each of us who reads this digest sees *some* such
outcome as a possibility, and is interested in avoiding that eventuality
if possible.
Marksebarber@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Barber) (05/13/87)
- - Thank you for your response, and especially for the Postman quote. If you read D.F. Noble's Forces of Production or Bob Howard's Brave New Workplace, they make the point that the U.S. labor unions in effect traded off their chance at particpatory management in the middle decades of this century in exchange for job security for current union members, mostly out of the fear that their jobs would be otherwise eliminated through automation. Upon reflection, this action seems like a massive sell-out on the unions' part, although I must admit I don't know what I would do if I were in the unions' position. In part, this is what is happening in Scandinavia: the unions there, who are more secure than the unions in the U.S. and who therefore did not feel compelled to negotiate away their say in corporation management, are encouraged and required by law be allowed to participate in the application of new technology. In the "Computers in Context" video, one of the examples had the workers participating in the design of a system which they would use in redefined job roles since their old jobs (bank tellers) were being automated away. The guiding principle in both these cases seems to be that the unions are trying to cut their losses due to automation. It would be difficult to argue that automation in many cases is not a good thing. However, if we accept the premise that the increase in GNP that is due to automation genuinely benefits society (and benefits it fairly)* in the long run, then there will be always be the short term disruption when a new technology is introduced (short term in this context is something like 5 to 20 YEARS for cases with a large enough effect to worry about from a public policy standpoint). -Steve Barber * I find this premise to be problematic at best, but let's let it stand so people don't start calling me a Luddite and then ignore the labor issue.