The basic focus of this research is on the effect of political processes such as elections and economic policies (such as neoliberalism) in determining the labour market and in negating the idea of technological determinism. The article has also helped me to look into the gig economy. A booming economy, with coordination through technology has fascinated me to study more about it.
I. The holistic approach towards technology, labour, production and social structures such as state, political party, labour organizations etc. The author has never taken technology and its consequences(both positive and negative) out of the socio-political context. The wider implications of automation, technology are explained by quoting Carl Benedikt Frey, Thor Berger, and Chinchih Chen, considering whether the technological disruption is already feeding through into voting behaviour (2018). They argue that "electoral districts with a higher share of jobs exposed to automation are significantly and more likely to have supported Trump in the 2016 US presidential election, concluding that to ‘avoid further populist rebellion and a looming backlash against technology itself, governments must find ways of making the benefits from automation more widely shared ".
II. The second theme that can be contributive to the study of labour and technology is the emerging gig economy. In India, there is a greater boom of service sectors such as transportation under the gig economy. One such example is the uber eats, uber cabs etc, which made transportation and food delivery easier and cheaper in metro cities. There were several protests hoisted by the counterparts of uber and gig economy, who are doing the same job in a conventional way. Many of India's major cities witnessed the protest against uber cabs by conventional cab drivers.
III. The third contribution by this particular paper to the field is its exploration on the areas of how technology is used to control and manage the workforce on one hand and how the same mechanism implemented by technology is used by workers to counteract such control. The process of hiring, production, and monitoring are used to control workers whereas hiring implemented online enables more chance for workers with choices and speedy recovery from job loss. The changes in production relations help the worker with the easing of hectic works. The monitoring of work will be seen as a call for workers to organize themselves. It helps them to think about sabotaging the entire process, through what we refer to as everyday resistance or weapons of the weak (James Scott, )
I. Theory of automation and technology: The main arguement and ideas for this article stems from the ideas of Autor, who studies tremendously about labour and technology. He is the one who emphasised the heterogenous impact of technology and automation upon heterogenous labour force and production. The author mainly draws the ideas of polarisation of labour and wages, from Polanyi's paradox and its implication on technology from David.H. Autor.
Studies on technology and socio-political structures. The author's emphasis on the influence of other social-political processes derive from the studies he referred to. Levy (2018), "talks about the ultimate impact of new advances will depend on the policy choices of governments, the production choices of firms, the labour supply and consumption behaviour of workers and consumers, and their voting behaviour as democratic citizens".He asserts that over a period, some technologies ability, efficiency and speed along with people’s reactions will determine how the economy evolves
“Labour markets are characterized by imperfect information about the location of workers and of vacancies, and by asymmetric information on the ability of workers and the quality of their work. Here technology can change both the search and hiring process and also facilitate new monitoring and performance management schemes once an employment relationship is initiated" () rather than looking into the one-dimensional impact of technology as a substitute, he emphasises its role in change at other dimensions of production, industry and labour.
I. Hiring: The developments related to technology and information technology increased the possibility with which the labour force is able to find out jobs that are matching (). A study by Kuhn & Mansour (2014) and Faberman & Kudlyak (2016) found that online job search is mostly associated with short tenure works than for jobs with a commitment for longer durations. The efficiency to find such apt works are high in an online job search than the offline ().
II. Production: This is a classic example of work that has been changing after the so-called ' technological change. The author argues that technology mostly affects the way and quality of works rather than a complete change and quantitative difference of work. Earlier "labour markets were characterized by imperfect information about the location of workers and of vacancies, and by asymmetric information on the ability of workers and the quality of their work. Here technology can change both the search and hiring process and also facilitate new monitoring and performance management schemes once an employment relationship is initiated", with the intervention of technology.
Monitoring: is an important aspect of production and labours in relation to profit. It is a conventional assumption that those who work as wage labour have a tendency to be lazy and to be non-committed to their works. From the era of feudalism, itself monitoring was an important tool to control and subordinate the ' working' class such as peasants, bonded labourers and the modern proletariat. The technology is used to enhance the monitoring and increase the surplus by efficient coordination between automated machines and those who operate it. He argues that" Tesco uses electronic armbands to track the movements of stock pickers in its warehouses. The armbands direct staff around the warehouse, instruct them to select particular items and automatically log inventory. The company Steelcase puts sensors in office furniture to monitor how employees interact and how long they stay at their desk, while Evolve takes screenshots to monitor how individuals are working in real time"
By quoting Levi (2008) the author argues that "the ultimate impact of new advances will depend on the policy choices of governments, the production choices of firms, the labour supply and consumption behaviour of workers and consumers, and their voting behaviour as democratic citizens. Over time, some technologies will thus deploy faster than others and some occupations will be disrupted faster than others. The sequence and speed of developments and people’s reactions to the developments will jointly determine how the economy evolves"().
In the context of this argument, he pleads that technology is not a monocausal factor in the economic and industrial changes as assumed by the popular narrations of automation and its resulting job loss. But he places this main argument in how technology influences the entire industrial process. He gives an alternative viewpoint of how certain paradigmatic changes of economy, industry and labour are mediated through technology. "Even if new technologies do not necessarily destroy jobs, they will radically affect the quality and composition of jobs. They will affect how individuals find work and how they are monitored while performing it" The entire essence of the article can be seen in these precise words.
"[T]he impact of a particular technology on employment and wages depends both on whether technology substitutes or complements for labour and also on equilibrium impacts that manifest themselves through changes in labour supply and product demand"
"[T]o assess the likelihood that a particular task may be automated, economists have moved beyond a simple ‘skilled’ versus ‘unskilled’ or ‘manual’ versus ‘non-manual’ distinction to consider how ‘routine’ a task is (Autor et al., 2003). As laid out in detail in Frank Levy’s contribution to this issue (Levy, 2018), assessments of the routineness of a task, and thus its ability to be automated".
"[l]abour markets are characterized by imperfect information about the location of workers and of vacancies, and by asymmetric information on the ability of workers and the quality of their work. Here technology can change both the search and hiring process and also facilitate new monitoring and performance management schemes once an employment relationship is initiated"