Computer Chips and Paper Clips Technology and Women's Employment, Volume II: Case Studies and Policy Perspectives (1987) / Chapter Skim
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Managing Technological Change: Responses of Government, Employers, and Trade Unions in Western Europe and Canada
Managing Technological Change: Responses of Government, Employers, and Trade Unions in Western Europe and Canada
Pages 395-432
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From page 395... ...
Furthermore, the role of each of these groups changes over time and is closely related to the overall economic cI~matc in particular, the level of unemployment. In the 30 years after World War IT, many Western industrialized countries experienced faster technological change than during any period since the Industrial Revolution, and yet these changes were largely managed within a cooperative environment, by mutual agreement between unions and managers.
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From page 396... ...
This discussion forms the backdrop for the discussion in the following sections, which examines, in some detail, the part played by each of these groups in resolving conflicts over specific issues related to the introduction of new technologies, such as job design, changing locations and hours of work, and education and training. The overall aim of this paper is to examine these issues with specific references to women and women's employment.
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From page 397... ...
(Table 1 presents indicators of women's position in-the labor market for selected industrialized countries.) Government legislation against sex discrimination and in favor of equal pay exists in most Western industrialized countries; it is generally recognized, however, that these measures have not yet achieved equal opportunity in the workplace nor have they begun to address women's and men's unequal family roles.
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Like the national programs, the main purpose of the EEC program is to promote cooperation among enterprises, research centers, and universities through public subsidies, with a view to creating or consolidating European industrial potential in new technology fields such as advanced microelectronics, software technologies, advanced information processing, office automation, and computer-integrated manufacture. The above examples of government initiatives to promote new technologies illustrate the separation that is so often made by governments between the growth of new technology industries and the employment problems that such growth may cause.
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Interventions by government aimed at shaping technological change, though important, necessarily do not address all factors affecting employment. Legislation to set minimum standards in technological decision making Is used in several countries in two key areas: health and safety and Determination." The 1977 Norwegian Work Environment Act is a good example of government intervention to ensure that the health and safety of employees is maintained with the introduction of new technologies.
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From page 404... ...
During the 1970s, a fairly coherent and comprehensive approach toward negotiating about technology began to emerge in several western European countries. The anew technology agreements" or "technology agreements" had the effect of placing on the agenda of collective bargaining "a range of topics which affect all aspects of technological and mr~.ni~.nt.imna1 rho ~~ On ~~ ~~- (Evans, 1983:158~.
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A status quo clause which gives the unions a right to veto changes unless they have been consulted and an agreement reached. Substantive issues on technology agreements Job security following the introduction of new technology.
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We argue that this is particularly the case in relation to quality of work issues: job design, changing location and changing hours of work, and education and training. POI,ICY ISSUES JOB DESIGN _ Many studies of women's work and new technology have focused on changes in office work, where women workers predominate, and it is with this area of work that we shall be most concerned in the following sections.
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From page 407... ...
and that other aspects of work, not associated with the physical arrangement of the workplace, must be considered. Following the concept of work adopted in the Norwegian Work Environment Act of 1977, Thoresen stresses the opportunities for professional and personal learning and development that a job can provide.
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Conflicts of interest between workers at different levels of the occupational hierarchy will have to be faced and to some extent overcome if workers are to be effective in influencing decision making. Numerous examples of successful negotiations around job design have resulted in maintenance or even improvement of the quality of work after the introduction of new technologies.
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As she also notes, women's influence is not always directed through the trade unions. In discussing the importance of informal worker influence, Bermann (1985:235)
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In particular, groups of office workers have been concerned about the possible increase in the use of homeworkers in data-entry and dataprocessing type jobs because these workers are not likely to escape the disadvantages that traditional homeworkers have faced, such as low pay, little job security, and inadequate working conditions. While women in the more professional; groups of new homeworkers, such as software designers and programmers, may be better placed than clerical workers to cope with the problems associated with homework, insofar as they still have the major responsibility for housework and child care, they, too, will remain disadvantaged relative to the majority of men.
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From page 411... ...
The Commission of the European Communities (1984a:21) is also concerned with changing the norm through supporting measures aimed at redistributing work; rather than issue a binding policy directive, however, they issued a set of guidelines and objectives concerned with the reduction and/or redistribution of working time, which includes the following: 1.
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Part-Time Work and Job Sharing Most part-time workers are women, and many women who work, work part-time (see Table 1~. Part-time work almost inevitably means low pay, low status, and little job security.
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The retirement age, for women and men, was lowered from 59 to 58. When firms, on the basis of collective agreements or individual agreements between workers and employers, agree to early retirement schemes they receive a subsidy from the government if they replace the retiree with an unemployed person or with someone under age 26 (Commission of the European Communities, 1984a:101~.
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In Italy and the United Kingdom, experiments have been conducted with five crew members shiftworking in either 8- or 12-hour shifts (Commission of the European Communities, 1984a:64~. Such plans could have the effect of further excluding women from certain areas of the labor market because, in many countries, women are prohibited from working night shifts in selected manufacturing industries.
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In addition to the statutory measures introduced in France, some collective agreements were reached at the enterprise level. In one "solidarity contracts the aim was to achieve a 35-hour week with a planned 5 percent increase ~ the number of jobs and a 10 percent increase in productivity.
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In addition to providing greater choice for individual workers, such schemes should also aim to redistribute the unpaid work in society, at present, largely performed by women. The widespread use of part-time work is not a substitute for a collective policy on reducing working time.
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Even in France, where most training is provided by schools or other state institutions, employers play an important part in continuing vocational training, although not in the initial training of young people. This is similar to the situation in the United Kingdom.
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identifies components necessary to a local awareness campaign run by a city or local government (see Table 4~. In the United Kingdom, the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Manpower Services Commission, and the Engineering Industry Training Board declared the year 1984 to be Women Into Science and Engineering (WISE)
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Activities during the year appear to have broadened discussion about women entering engineering and technical jobs. Many informal efforts to increase public awareness have also been made.
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Also, four centers have opened for teacher training in information technology. A major concern in many countries is the lack of qualified teachers at all levels (Dirrheimer, 1983; Commission of the European Communities, 1984a:110~.
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To date' some of the women who have completed the course nave found jobs, many others have used it as a bridge into higher level courses, and about 30 percent have, through necessity or choice, opted out of the labor market (Commission of the European Communities, 1983a:75-77~. Vocational Training One of the most frequent themes In the literature on vocational training involves, though not always explicitly, the relative merits of on-thejob training and formal training (Women's Bureau, Labour Canada, 1982; Dirrheimer, 1983; CEDEFOP, 1984a; EOSYS Ltd., 1984; Gensior 1984; Goldstein, 1984; Johansen, 1984; Thomsen, 1984J: one advantage of on-thejob training is ~ so levels examinations are taken at the age of 16.
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time and money. Ways to combine the advantages of both types of vocational training include having formal training paid for by industry or the state and scheduling it within working hours, or introducing some means of assessing skills gained on the job.
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In her view, the New Training Initiative (NTI) of the current British government is an attack on the conditions of paid work, disguised as training to meet changing market and technological conditions.
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They involve women teaching other women nontraditional skills, often programming and electronic engineering but also carpentry and plumbing. The schemes are supported by the local councils and the European Social Fund.
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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION Today, the industrialized countries of the world and many of the newly industrializing countries are experiencing major changes in employment and work patterns as the rapid diffusion of the current "new technologies, based on microelectronics, is transforming the industrial structure of their economies. Both government intervention and negotiations between employers and trade unions concerning the introduction of new technologies are becoming increasingly widespread.
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The roles played by governments, employers, and trade unions in this process differ from country to country. We have noted that women and men often have different priorities and choose different strategies TO 1;~ _ I ~ ~ ~0 ~——^~,40~ ~4.L ~ ~ C~11 Ill ~1~ European countries, governments have a crucial, if limited' roles mainly through tier' ~rn~ri~innQ nJ; 1=O-;Q1~;~ ~1~:~1~ ~ ~^ 4~C^UlVll~ ~ 111~11 sets minimum standards to which employers must adhere.
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The various proposals should be evaluated in terms of their benefit to individual workers, and not merely their effect on reducing unemployment levels; furthermore, discussions of, and choices about, the relative merits of the different schemes must take into account the existing differences between women and men in their relation to work, especially unpaid work. By recognizing women's and men's different starting points, strategies and policies could, if the political will existed, set out to redress existing imbalances, resulting in a genuine redistribution of all forms of work (paid and unpaid)
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Until these differences are recognized and a commitment is made to overcome resulting inequalities, it will be impossible for employees to make the best of opportunities that now exist for their participation in decision making regarding technological change. This commitment must be demonstrated at all levels, by governments, employers, and trade unions.
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Information Technology Task Force, Intelligence Unit. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, June.
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Luxembourg: CEDEFOP. Engineering Industry Training Board 1984 Girls and Tcchnica1Er`,incerir`~.
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1985 The role of trade unions in coping with the labour implications of technological change.
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BARBARA BARAN is a postgraduate research fellow at the Berkeley Roundtable on Internal Economy (BRIE) currently working on a study to examine work reorganization and skill change in manufacturing and service industries for the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy.
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