From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Sun Jan 12 2003 - 08:37:26 EST
In [8313] Paul A wrote: > As I interpret it, it implies a position quite contrary to Braverman's. > Specifically, it implies that capitalists are forced to upgrade (not > degrade) workers' capabilities (since these are part of the forces of > production), and in doing so to create a class > increasingly intolerant of capitalism's limitations (recurrent > crises, inequality, wars, ecological devastation, etc.) and > increasingly capable of taking a leading role in governing society. > This upgrading of capabilities (the "class in itself") is seen in > rising average skill and education levels, a tendency to greater > responsibility at work, and growing breadth of workers' > world-horizons. These trends in turn seem to me to reflect the > growing knowledge-intensity of advanced economies and a concommitant > increase in interdependence within and across firms firms. Hi Paul. Was upgrading a typical consequence of automation in the banking sector? Hasn't the ATM meant deskilling and loss of jobs for many bank tellers? Similarly, it is hard for me to see how electronic cash registers cum bar code identification systems have resulted in upgrading for cashiers in retail stores. In the case of banking, it is true that there are some new skills and jobs that have developed as a consequence of the diffusion of information technologies, but has this meant that _most_ workers in that sector have experienced a skill increase? > I have explored these issues in connection with the impact on work of > advanced technologies in manufacturing and engineering and with the > Toyota Production System, Have computer numerical control machine tools resulted in an upgrading of skills or deskilling? In the case of robotics, except for robotics programmers, technicians, and maintenance & repair workers (which is a small fraction of the industrial workforce) how has there been an 'upgrading' of workers' skills? It may, however, be the case that there are certain aspects of the Toyota Production System that don't represent deskilling, e.g. the dynamic of 'quality circles' where workers assume for themselves some of the traditional control functions of managers (to increase the intensity of work and product quality) does imply an extension of knowledge about other jobs besides their own and the interconnection of those jobs. There are other cases in the same industry where there has been upgrading of skills as a consequence of technological change (e.g. the radically different design of work at Volvo's Kalmar auto assembly plant beginning in 1971) but these have tended to be special cases (the main rationale for the Volvo Kalmar plant was the high rate of absenteeism among Swedish factory workers and the difficulty getting Swedish workers to agree to work 'on the line'. It was believed that an attempt to 'humanize' the work environment would help overcome these problems.) > and I'm currently looking at large-scale > software systems development organizations and hospitals. I think that specialization has extended from doctors to nurses and many other workers in hospitals. This suggests increasing skill levels but perhaps less of a holistic understanding of medicine. It is hard to see how a reduction in 'manpower' (sic) levels at hospitals, e.g. of nurses who might now watch videocameras for all of the patients in an area rather than looking in on them individually, represents upgrading. OTOH, the existing health care system in many countries encourages new technological developments in medicine _relatively independent of the price of services_ and this is a different dynamic than in most sectors where the decision to diffuse a particular technology is more constrained by cost considerations (i.e. doctors and hospitals can adopt new technologies and pass along the increased cost to consumers: although, this is being resisted by health insurance companies who frequently have to pay the bill). In solidarity, Jerry
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