🚀 go-pugleaf

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")