Computers Don't Kill Jobs,People Do: Technology and Power in the Workplace

Abstract

New technologies are increasingly common in America's workplaces. The pace of technological change can be expected to increase in the future. The impacts of technological change include job loss, changes in skills, and health and safety effects, among others. These are of great importance to the workforce. From a social policy perspective, however, the most important impact of technological change is its effect on the power relationships between workers and managers in the workplace. Many of the traditional sources of union or worker power or leverage are undermined as new technologies are designed, developed, and implemented. Effective technology policy needs to go beyond dealing with the symptoms of technological change to taking on the core issue, which is precisely the loss of power that the workforce experiences.