Computers, Jobs, and Skills : The Industrial Relations of Technological Change

Prologue.- 1: Introduction.- A Transforming Technology.- Toward a Brave New World?.- Attitudes and Phobias.- Technology as Progress.- Critical Approaches to Technology.- Determined or Determining?.- Characteristics of Information Technology.- Technology as the Midwife of Social Change.- The Problems of Change-A Note about the Rest of the Book.- Discussion Questions.- References.- 2: Employment.- Technology and Employment.- The Example of History.- Impacts and Processes.- Replacement and Displacement.- The Mechanized Information Flow.- Computers and Employment-A Terminal Case?.- Jobs in the Ring: Down but not Out.- Jobless Growth.- Focusing Down.- The Office: A Suitable Case for Treatment.- Women-Left Holding the Baby?.- Sunrise, Sunset.- Discussion Questions.- References.- 3: The Quality of Work and the Working Environment.- Toward a High-Skill Workforce?.- Peering into the Sunrise.- Deskilling.- Case Study: Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) Machining.- Case Study: Skill and Control in the Office.- Explanations of Deskilling.- Case Study: Computer-Aided Design.- The Working Environment.- Health and Safety.- Health and the Organization.- Shift Working.- Management and Change.- Conclusions.- Discussion Questions.- References.- 4: New Technology Bargaining.- The Industrial Relations Environment.- The Components of Industrial Relations Systems.- Uncertainties and Strategies.- Unions: Challenges and Responses.- Management: Uncertainties and Strategies.- The Contours of Bargaining.- The Principles of Technology Bargaining.- Procedural Objectives.- Job Security.- Payment.- Health and Safety.- New Technology Bargaining So Far.- Conflict.- Demarcation.- The Effects on Union Organization.- Case Study: Newspaper Printing.- Discussion Questions.- References.- 5: Alternative Approaches to Change.- The Search for Alternatives.- West Germany.- Scandinavia.- Japan: The Ultimate Model of Cooperation?.- The Lessons of Cooperation.- Job Redesign.- Case Study: The Utopia Project.- Discussion Questions.- References.- 6: Theories of the Information Society: Who Gets Plugged In?.- Profile of an Information Society.- The Changing Occupational Structure.- Changing Patterns of Work.- Management and the Organization.- Crossing the Home-Work Divide.- The Future for Industrial Relations.- The Meaning of Work and Leisure.- Information, Technology, and Society.- Discussion Questions.- References.