Technology and Work in Germany. - book reviews

Business Horizons, Sept-Oct, 1993 by Alfred Diamant

If this book is not at the top of the reading list of Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, it certainly should be; and at least a precis should be passed on to that compulsive speed reader, President Clinton. The research reported and discussed in this volume contains both powerful ammunition for, as well as an equally powerful antidote to, the new administration's concern with the skilling and re-skilling of the U.S. labor force.

Yes, the introduction of the computer into manufacturing processes will require ever higher levels of technical skill from the work force. But no, the computer will not signal the end of Taylorism/Fordism, as seems to be the current fashion among the great thinkers on the opposite bank of the Charles River from Harvard (Piore and Sabel 1984). Quite the contrary - the computerization of manufacturing processes will concentrate rewards in the hands of fewer and fewer more highly trained engineers (electrical and otherwise) and contribute to the continued de-skilling of the rest of the labor force.

The authors are not fully agreed that this "brave new world" is inevitable, but at least one of the contributors concludes that of three possible futures, one will be "Taylorism with computers"; in another, Taylorism will be replaced by group-work "computer-aided Drucker"; and the least desirable world will be one in which workers will be divided, as in Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, into "alphas" and "epsilons." The engineers will constitute a "production intelligence" while all others will be unskilled "proles" in this "computer-aided Huxley" world (Chapter 3).

The caveat that should accompany my recommendation is that this is a collection of essays, written by a group of German industrial sociologists (with Pamela Meil the only U.S.-trained contributor) writing about German workers and German industry. All the contributors, including the American co-editor, are members of the Institute for Social Science Research (ISF) in Munich, which is identified as an independent research organization (think tank?) financed through project-based contracts from governments and private industry. The research reported is largely the work of the ISF itself and bears the hallmark of German academic and societal conditions.

In Chapter 2, Pamela Meil, the American contributor, characterizes German industrial sociology as follows:

1. The field is closely oriented to the political sphere.

2. Research funding has come chiefly from the federal government-financed German Research Society (DFG), a more broadly defined American NSF - keeping in mind that the German usage of "Forschung" (research) and "Wissenschaft" (science) has retained its pre-Newtonian connotations of "organized knowledge" in general and is not limited to the "hard" disciplines.

3. The use of case studies and the focus on production workers are better suited to neo-Marxist orientations, in contrast to U.S.-favored survey research methodology.

4. With its concern for the worker, German industrial sociology focuses on "qualifications" at the workplace, a concern reinforced by the centrality of the nationally standardized vocational training system.

5. There is a concern with the humanization of work, especially since the days of the Social-Liberal coalition government (1969-1982) under Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt.

Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that one comes away from this collection of essays and research reports with a heightened sensitivity to the complex and probably quite unpredictable outcomes of the continued penetration of computers into workplace processess.

A careful reading of this volume will make it difficult to sustain the vision held by the Piore and Sabel school and their German counterparts Kern and Schumann (1984) of "skilled production workers running flexibly automated systems and achieving high levels of productivity." A number of studies in this volume clearly contradict this "vision," both empirically and theoretically. "Computers" and "Taylorism" are not mutually exclusive forces; if anything, CIM systems push toward the continuation of Tayloristic forms of work organization (see Chapter 15).

One other valuable dimension of this volume is the group of studies devoted to worker qualifications and skill development, not only in Germany but in some other countries as well (Chapters 16-19). The German vocational training system, now receiving some insistently voiced attention in the United States, originated from the strong handicraft, small-firm matrix of the economy of German-speaking lands (Germany, Austria, parts of Switzerland), as well as the commitment to workplace-based training embraced by Germany's big manufacturer,s late in the nineteenth century.

In addition to exploring the strengths and weaknesses of this vocational training system (Chapter 16), Chapters 17 and 18 - two most illuminating chapters - explore the contrasting evidence of training and qualifications in France and Germany. The two countries seem to have traveled the road to a CIM future by contrasting routes. Germany's was an essentially "occupation-centered" road, while France, not surprisingly, favored an "education-centered" avenue. What these chapters suggest is that there is no universally valid and value-neutral way to the computerized future: historical, cultural, and sociopolitical factors shape such choices. This should be a salutary lesson for those who believe that technology a l'Amiricain is as universally applicable as Coca-Cola and Michael Jackson.