Contrasting Perspectives of Workers: Exploring Labor Relations in Workplace Automation and Potential Interventions

Abstract

Many emerging technologies are expected to reconfigure workplaces, and serious concerns have already been raised about their impact on workers, especially those who are already precarious. This study explores what roles designers can play to address power issues regarding workplace automation. Following Marxist researchers addressing the importance of analyzing “struggle” as an event that reveals power relations in workplaces, this study examines conflicting views between stakeholders regarding the value of newly adopted robots, and the value of the human labor that the robots could displace. In this study, workers—even those who perform the same tasks—have conflicting views regarding how their work can be automated: the collective voice of workers is not naturally formed. This observation can be seen as closely related to the weakened solidarity among workers not only in the US but internationally, due to the neoliberal restructuring of labor market and corporations. Considering the unique countervailing power of worker solidarity, this study proposes a new role for designers: facilitator of “inclusive collective imaginaries” by bridging workers’ divided opinions, addressing the importance of inclusive solidarity, and mobilizing them to successfully contribute to shaping automation technologies as a way to intervene in automation-related issues.