PROTECTING WORKERS IN THE DIGITAL AGE: TECHNOLOGY, OUTSOURCING, AND THE GROWING PRECARIOUSNESS OF WORK

• Published in: Comparative labor law & policy journal Vol. 41; no. 1; pp. 69 - 93
• Main Author: Berg, Janine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Champaign Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal 01.01.2019
• Subjects: Apocalypse; Automation; Competitive advantage; Contract labor; Customer services; Design; Employment; Globalization; Industrialization; Labor law; Labor market; Outsourcing; Quality; Regulation; Scientific technological revolution; Stockholders; Technological change; Temporary employment; Work; Workers; United States > US
• ISSN: 1095-6654

Concerns about technology and the future of work have focused on technology replacing jobs and the possibility of a future without work. Since Frey and Osborne's (2013) study estimating that 47% of U.S. jobs are at risk of automation,1 with those performing routine tasks most likely to be affected, there has been a deluge of articles and books in the popular press on the impending jobs apocalypse and what to do with the masses in a future without work.2 Some of this debate has been tempered by other studies emphasizing that the automation of tasks will transform jobs-rather than shed jobs-allowing workers to focus on the more creative and social aspects of the work.3 Others have rightly noted that there is an "automation paradox," in that the quest to eliminate human labor through automation "always generates new tasks for humans."4 Thus, even in those occupations where human labor is made redundant, new jobs will emerge, as has been the case since the first industrial revolution.5I share the view that technological change will not bring an end to work, and argue that what we are witnessing instead is increased precariousness in the labor market. Technology is thus a tool used by enterprises to "displace labor," to more precarious and invisible forms of work.6 As such, the current technological revolution is merely another chapter of a decades' long trend, accelerated under globalization, that relies on an increased use of more insecure labor, including contract labor, temporary employment, and casual work. "Technology" doesn't do this on its own-it is designed by humans to outsource tasks that worsen employment and income security by shifting financial risks onto workers. Technology can also worsen other aspects of job quality, if designed to lessen control and autonomy of the worker. Thus, greater precariousness and poorer job quality are the more likely outcome of the present technological revolution. Yet nothing about these trends is inevitable, as it does not reflect the technology per se, but how it is used, and the lack of governance of the new forms of employment that have emerged.