Impact of Technological Change on Labor Relations

Impact of Technological Change on Labor Relations

Introduction

Labour relation management practice of balancing the relationship between the employers and the employees. For many years, the relationship between employers and employees has been characterized by push and pull in that employees have constantly been pushing employers for better care while the employers strive to maximize their revenues through employees’ efforts (Deogaonkar, 2013).  It is the volatility of the employer-employee relationship that gave birth to the creation of unions. Employees decided to create labour unions to enable collective bargaining to improve their overall benefits. However, employer-employee relationships have changed over time due to various factors, and one of the factors is technological change (Pedroni, 2019). As technology changes, it affects the labor-management relationship. Therefore, this discussion focuses on discussing how technological changes have impacted labour relations management in modern days.

First, the changes in technologies have led to flexible working hours. The emergence of Internet technology significantly altered the flexibility of working hours. The actual working time is done when employees are at their employers’ disposal carrying out their tasks as per their job descriptions and not going about their own business. Thus, working time is an essential part of the labour contract between the employees and the employers with stipulated wages (Birraux, 2000). However, when the internet emerged, most works changed in that the workers were no longer always required to report at the designated workplace (Deogaonkar, 2013). The internet enabled working remotely without necessarily coming to the workplace. Working remotely has been pronounced during the current COVID-19 pandemic in that millions of workers have been asked by their employers not to report at the workstations but to work from home (Pedroni, 2019). The availability of the internet and electronic gadgets such as laptops and desktops has made work more flexible. The flexibility of the work, which has made it possible to work from home, has made it hard for employers to assess and quantify the time employees have worked and how much they are supposed to be paid. The flexibility of working time, in turn, affected labour relations.

The advancement of information technology forced employees to be on the obligation to call. It has made it normal for employers to keep employees on call outside the regular working hours. The mobile phone innovation enabled employers to call employees on weekends or on vacation to attend to essential duties (Litwin, 2011).  In other words, being on call has been made less restrictive for employees who are no longer tied to one working place.  Since the availability of mobile phones is used for ease of communication, employers are putting pressure on employees (Birraux, 2000). Therefore, employers cannot be left with the decision of determining their contractual obligations. National laws have been enacted to stipulate the components of the labour contracts, such as requiring employees to stay on call, but the employers provided specific remuneration for the hours spent by employees on calls. Moreover, the ease of communication brought about by mobile phones has necessitated the adjustment of national laws (Meyer & Biegert, 2019). One of the laws provides that any restrictions imposed on employees’ rights and collective freedoms by the labour contracts must be strictly limited to the means justified by the nature of work and must be proportional to the remuneration.

The third way the technology change has impacted labour relations management is the change in remuneration. Due to the changes brought about by information technology, most work can be done remotely, and even some employees spend a few minutes to accomplish their assigned tasks. Due to this reason, a growing number of employees can no longer be paid based on working time since it is now hard to quantify (Litwin, 2011). Employers now no longer pay on the hours taken to work but pay per tasks accomplished. Workers nowadays are treated as service providers, and therefore, the commerce kind of relationship has replaced the old employer-employee relationship.  Article 4  of the European Social Charter states that overtime should accompany an increased rate of remuneration (Birraux, 2000).  This law should be adjusted to accommodate the working conditions often workers who rely on the new technologies. Organizations that have not yet recognized this significant change are still experiencing conflicts between employers and employees over the elements considered when remunerating employees.

The technological change involving computer innovation in the second half of the 20th century caused a significant disruption in labour-intensive organizations. Computers enable the computerization of repetitive tasks, mainly in manufacturing organizations. Computers took away most of the work done by many workers (Meyer & Biegert, 2019). Some organizations witnessed some protests from employees with the claims that computers are threatening their job security. Indeed computers and the computerization of many tasks in many firms led to a massive layoff of workers (Litwin, 2011).  The massive layoffs triggered conflicts between the employers and the labour unions since union members were dismissed unceremoniously as the employers sought to cut labour costs.

The invention of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies is also causing a significant impact on labour-management relations. Organizations use AI and machine learning technologies to help prevent fraud and mitigate future conflicts (Litwin, 2011).  Firms install AI technologies to secure transactions to reduce employee theft and get intelligence in advance on an impending crisis. The AI technologies are employed to scrutinize all employees’ profiles and social media to detect any ongoing discussions or controversial issues that may cause problems for this organization (Pedroni, 2019). The scrutiny of employees’ social media has been condemned to be interfering with individual privacy. People argue that employers are not allowed to spy on employees on their social media and other personal information because this amounts to a violation of the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits people and police from unreasonable searches on individuals’ privacy (Pedroni, 2019).  Therefore, new technologies such as AI enable employers to easily access employees’ personal information, causing conflicts between unions and employers.

Technological advancements in computers and mobile phones at the place of work have triggered health protection concerns. Employers are now being asked to provide health protection for their employees in connection with the increased use of IT products. Reports have revealed new physical and health hazards, and it seems there is nothing much being done to address these health problems caused by these IT products (Meyer, & Biegert, 2019). The use of mobile phones, computers, and many other occupational gadgets is causing eye strain, stress, nervousness, backache, and fatigue to accommodate the change in the workplace.  A few decades ago, these gadgets were rare, but in the modern days, every activity is being done through a computer or a mobile phone, and the mentioned effects are often underestimated.

Moreover, the new working arrangement at many places of work has made it harder to monitor the health of the workers who are no longer physically present at the place of work (Pedroni, 2019).  It is required that the organizations carry out medical surveillance for salaried employees working remotely to assess their health status.  Thus, there is a feud between the labour unions and employers over the health protection coverage for employees to protect them from the challenges brought about by IT gadgets (Litwin, 2011). Some firms are already looking into this issue; others are still reluctant. It implies that technological changes are triggering a change in labour-management relations.

Conclusion

Labor-management relations have been changing over time due to various factors. One of the factors is the technology change. As technology changes, the work environment and conditions change, thus triggering a change in labour management. Labor-management relations have changed due to technological changes in many ways. Technological advancement has enabled flexible working time, enabled obligation to call, caused computerization of tasks, and changed the remuneration factors, leading to easy access to employees’ data and health care protection. The labour-management relations are still going to experience new changes in the future because of the continued advancement of technology.

References

Birraux, C (2000). Impact of new technologies on labour legislation. Retrieved from https://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewHTML.asp?FileID=8948&lang=EN

Deogaonkar, A. (2013). Emerging Technologies and Impact on Employee Relations. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 3, Issue 9,

Litwin, A. (2011). Technological change at work: the impact of employee involvement on the effectiveness of health information technology. ILR Review. Vol. 64, No. 5 (October 2011), pp. 863-888 https://www.jstor.org/stable/41343704

Meyer, B & Biegert, T. (2019). The conditional effect of technological change on collective bargaining coverage. Research and politics; Sage Journals. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168018823957

Pedroni, F. (2019). How technology change affects labor-management relations. References https://www.lexology.com/commentary/employment-immigration/italy/stanchi-studio-legale/how-is-technology-changing-employer-employee-relationships

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The Topic Approved is ‘How Technology Change Affects Labor-Management Relations ‘
– Please make certain that you define technology advancement or change in the broadest sense including analogue, digital, physical and logistical labour-saving, quality-improving innovation affecting the nature of work, production and service.

People today often think of technological innovation as computing, communications or artificial intelligence, but work processes or productivity improvement tools and methods of all kinds can fit under the technology umbrella.

Technology change has, continues to and promises to disrupt what we do and how we do it in wonderful and sometimes devastating ways.

How have these ways, are these ways and will these ways affect unions, union membership and collective bargaining?

Per your course syllabus, each of your 3 papers must be a minimum of 3 full double-spaced pages and a maximum of 5 pages. You may use your textbook as a source, but you must have a minimum of 3 non-text sources as well. Please document your sources professionally and include a bibliography. Make certain that your “SafeAssign” score is well below 50 per cent.

A word to the wise — Quality is paramount, but in most cases, a 3-page paper will not be valued as highly as a 4 or 5-page paper.

As a reminder, your 3 Research Papers — due during the 3rd, 5th and 7th weeks — will together account for 35 per cent of your final grade.
Write a research paper based on the topic chosen and approved from Unit 2. Answer the topic question and support your opinion with appropriate resources.
Refer to the attached document for full instructions and the grading rubric.