Fighting Back against the algorithms – Community and the redemption of Taylorism

FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE ALGORITHMS – COMMUNITY AND THE REDEMPTION OF TAYLORISM? RITA MCGRATH | THOUGHT SPARKS

As algorithms have come to dominate the lives of gig workers, treating many like poorly performing robots, community structures are emerging that allow workers to spontaneously organize – and create a potentially powerful counterforce.

PIECEWORK AND THE LABOR/MANAGEMENT DIVIDE Frederick Winslow Taylor was the very first management guru, indeed the first management consultant. His ideas, which were radical at the time, posited that for any physical task, there was one best way to get it done. To get to the heart of the one best way, he did time-andmotion studies, compared how different workers stacked up and experimented with different techniques. Once the best way had been found, it would be codified in manuals, used to train workers and ultimately to deliver higher productivity across the board. Indeed, at one of his early employers, Midvale Steel Company, he managed to double productivity.

TAYLOR, MISUNDERSTOOD Ironically, Taylor himself believed that management and the workforce should each benefit by implementing the principles of scientific management. In an ideal system, workers would generate an optimal level of output, and management would reward them by sharing in the gains, paying them more than if they operated in the old, “unscientific” way. I find it fascinating that when we criticize Taylorism, we have largely forgotten this point.

TODAY’S PIECEWORK: WELCOME TO THE GIG ECONOMY As Wall Street Journal columnist Christopher Mims and I discuss as we chat about his book Arriving Today, Taylorism might just be the most successful management idea ever implemented.

There is, however, a dark side. Work intermediated by algorithms – such as making deliveries or ride-hailing – subject workers to algorithmic control. It’s a lot closer to the assembly line model than to Taylor’s vision of profits being shared in a mutually beneficial way between workers and company management.

THE COMMUNITY EMPOWERING WORKERS (AT LEAST A LITTLE) Given all this, I was intrigued to run across an MIT Technology Review article that went to an unlikely place – Indonesia – to find several ways in which worker community groups were banding together to take back some control from the algorithms. This is particularly intriguing given the work of Damon Centola, who has found that a change in behavior – social change – becomes far more likely to the extent that 25% of a community group’s members pushed for a change in norms.

THE RULES ALWAYS LAG THE REALITY While such small tweaks to the system make drivers’ jobs a bit better, we are far from achieving Taylor’s vision of scientific management driving fairly shared productivity gains. What is likely to be needed is a new standard for workers’ technology rights. As this report from the UC Berkeley Labor Center proposes, policy standards need to “give workers rights with respect to their data; hold employers responsible for any harms caused by their systems; regulate how employers use algorithms and electronic monitoring; ensure the right to organize around technology; guard against discrimination; and establish a strong enforcement regime.”

Want to spark some thinking in your own organization?

Book Now

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

https://thoughtsparks.substack.com/