Technological Change and Work: The Race Between Productivity and Good Jobs
This is part three of a summary of my PhD thesis. You can find part one here, part two here, and more information about the thesis here.
In the last post I described some effects of big technological changes — what economists and economic historians call “macroinventions” — on work. But most inventions are not macroinventions, and even in the dynamic technological world since the Industrial Revolution, we have seen few genuinely transformational technologies.
Most of the time, technology reshapes work through smaller “microinventions”. These are usually improvements on existing technology that can allow workers to produce more in the same time or reduce physical or mental strain on employees. However, the management practices that firms use with new technology determine whether employees enjoy the potential benefits of microinventions.
By about 1840 most textile production was mechanized and centralized in factories, in both Britain and the US. In spinning (yarn production), there had been more than 70 years of factory production in Britain (about 50 in the US) and the old technique of hand spinning on spinning wheels had been almost entirely replaced. The no-longer-so-new technology enabled much higher output per employee. So far, so successful for company owners and managers.
Although they had reaped the gains of higher productivity from mechanization, there was intense competition in the textile industry and companies did not sit still. They sought ways to further raise productivity and reduce what economists call “unit labor costs” — the amount they had to pay workers for one unit of output (in this case, a pound of yarn).
The key inventions of the Industrial Revolution had been widely adopted across all factories, though there were some differences in the machinery used in different companies and countries. How could textile manufacturing firms find a competitive advantage?
One answer was to continue pushing on the frontier of technology by purchasing the latest, fastest machines. To maximize their productivity gains from this technology, managers passed on the opportunity to reduce the pressure and strain on workers using the new technology. Instead, they demanded at least the same long hours and high effort levels from workers. For employees, this was a missed opportunity for better working conditions.
Textile production had relatively low barriers to entry: investors could build a factory or rent factory space and buy machinery more easily than they could shift into other parts of the economy like railroads or iron production. Combined with international markets for clothing and other textile products, easier entry meant that competition remained intense, so managers continued to look for opportunities apart from improved technology to raise productivity.
The typical example of employers’ response emerged in New England textile mills in the 1840s. To reduce unit labor costs, managers required workers to monitor more machines (called the “stretch-out”), and ran those machines at higher speeds (the “speedup”). Although productivity increased significantly, wages only rose slightly. Textile manufacturing companies had successfully intensified work, and almost all of the gains were divided between the managers (in profits) and consumers (in lower textile prices). While workers benefited a little through cheaper clothing prices and very small wage gains, their work had become much more difficult and exhausting, which led to an exodus of native-born American workers into other, better jobs.
British textile industrialists similarly ran machines at higher speeds and demanded each worker monitor more spindles. They also used another, complementary approach to lower unit labor costs: they purchased cheaper raw materials but expected workers to produce the same final product. Low quality raw cotton was more likely to break under strain from fast-moving machinery, so workers in spinning factories had to spend much more time patching together broken threads. Spending less on raw materials for a similar output raised productivity (and reduced unit labor costs), but it also made work more difficult and exhausting.
The race between higher productivity and good working conditions also occurred in the transportation sector during the 19th century. Railroad work was exceptionally dangerous for on-train employees: accidents, falls, derailments, fires, workers crushed between or under cars, and bridge collapses all claimed many limbs and lives. Inventors accordingly developed improvements to rails, signals, locomotives, and train cars to reduce accidents and injuries.
Throughout the second half of the 19th century, locomotive makers built larger engines that could pull longer, heavier trains — thereby increasing the amount of people and goods carried by the same number of railroad employees, increasing productivity. However, these productivity improvements were double-edged: they also placed greater strain on employees and either raised occupational risks or negated the positive effects of other innovations.
The greater strain is most obvious for firemen, who had to shovel more coal into the larger firebox of longer, more powerful engines. By the start of the 20th century, some firemen on large locomotives had to shovel 5000 pounds of coal per hour. Longer trains also meant more work for brakemen, who climbed along the moving train, from car to car, to crank the hand-powered brake wheels that slowed or stopped a train. More climbing over and between cars made work more dangerous.
Heavier, longer trains also placed stress on railroad infrastructure, especially rails and bridges. While the iron bands that linked together the United States in the late 19th century may have looked sturdy, they were increasingly stressed by a growing volume of train traffic, which led to derailments, accidents, and worker (as well as passenger) injuries and deaths. The same was true of bridges: lightly-regulated American railroads pushed their frequently poorly-constructed water crossings up to, and over, their loading limits, with predictable results for safety. Some technologies, like steel rails to replace iron, could increase safety, but railroads negated these improvements by continuing to run even longer and heavier trains.
As in the textile sector, company managers missed an opportunity to improve employment conditions, sacrificing employee welfare for higher productivity. From their perspective, this was an obvious choice. Railroad and textile factory managers benefited little (if at all) from improving working conditions, but their shareholders and superiors expected the managers to increase productivity. Even so, this single-minded focus on productivity kept railroading strenuous and dangerous, and made textile work increasingly undesirable compared to other jobs in the late 19th century.
These examples illustrate that there is a tradeoff or “race” between increases in productivity and good work. Microinventions may have the potential to reduce work strain or improve safety, but the business practices of companies determine whether employees see those benefits. In these examples, the managers’ push for higher productivity usually won out over workers’ demands for safer, less exhausting labor.
In the next post, I’ll recap the key findings and discuss their implications for contemporary debates about work in the age of automation.
