Empowering Workers in an Age of Automation
Tom Parr
Abstract
Abstract There’s a great deal of anxiety about the current state of the labour market, and especially the employment opportunities available to members of the working-class. The post-war growth in wages has stagnated and, in some places, reversed. More workers than ever are employed on precarious contracts, working shifts on demand and with no guarantee of future employment. Technology has enabled greater surveillance and monitoring of staff, in the office and at home, during work hours and outside of them. And though the amount of time that individuals spend at work has declined in recent decades, progress on this front has been dishearteningly slow. In this constellation of factors, some commentators see the beginnings of a social crisis. Others believe that we’re already in the depths of one. Given this social and economic context, it’s hardly surprising that scholars are increasingly concerned with the appropriate design and regulation of labour markets. Governments and policymakers require empirically- and theoretically-informed guidance to assess the appeal of competing arrangements, as well as to determine the justifiability of particular policy proposals. The aim of Part I of this book is to contribute to these discussions by presenting and defending a distinctive way of theorizing about justice in the labour market, called the empowerment model. The aim of Part II is to draw on the empowerment model to shed light on ongoing disputes about unemployment, the four day work week, the gender earnings gap, working from home, and education and training.