Technological Change & Employment Relations in Indi a

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Technological Change & Employment Relations in Indi a

T. N . Krishnan

Three Transformation Stage s

This article provides an overvie w of the consequences oftechnology change on employment relationship in India . New technologies opened up employment opportunities i n new and emerging sectors . Skills needed have undergone a change from that of manual dexterity and physical strength to those of troubl e shooting and process handling . Group based incentivization and company specific bargaining are becoming more common . Union s no longer resist technology change but are concerned with the impli- cations on the number ofjobs, their content and earnings . It's als o argued that subjective norms need to be considered as a variabl e influencing the behavioural inten- tions of workers with respect to acceptance of technology change . Implications for practice and futur e research directions are also dis- cussed.

T.N.Krishnanis Faculty (OB & HR Area), Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode — 673 570 . Email : [email protected] .in

The technological progress over th e last century has undergone a slow bu t definite transformation . This can be cat- egorized into three different stages viz . craftsmanship, mechanization and automation (Datta 1990) . Each of the stage s had an influence on the nature of wor k and the skill level required to perform a job . The early craftsmanship was char- acterized by the worker/craftsman hav- ing control over the entire productio n process, from procuring the raw materi- als to the finished goods . This require d end-to-end knowledge, where the worke r got involved in activities right fro m pitching to potential customers to deliv- ering the final produce/service . Eac h product/service could be characteristi- cally unique as each reflected the skill s of the employee . This model of operation can still be found in some of th e present day service firms, what ar e termed as Service Complexes and Ser- vice Shops (Davis 1999) . The secon d stage of mechanization was brough t about by the application of principles o f scientific management where tasks were broken down to simpler and specialize d ones for large-scale production of stan- dard goods, and methods of estimating

The Indian iournal of Industrial Relations . Vol. 45, No . 3, January 2010 367

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a `proper day's work' for the worke r were developed . This required a com- plete reorganization of the methods o f production . The role of the individua l worker transitioned from a highly skilled one in the craftsmanship era to bein g considered one of the `factors of produc - tion' . Mechanization also created a ne w portfolio of occupations such as engi- neers to design and produce the mas s production machinery, the machin e builders and tool makers and a wid e range of skilled machine operators . Th e third stage of automation not onl y carried forward many of the features o f mechanization but also qualitativel y changed the way the worker undertoo k his/her job . The worker no longe r directly got involved in the productio n process but monitored and maintaine d machines and helped in trouble shooting. This necessitated the worker under- stand the production process and th e machinery rather than using his skill to turn out a product .

Technological change especiall y through automation has both advantage s and disadvantages (Datta 1990, Datt a 1996) . Automated systems allow few skilled individuals to do the work, whic h previously required numerous unskilled and semi-skilled workers . They als o allow tasks that are beyond huma n capabilities or those dangerous or mo- notonous jobs that would be considere d inhuman for people to perform . Furthe r the labour intensive ways of productio n are expensive and restrict the market fo r the product, which has a negative effec t on the employment in the long run . Automated systems tolerate few or no

errors and hence lack the inheren t human flexibility in production .

Technology need not be restricted to just technical automation but can als o involve a whole package of resources like capital, entrepreneurship and management (Virmani 1990) . Further, technology as such is not quantified but wha t is quantified are those relating to it s manifestations like a particular tech- nique of production, productivity of a particular input, scale economics etc (Majumder 2001), e .g . in Singh &

Nandini (1999) technological change a t the firm level is operationalized in term s of R& D expenditure, technical collabo - rations and quality certifications, whil e Dhanaraj (2001) has taken gross fixed assets and value of plant and machiner y to assess the impact of technology o n worker wages .

With the liberalization of India n economy in 1991 a number of privat e players started carving a major role in th e economic output and simultaneousl y governments both at the centre and state levels started assuming a smaller role i n running businesses . Increased domestic and foreign competition resulting from the economic reforms induced domestic manufacturers to improve efficiency an d bring into use advanced technologies o n a larger scale (Goldar & Kumari 1999) . This is supported by the fact that durin g the period 1991-98 there were about 325 0 technical approvals in India with the to p five technical collaborators (KumarAjay 1999 :1001) . The subsequent break dow n of trade barriers, globalization, advance - ments in Information and Communica-

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Technological Change & Employment Relations in Indi a tions Technology (ICT) and well accepte d

management ideas such as TQM o n quality, JIT, Computer Integrated Manu - facturing(CIM) & Lean Production(LP ) have served to magnify the impact o f technology on employment relationshi p globally and India in particular.

Labour employment is affected by many factors, two major directly rel- evant factors are per unit labour require - ment for a product (man hours per unit ) and the total demand for the produc t (Kumar Arun 1999 :806) . It is likely that technological improvement leads t o reduction in per unit labour requiremen t but at the same time because of th e increased demand made possible by the lesser cost of the technologicall y advanced product, it can lead to rise i n

7,200 7,000 6,800 6,600 6,400 6,200 6,000 5,800 5,600 5,400 5,200 5,000 4,800 4,600

Employment in Organized Services sector has been picking up in th e latter half of last decade and early part of this decade .

overall demand for labour . This expecte d rise in demand for labour has howeve r not been equally true for all sectors/

industries . In a study of employment i n organized manufacturing sector in India , it was found that even though real gross value added has grown at 7 .4 percent pe r year during 1981-2002, employment o f workers increased only by 4 .3 and most of this growth happened inthe early part of the 90s while the latter half of 90 s and early part of the current decade hav e shown a reducing trend in organize d manufacturing sector employmen t (Nagaraj 2004) . At the same time, employment in Organized Services secto r has been pickin g up in the latte r half of last decade and early part of this decade . A s could be seen i n figures 1-3, organized manufacturing secto r seems to hav e shown a sharp de- cline in employment post 199 6 while service s have gained during this period .

Further eve n within the sam e Figure1 : Employment in the Organized Manufacturing Secto r

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Figure 2 : Employment in the Organized Services Sector workers actuall y (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate etc) decreased by 8 percent whereas th e total employmen t increased by 3 5 percent, indicatin g a shifting of workforce from workers to supervisory an d executive cadre s and a correspond- ing shift in the skil l requirements (Vir- mani 1990) . In a n aggregate study o f the organized manufacturing secto r for the perio d 1982-2002, it wa s found that the in - crease in gross value added is accompanied by greater employment of employees in the supervisory cadre as agains t the worker cadre (Nagaraj 2004) . Fur- ther there has been a change in deman d for the type of employees within th e same occupational group, from opera- tives and labourers to professional and technical workers in many of the industries such as Banking (Datta 1990 , 1996), Software Services (Singh &

Nandini 1999) and Textiles (Chakravarty 2002, 2006, Dhanaraj 2001) .

Impact on Skill Profil e

Fig. in '000

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Sam. aEDalaba . ■Org . sector employment in finance, Insurance, real ante, etc.

industry, there seems to be a shift in th e occupational and work profile of the employees . As a consequence of technological modernization of banks it wa s found that though there was an overal l increase in employment, this growth ha s been made possible by an emerging volume of employment in hitherto new areas such as systems analysts, consol e operators etc (Datta 1990) . In a case o f technology transfer to an Indian engi- neering MNC from its foreign paren t company during the period 1974-1984 , even though the fixed capital increase d by about 400 percent, the number o f

This growth has been made possible by an emerging volume of employ- ment in hitherto new areas such a s systems analysts, console operator s etc .

3?- 0

As the manufacturing and servic e technologies continuously develop lik e in the case of just-in-time inventory , manufacturing cells, robotics and servic e quality concepts etc, there is an increasing pressure on the organizations to

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The impact of new technology on skill requirement in the textile industr y has been widely reported . Textile industry in India has a special place with 4 percent contribution to the GDP and 1 2 percent of the world's textile productio n (GOI 2009) . The cotton mill workers ac - count for 20 percent of the total employ - ment in the manufacturing sector (Chow - dhury 1996) and the textile industry i s

Fig. nr00 0

implement team based work designs . Hence the technological changes almos t always are followed by a correspondin g change in the essential work structure o f the organization . Organizations have be - come increasingly flatter and work uni t in most organizations is no longer a n individual but is a team . Hence there i s an increasingly felt need to foster th e skills and attitudes to function as an ef- fective team player .

S a u e rc 0at:6ae 12,000

11,600 11,200 10,800 10,400 10 .00 0 9,600 9,20 0 8,80 0 8,40 0 8 .00 0 7,60 0 7,20 0 6,80 0 6 .40 0

Figure 3 : Employment in the Organized Services Secto r (Community, Social & Personal Services )

121171197/ 1211211975 1211/1197/ 121101193 1219119117 121911911 121711995 17/611299 121512003

the largest con- tributor after agri - culture to the employment provid- ing jobs to abou t 21 million people . When new type s of technologically advanced loom s were introduced i n textile firms, th e skill requirements changed to thos e of monitoring an d troubleshooting o f the productio n process instead o f directly getting in - Q& sector employment In cornrnunily, social &personal servko= volved in the pro - duction (Chak - ravarty 2002, 2006, Datta 1996) . This i s because with the introduction of new automated machinery, the technologie s are no more separate from each other and detection of faults requires a thorough understanding of the production proces s and familiarity with different equip- ments used (Chakravarty 2006) . Henc e the skill required for the job, which pre - viously emphasized manual dexterity, physical strength in manual and repetitive tasks has been taken over by th e need for machine trouble shooting an d process handling skills . The roles and re - sponsibilities of the senior workers wer e more flexible in the modernized mill s and they were expected to handle a higher number of departments compare d to rigid and specific allocations alon g different categories of work within a department in the non-modernized mills . This change is just not restricted to in - Technological Change & Employment Relations in India

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troduction of new production processes but may be related to even initiation o f new management ideas . For instance, at the beginning of the nineties, whe n Motorola started measuring workers ' performance against quality & output s instead of measuring against a tim e clock, it became necessary for its workers to know their equipment and produc - tion process, and be able to initiate an y trouble shooting process themselve s which were previously not in their ambi t (Wiggenhorn 1990) . This required th e worker to unlearn deeply held attitude s and values when they were just respon- sible for working on individual machine s to those of understanding the productio n process as a whole .

Impact on Wages

The impact of technological change on wages has been mixed . Budhwa r (2003) in his study of 137 Indian firm s in six manufacturing sectors in Indi a found that collective bargaining and pro - visions of labour laws have a significan t influence in determining the basic wage s and bonuses of blue-collared employees , hence indicating that the wages are stil l determined by factors not directly related to individual/firm performance an d technological change . However, this i s also sector specific . In a study by Singh

& Nandini (1999) in the software indus - try, it was found that technologica l change does have a significant effect o n salaries paid to employees . Chakravarty (2002) in her study of spinning mil l workers found that the modernized mill s required `unusual skills' from worker s compared to the traditional ones and they

also had higher wages due to the greater dependence of the organisation on thes e workers . However, the effect of in - creased investment in technology o n wages has not always been positive . Virmani (1990) in his study of the In- dian subsidiary of a MNC found that th e wages as a proportion to value-added re - mained at about twelve percent and has not changed significantly with the intro - duction of new technology over th e years . Further, Ajay Kumar (1999) in a study of sixty select MNCs, found that the aggregate rise in wages and salaries , was much lower than the aggregate in - crease in operational expenses, suggest- ing that the growth rate of wage bills ha s not kept pace with investment in operations .

The impact on wages because o f technology change is also influenced b y the political process . Betcherman (1991 ) argues that there is a positive correlation between wage levels and introduction of advanced technology but how th e pie is distributed will depend on the bal - ance of power between the negotiatin g parties . In the Canadian context, h e found that skilled blue-collared workers , both unionized and non-unionised, coul d bargain a higher pay compared to those doing manual work . Further, the union' s bargaining power was lower for technology innovators than among non-innovators . In a similar vein, in the case o f

modernized textile mills in India there is an emergence of distinct and firm specific skills which require higher cost an d time investments (Chakravarty 2002) . Hence companies are willing to pa y higher wages in these mills as contraste d

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Technological Change & Employment Relations in Indi a to non-modernised mills . This necessi-

tated decentralized bargaining in th e case of modernized firms while the non- modernised ones went in for industry wide bargaining . In the latter case sinc e the skills are not specific to an organization but rather are generic to th e industry they required support of th e wider political base . Nagaraj (2004) i n his study of employment in organize d manufacturing sector notes that whil e real wages of workers have roughly stag - nated during 1981-2002, the real emolu- ments of supervisors have gone up by 77 percent during the same perio d indicating that the increase in wages du e to technology change has not been s o favourable to the workers in general . Worker Acceptance

The reasons for introducing ne w technology vary from one organisatio n to another . New production system in a plant is brought in by the managemen t typically in response to the change i n market conditions, which require more

`efficient' technologies to be adopted (Datta 1996) . Studies have indicated that the technological improvements/change s lead to improved productivity, lowe r costs and better work environment (eg : Virmani 1990, Datta 1990) . The improvement in productivity seems to hol d for varied sectors from Heavy Electrical s (Virmani 1990), Software (Singh &

Nandini 1999), Textiles (Chakravart y 2002, 2006, Dhanaraj 2001) and Bank- ing (Datta 1990, 1996) . Studies indicate that after a time lag major technologica l changes have always induced significan t changes in the organisation processes

(Gurtoo & Tripathy 2000) and the suc- cess of new technology is dependent o n the extent to which the workforce is will - ing to adapt to the technological an d organisational changes (Dayal &

Aggarwal 1995, Gurtoo & Tripath y 2000 :520) .

Davis, Bagozzi & Warshaw (1989 ) have proposed a theoretical model for a better prediction and explanation of end - user acceptance of technology and i s called Technology Acceptance Mode l (TAM) . This proposes that one can pre - dict technology acceptance of employees by knowing their behavioural intentions, which in turn are influenced b y attitudes, perceived usefulness of th e technology and ease of use of the same . In their longitudinal study of 107 user s to predict computer acceptance, it wa s found that perceived usefulness was abl e to explain more than half of the variance of behavioural intentions after 14 week s and perceived ease of use though small , was significant enough to explain th e behavioural intentions .

A key factor in the acceptability is by taking the unions and th e employees into confidence before introduction of automation .

The importanceofemployee acceptance of new technology and also th e adaptability to change has been high - lighted in the study by Datta (1990) o n the introduction of computers in the In- dian Banking Sector in the 1970s an d 1980s . The study indicates that a ke y factor in the acceptability is by taking

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the unions and the employees into confidence before introduction of automation . This was done through a free flo w of information, education and training o f employees in terms of what computerization means and what changes it can bring in . The transformation of Bank o f Baroda from a large public sector ban k with a legacy culture to a highly customer centric, technology driven bank through a variety of initiatives includ- ing implementation of Core Bankin g solutions is credited to clear and trans - parent communication with the employees (Khandelwal 2007) . Studies in th e Indian context have shown that attitude s in terms of job satisfaction and freedo m and autonomy at the work place wer e found to be significantly positively related to technology acceptance (Gurto o

& Tripathy 2000, Venkatachalam &

Velayudhan 1999) . Venkatachalam &

Velayudhan (1999) in their study of a steel plant found significant and positiv e correlation between meaningful, inter- esting job and technology, indicating tha t new technology introduction does hav e an influence on how the employees fee l at work .

Unlike in the West Indian employees rarely differentiate the work an d social roles and it would be possible to develop a feeling of "we-ness" if policies and practices instil among employees the feeling of `acceptance an d belonging' (Dayal 1999 :220) . A s Khandelwal (2007 : 210) observes "I al - ways felt that employees were equally concerned as stakeholders about declin- ing business at the bank . I also felt tha t they did not exactly endorse the attempts

of trade unions to stymie technology o r other customer-centric initiatives . It was with this belief that we reached out to 40,000 employees directly through a monthly letter and numerous employe e meetings across the country sharin g problems of bank business and seekin g their engagement ." However this belie f and actions associated with it seems to be an exception rather than the norm . Budhwar (2003) found that strategic an d financial information are comparativel y less shared with the blue-collared workers than with the white-collared workers, due to low faith of management i n their subordinates, preference of managers for centralized decision making an d control, and lack of awareness by th e employees . Further, it is found that 87 % of the employees communicate throug h their immediate supervisors and also tha t most of the communication is don e through staff bodies . Such results suggest that any successful technologica l change has to be accompanied by a continuous and consistent communicatio n with the employees, sharing both devel- opments and concerns on the busines s front and the need for new technolog y implementation and its implications fo r employees . Further engaging supervisors and staff unions in the communicatio n process are likely to bolster efforts o f management .

Union Response

In the British context Manwarin g (1981) found that the union response to introduction of new technology varies a s per the likely effects of the new technology, the importance of the new skills

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Technological Change & Employment Relations in Indi a introduced by the technology and th e

impact on bargaining power previousl y established . For the unions the new tech - nology has implications for the numbe r of jobs, their content and the earning s that it is going to affect . In the India n context, in a study of `unusual' collective agreements in the public and privat e sectors Ratnam (1991 :17) found that unions no longer resist changes in wor k practices resulting from modernizatio n or computerization except in the case o f employment of contract workers and re- strictions on subcontracting . In the case of Indian Aluminium Company Limited , Belur, "It is agreed that the right to plan , direct and control operations of the plant, to introduce new or improved production methods, to expand production fa- cilities and to establish productio n schedules and quality standards ar e solely and exclusively the responsibilities of the management . The management's authority to perform these an d other duties will be respected in ever y case" (Ratnam 1991 :32) . In the case o f modernization of Indian Iron and Stee l Company, Burnpur, thirty options wer e considered and discussed with all th e unions through extensive sharing of in - formation and the option adopted was t o close down six plants and retrain an d redeploy five thousand surplus workers instead of retrenching them . Even though there were no discussions on the specifi c technology to be used, the consequence s of modernizations were discussed in de - tail with the unions . With respect to the introduction of computers in the banks , the initial agreement between the India n Banks Association and the employee as- sociations such as AIBEA and NCBE

signed in 1983 defined the extent, th e purpose, the branches and the allowanc e to employees because of computerization, while the second one signed in 198 7 extended the first one in defining th e type of technology that is to be used , guarantee of no redundancies and eve n unusual clauses such as pregnant wome n can refuse to work in new computer work stations . In the case of Minerals an d Metals Trading Corporation Ltd it wa s agreed that if the unions resist implemen - tation of the program of computerization, the benefits flowing under th e settlement shall not be considered for these members .

Subjective norms need to be consid- ered as a variable influencing th e behavioural intentions of the work- ers with respect to acceptance o f technology .

The influence of trade unions o n blue collared worker behaviour is als o significant . For example, Datta (1996 ) in his study of the introduction o f advanced looms in a textile factory in Bombay found that the union had a sa y on who would work on the new technol - ogy and even the number of machine s that are to be handled by a worker . Although subjective norms were no t included in TAM, in order to study tech - nology acceptance by workers especiall y in the Indian context, subjective norm s need to be considered as a variable influencing the behavioural intentions o f the workers with respect to acceptanc e of technology. Subjective norm here re- fers to "the person's perception that most

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people who are important to him thin k he should or should not perform th e behaviour in question" (Fishbein &

Ajzen 1975 :302 as in Davis et al 1989) . Since in the Indian context, trade union s do have an influence on the individual' s behaviour manifested as peer influenc e and superior influence (Mathieso n 1991), it would be necessary to conside r subjective norms as well . Further, another important consideration in ac- cepting new technology is the perceive d behavioural control which is the belie f that the employee has access to and con - trol of resources for the running of th e technology/machinery . In the worke r context, these are essentially externa l factors that get manifested in terms o f colleague cooperation to get a job done , access to commonly shared resource s etc . Depending on the importance tha t an employee attaches to the opinions o f his colleagues as a consequence of hi s common group membership or other- wise, the views of the group/union, he / she is part of, would matter as well . Implications for Practic e

The above mentioned literature re - view throws open quite a few practica l implications . To begin with, there woul d be a need for anticipating and plannin g the skill needs because of introductio n of new technology . The issue of retrain- ing, necessitated by the introduction o f new technology had not been sufficiently addressed . Although the government had instituted National Renewal Fund (NRF ) as a social safety net with one of th e purpose being to retrain the workers with obsolete skills in both private and pub -

Iic sectors, most of the money was spen t in compensating the public sector workers through the voluntary retiremen t schemes (Chowdhury 1996) . Peopl e with obsolete skills would need to b e retrained and accordingly the trainin g department would have to be equipped . This would impact not only the numbe r of training programs undertaken but also the content of these programmes . Ove r the years there has been increasin g money spent on training and development of the organized workforce i n India (Budhwar 2003) . Two focus of th e training programs for the workers to cope with the changing technologies are in the areas of skill and attitude training .

With technological modernization , not only have the quantum of routine , repetitive jobs reduced but also the different units and jobs associated with pro - duction have become more integrate d and more complex (Chakravarthy 2006) . Detection of a source of fault requires a more thorough understanding of the pro - duction process and familiarity with th e different machines used . Hence the lin e of duties between the different categories of workers has become blurred . Because of this varied and unspecifie d nature of skills, development of thes e skills are mainly through long on-the-jo b training like mentoring, learning by doing and advice from more experience d colleagues with short off-the-job training (Chakravarty 2002, 2006) . Since th e

`standardized' part of the skill conten t is low, a large part of the training process becomes intangible and hard t o measure and monitor. The time intensive

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Technological Change & Employment Relations in India nature of training coupled with its intan-

gibility places high importance on reten- tion of the permanent workforce to th e firm and this is corroborated by empiri- cal evidence . The process of skill formation has become internalized and both the management and the workers have a valuable stake in developing a long-ter m relationship .

In attitude training the focus is o n developing a mind-set of mutual inter - dependence and co-operation . With th e increasing non-separability of the machinery and introduction of managemen t ideas such as TQM, the organization' s performance has become increasingly reliant on interdependent and co-opera- tive performance of its workforce . Participative requirement was not suc h a necessity in the pre-reform days a s increase in productivity was not at a premium (Ghose 1994) . This ha s changed in the past two decades in In- dia . In the 1990s, because of liberalization not only have new players entere d various markets but they brought wit h them new technology and way of work . This placed a premium on existing players to focus on cost and quality to com- pete effectively. TQM was one such ef- fort . In TQM, employees are provided with business information on performance and environment with the necessary training so that they can understan d the information and are empowered t o act on it . Employees can then relate thei r work to job security, customer satisfaction and market share . These connec- tions contributed to cooperation in quality improvement initiatives . In the past one decade, because of globalization,

reduction in trade barriers and advance- ments in Information and Communica- tion Technology, firms have increasingl y woken up to realize that their competition is not just restricted to their immediate neighbour but is global . All thes e have placed more emphasis on co-opera- tive and interdependent efforts .

Further, prior to the introduction o f a new system, it would be helpful to un- derstand the acceptability of the syste m to the end-users and the key variable s provided by Davis et al, (1989) woul d help in this regard . In the case of a unio n set-up at the workplace a sound relation - ship between the union and the management based on acceptance of legitimac y of each other is a base condition befor e engaging each other in discussing th e introduction of a new technology. As i s seen in the Eicher restructuring experience, with conducive industrial relation s climate and trade union involvement, it is possible to have distinct changes i n the production system without retrench- ment or lay-off of workers (Ghos h 1995 :212) . Further educational pro - grams designed to persuade workers o f the positive fallout of introduction of a new technology does directly influenc e the perceived usefulness and indirectl y help workers through ease of system use . (Davis et al 1989, Wiggenhorn 1990) .

Group payment schemes are increasingly becoming common and would have to be considered for ensuring fair re- wards . The study of the workload distribution and duties amongst the textil e workers found lot of overlaps of dutie s between the workers, jobbers, supervi-

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people who are important to him thin k he should or should not perform th e behaviour in question" (Fishbein &

Ajzen 1975 :302 as in Davis et al 1989) . Since in the Indian context, trade union s do have an influence on the individual' s behaviour manifested as peer influenc e and superior influence (Mathieso n 1991), it would be necessary to conside r subjective norms as well . Further, another important consideration in ac- cepting new technology is the perceived behavioural control which is the belie f that the employee has access to and con - trol of resources for the running of th e technology/machinery . In the worke r context, these are essentially externa l factors that get manifested in terms o f colleague cooperation to get a job done, access to commonly shared resource s etc . Depending on the importance tha t an employee attaches to the opinions o f his colleagues as a consequence of hi s common group membership or other- wise, the views of the group/union, he / she is part of, would matter as well . Implications for Practic e

The above mentioned literature re - view throws open quite a few practica l implications . To begin with, there woul d be a need for anticipating and plannin g the skill needs because of introductio n of new technology. The issue of retrain- ing, necessitated by the introduction o f new technology had not been sufficientl y addressed . Although the government ha d instituted National Renewal Fund (NRF ) as a social safety net with one of th e purpose being to retrain the workers wit h obsolete skills in both private and pub -

lic sectors, most of the money was spen t in compensating the public sector workers through the voluntary retiremen t schemes (Chowdhury 1996) . Peopl e with obsolete skills would need to b e retrained and accordingly the trainin g department would have to be equipped . This would impact not only the numbe r of training programs undertaken but als o the content of these programmes . Ove r the years there has been increasin g money spent on training and development of the organized workforce i n India (Budhwar 2003) . Two focus of th e training programs for the workers to cope with the changing technologies ar e in the areas of skill and attitude training .

With technological modernization , not only have the quantum of routine, repetitive jobs reduced but also the different units and jobs associated with pro - duction have become more integrate d and more complex (Chakravarthy 2006) . Detection of a source of fault requires a more thorough understanding of the pro - duction process and familiarity with th e different machines used . Hence the lin e of duties between the different categories of workers has become blurred . Because of this varied and unspecifie d nature of skills, development of these skills are mainly through long on-the-jo b training like mentoring, learning by doing and advice from more experience d colleagues with short off-the-job training (Chakravarty 2002, 2006) . Since th e

`standardized' part of the skill conten t is low, a large part of the training process becomes intangible and hard t o measure and monitor. The time intensive

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sors and the management (Chakravarth y 2002) in automated textile mills and thi s was reflected in a higher emphasis o n group based incentive pay in these auto - mated mills . Also because of the previously cited time intensive and intangible nature of skill development, seniority i s likely to be rewarded with skill premium . Traditional industry based trade union - ism would lose relevance and compan y specific unions which are more focuse d on the productivity wage gains ar e becoming more prevalent . Hence the pay needs to aligned to this changed real- ity where it would become more an d more difficult to have only individual pay and incentives and these becom e more group based and organizatio n specific in characteristics .

Due to the changing profile of th e workforce towards technical and skille d manpower because of changing technologies (Datta 1990, Chakravarty 2002 , Virmani 1990), the expectations of th e employees are also likely to chang e (Dayal 1999) . Apart from `hard' issue s like salary/wages and service condition s which have been a major part of th e union/management negotiations, `softer' issues like job satisfaction, job progression, work autonomy etc would gain increasing prominence .

`Softer' issues like job satisfaction , job progression, work autonomy et c would gain increasing prominence .

Employee discipline in terms o f attendance and regularity of the worker is also another crucial factor in the intro -

duction of automated technology. Eco- nomic viability of capital-intensive tech - nology requires that they be run at high capacity levels . As was found by Datt a (1996) the introduction of the micropro- cessor based looms required them to b e run at 90-92 percent capacities . With th e changing technologies it is expected t o change the workload distribution, dutie s and responsibilities . In a typical organisation with union presence, handlin g employee discipline is mediated by th e mechanism of collective bargaining . Hence the change in technology will have the effect of change in contractual relationship between work unions and th e management and managers need to b e geared to meet this situation .

Directions for Future Researc h

Many studies in the Indian contex t have adopted a case study approach i n identifying the issues related to industrial relations due to technologica l changes, and even amongst these textil e sector predominates in their analysis . Chakravarty (2002), Chowdhury (1996) , Dhanaraj (2001), Datta (1996) have al l focused on the textile workers . Few cas e studies Virmani(1990), Venkatachalam

& Velayudhan(1999), Singh and Nandin i (1999) have focused on impact of technology on employment and employe e relations in other contexts . It is sug- gested that the level of automation i n continuous process industries is muc h higher compared to those in mass production and craft based industries . Hence generalising the results obtained in a mass production context like thos e of textiles to continuous process

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f

Technological Change & Employment Relations in Indi a

industries like chemicals, refineries, liq- uid food processing etc may not be prac- tical . Further the level of unionization in the textile industry is much highe r compared to other sectors .

Conclusion s

Introduction of new technology ha s been mandated by the need to respon d to competitive market conditions . India n industry has in the last couple of decade s been able to proactively respond to market demands and introduce significan t changes . Co-opting the workforce in this change has borne fruit for many companies while some have faltered on thi s ground . There also is a social cost t o these change efforts and managemen t may be best advised to consider thes e aspects for the future .

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