Algorithmic management and control at work in a manufacturing sector: Workplace regime, union power and shopfloor conflict over digitalisation

Abstract

It is often stated that algorithmic management disrupts control regimes and enables employers to dictate the work effort level. This article argues that control at work must be conceived through inherent tensions in employment relations and contradictions that result from the implementation of technologies in workplaces. Building analytically on two theoretical approaches (workplace regimes and power resources), conflicts over algorithmic management on the shopfloor are conceptualised through structural characteristics of workplaces and strategic factors related to workers' power. To illustrate these tensions, qualitative data is mobilised from a case study of the aluminium industry in Québec (Canada), where algorithmic management was implemented to advance efficiency and intensify work. The main contribution of this article is to highlight the persistence of an ‘embedded control regime,’ which we explain through the structural characteristics of the sector under study (technology, production, and market) and the power resources mobilised by workers and unions. This study advances knowledge of the deployment of algorithmic management beyond the ‘gig economy’ by exploring the avenues through which workers and unions can effectively contest such technologies in the workplace.