Humanization-of-labor programs risk reading as manipulation to raise output

Evidence

In a peculiar apology for the conformism of the contract work that had been carried out, it was also stated that the study had skirted the problem of the relationship between increasing productivity and the humanization of relations within the company, and the problem of how far workers were in principle interested in improving the atmosphere of their workplace, and how far they instead perceived in this the risk of being simply manipulated to increase productionsince the way in which such questions were posed would have affected the results connected with the atmosphere of the workplace. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 514

Categorization

• QUESTION: How did the Mannesmann study’s deliberate omission of the productivity-versus-humanization question shape its findings, and how did later Industry 4.0-adjacent humanization efforts repeat the same blind spot?
• XREF: connects to: Platforms fragment workers through individualized scoring to discipline labor and lift productivity — Donatella della Porta et al., Mobilizing Against the Odds: Solidarity…, 50; Self-branding shifts economic risk onto workers while demanding constant unpaid labor — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 524
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Platforms fragment workers through individualized scoring to discipline labor and lift productivity — Donatella della Porta et al., Mobilizing Against the Odds: Solidarity…, 50; Self-branding shifts economic risk onto workers while demanding constant unpaid labor — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 524

Broader Connections

• Self-branding shifts economic risk onto workers while demanding constant unpaid labor #complicates (0.72) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 524