Challenges of computerization: the example of the printing unions

这个项目涉及20世纪70年代和80年代印刷业的技术、社会和文化变革。在这一背景下研究这一时期的工会危机是至关重要的。印刷工会就是一个很好的例子，因为它的强大地位依赖于一支强大的合格工人队伍。该项目将调查从20世纪50年代到80年代这一时期，从手工印刷发展到工业印刷的十年开始。重点将放在1970年代和1980年代计算机技术的发明上；1985年成立的桌面出版公司标志着印刷业计算机化的初步完成。因此，该项目考察了技术变革在工会危机中所起的作用。自动化——在印刷业中，尤其是以计算机化的特殊形式——在三个方面挑战了工会：首先，在话语层面上，劳工对技术进步的传统信念总体上变得脆弱。工会成员讨论了自动化的社会影响是否仍然可以由工会力量决定。其次，在政治行动层面，罢工作为工会最重要的权力资源变得脆弱：计算机化使工厂外的生产成为可能，甚至没有熟练工人。第三，在工人自我认知的层面上，打印机属于劳动贵族的形象在计算机化的背景下变得过时了。技术工人以前独特的自我认知，对工会的稳定至关重要，分裂成大量的资格概况和自我认知。这个项目将显示这三个层面在哪些方面是相互联系的，也就是说，它将显示一个层面的变化是否会影响到其他层面。该项目从三个方面考察历史角色：地方、国家和国际。在地方层面，将对印刷工会的地方协会和工作委员会进行调查。在国家一级，将分析德国印刷联盟和德国工会联合会，在国际一级，将调查国际图形联合会和欧洲工会大会。此外，研究工会危机在多大程度上首先是由技术变革引起的，然后推动了工会运动的欧洲化，是至关重要的。

This project deals with technological, social, and cultural transformations in the printing industry during the 1970s and 1980s. It is crucial to focus on this context for investigating the trade union crisis of this period. The printing union gives a good example, because of its strong position rested on a strong force of qualified workers. The project will investigate the period from the 1950s to the 1980s, starting in a decade in which artisan printing developed into industrial printing. The main focus will be on the invention of computer technology during the 1970s and 1980s; the establishment of Desktop Publishing since 1985 then marks the preliminary completion of computerization in printing industry. The project hence examines the role technological change played for the trade union crisis. Automation - in printing industry foremost in the special form of computerization - challenged the unions in three ways: Firstly, on the discursive level, labour's traditional believe in technological progress in general became fragile. Union members discussed if automation's social impacts could still be shaped by union power. Secondly, on the level of political action, strikes being the unions' most important power resource became vulnerable: computerization enabled production outside of the factory and even without skilled workers. Thirdly, on the level of workers' self-perception, the image of printers belonging to an aristocracy of labour became obsolete in context of computerization. The formerly distinct self-perception of skilled workers, being of utmost importance for union stability, split into a multitude of qualification profiles and self-perceptions. This project will show in which respect the three levels were interconnected, i.e. it will show whether changes on one level affected the other levels. The project examines historical actors on three dimensions: local, national, and international. On the local level, the printing union's local associations and work councils will be investigated. On the national level the German printing union and the German Trade Union Federation will be analysed, and on the international level, the International Graphical Federation and the European Trade Union Congress will be investigated. Further, it is of utmost importance to examine to which extent the union crisis was first caused by technological change and then pushed the trade union movement's Europeanization.