Report No 14

Innovations in work organisationat enterprise level, changes intechnology and women�s employmentReport prepared for Interdepartmental Project onEquality for Women in Employment,International Labour office, Geneva

by Swasti MitterOctober 1993

The authors gratefully acknowledge support for the preparation of this report from the InternationalLabour Office. However, the views expressed and any errors or omissions are those of the authorsand not of ILO.

BRIDGE (development - gender)Institute of Development Studies

University of SussexBrighton BN1 9RE, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1273 606261Fax: +44 (0) 1273 621202/691647

Email: bridge@ids.ac.ukWebsite: http://www.ids.ac.uk/bridge

ISBN: 1 85864 149 7© Institute of Development Studies, Brighton

ii

CONTENTS

Page

1. Introduction 1

2. Changes in work organisation 3

2.1 External JIT 3

- Subcontracting in manufacturing 3- Externalisation of services work 6- Offshore decentralised work 7- Employees in on-shore offices 9- Health and safety concerns 10

2.2 Internal JIT 11

3. New technologies and women's employment 16

3.1 Biotechnology 16

3.2 Computer technologies 17

- Computer technology, decentralisationand women's opportunities in entrepreneurship 20

4. Conclusion 23

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1. Introduction

In the past decade, the nature, volume and conditions of women's employment have beeninfluenced, among other factors, by changes in the organisation of work at the enterprise leveland by the introduction of new technologies. In fact, innovations in work organisation havebeen prompted precisely by the need to have a continuous workflow that the expensivetechnologies require, in order to be cost-effective. The trend, on the corporate level, hasgenerally been to adopt a lean and quality-conscious management1 in order to remaincompetitive.

A perceptible rise in consumers' preferences for variety and quality, especially in the worldmarket, has also prompted firms in the modern sector to experiment with innovative workorganisation and choice of technologies. Ensuing corporate strategies, in the process, havealtered skills requirements and employment contracts of women and men employees. Academic and policy-oriented research institutes, including the International LabourOrganisation, have explored the impact of these changes on the quality and quantity ofemployment in the modern urban sector, but the differential impact of these changes onwomen and men has not yet been the subject of a detailed enquiry.

In the context of the modern industry and services sectors, changes in the organisation andmethod of production as observed in the eighties, have been viewed by many as a paradigmshift. It is debatable whether the much-quoted contrasts in production models, as in Table 1,really represent a fundamental switch. Some of the work organisation in the new model, suchas the use of numerically flexible workers, and subcontracting, are age-old practices,reoriented to meet the emerging challenges of marketing and business strategies. Likewise,the flexibility and variety in products and design as a marketing strategy may prove lesssignificant in the nineties if the world recession persists; a demand for mass-produced goodsand services may again lend the 'economies of scale' a much greater weight as a strategy thanthe 'economies of scope', that cater primarily to the niche markets of affluent societies. Nonetheless, the contrasting models prove useful in identifying the impact of current changesin technology and work organisation, on women employees.

1Papers presented to the International Institute for Labour Studies Conference on 'The Challenge of LeanProduction: how are firms and unions responding?': See especially J Humphrey, 'The management oflabour and the move towards leaner production system in the third world: the case of Brazil'.

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Table 1: Paradigm Shift in Production model: from Fordism to Post-Fordism?

Taylorism and Fordism The new model: Post Fordism? The basic productiontechnology

Process dedicated semi-automaticmachines and simple manualtools

Industrial robots, CNC-machines,computerised testing equipment,CAD/CAM-systems, FMSs

The model of workorganisation

Production line or functionalmanufacture

Group technologies or modified productionline

The paradigmatic type ofwork task

A) repetitive and fragmentedwork tasks with short cycles inassembly and machine-minding;B) more skill-demandingauxiliary work tasks in repair,maintenance and quality control

A) highly deskilled (and graduallydisappearing) work tasks in the technologicalgaps of the production processes;B) semi-skilled work tasks in automatedsettings (enlarged repetitive work);C) skill-demanding auxiliary work tasks inrepair and maintenance

The focus ofrationalisation

Manual labour by time andmotion studies and pieceworksystems

Capital rationalisation by increasing theturnover of inventories (JIT, subcontracting)and the utilisation of the production machinery(flexible automation, flexible working-timesand flexible use of labour)

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2. Changes in work organisation

It is the increased internationalisation of production and distribution of industrial productsand information-intensive services that has primarily imposed the dictates ofquality-conscious and lean management on the modern sector firms, both in the developedand in the developing countries. Central to the lean management has been the Just-in-Time(JIT) method, based on a Japanese management philosophy, that stresses the benefits ofreducing inventories and waste, both of materials and of final goods and services.

The success of JIT relies on being able to deliver, on the part of the companies, an assuredquality and quantity of goods without delay. The main thrust of the JIT is a 'Quick ResponseStrategy' to a swiftly changing market through organisational flexibility. The JIT thusadvocates:

- organisational ability to deliver high quality products;- organisational ability to respond rapidly to changes in demand;- organisational ability to be more cost-competitive.

Companies that embraced the JIT philosophy basically followed two-pronged policies of:

a) establishing an effective network of subcontractors that ensure a fail-safe delivery ofquality goods, services or materials at all times;

b) eliminating inefficiency and waste, in defective work and waiting time, throughstreamlining of work organisation and diversification of employees' skills.

The network between the subcontractors and the main company is generally described as the'external' side of JIT. The emphasis on organisational efficiency, quality control andre-skilling of workers, in contrast, are known as the essence of 'internal' JIT. Both sides ofJIT affected the structure and nature of employment, with markedly differential impact onwomen and men.

2.1 External JIT

The external side of JIT, until recently, got greater focus from those researchers and policymakers that were involved with gender issues. This was because subcontracting networksentailed an increase in the relative share of employment in the small-scale units that generallyprovided jobs for women.

Subcontracting in manufacturing

Since employers in large-scale units are expected by law to offer certain benefits toemployees, it often proves cheaper to hire women at small-scale units that are exempt fromlegal obligations related to, for example, redundancy payments, child care facilities ormaternity benefits. In the last decade, however, it is not only the cheapness of production thatprompted subcontracting; large retailers and distributors often relied on specialised

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small-scale units for supplies of high quality goods catering for the emerging niche markets inricher countries. An increased reliance on small-scale and medium-scale production units hasdefinitely benefited women in terms of quantities of employment in sectors as diverse asgarments and electronics2. Yet, this overall expansion of small-scale units in the 1980s insome cases has also meant a marked reduction in overall employment at large-scale factories,with a concomitant increase in feminised employment in small-scale subcontracting units. InIndia, for example, there has been a steady trend3 for smaller production units to becomeancillaries of large companies. The trend has been particularly visible in light consumergoods manufacturing, a sector that provides much of the employment for women. Large andsmall units previously shared 'common markets' on the basis of the sector's horizontaldivision; they now share a 'common production process' as different stages of productionbecome fragmented and specialised. This is what is described as the vertical integration ofthe production process. In Calcutta, India, for example, small units for a long time haveproduced ready-to-sell electric fans; more and more of these units have now switched over toworking on orders for smaller parts or for specific production processes. Similarly, in theconsumer electronics and automobile industries, the production of spare parts andcomponents accounts for an average of 60 per cent of employment; most of these items comefrom subcontracting units4. Increased reliance on subcontracting units can be observed inother developing countries, as in the case of the automobile industry in Brazil5 or in thegarments industry6 of the Philippines.

The beneficial impact of external JIT has often been discussed in terms of a shift in theparadigm of industrial structure, described as flexible specialisation or a model of productivedecentralisation. The experiences of industrial districts of 'Third Italy' (the central andnorth-eastern regions of Italy) were the focal point in the assessment of desirability orinevitability of such a shift. In this region of Italy, small-scale factories, generally employingno more than ten people, have played important roles in economic regeneration aroundindustrial districts. These small factories essentially produce parts or the whole of textilesand other industrial goods for the big manufacturing retailing companies7. These small,2

Raffaele Gaeta, Fiorenza Belussi & Swasti Mitter, 'Pronta Moda: the new business ventures for womenin Italy' in Swasti Mitter (ed), Computer-aided Manufacturing and Women's Employment: The ClothingIndustry in Four EC countries, Springer-Verlag, London, Berlin, New York, 1992. Nirmala Banerjee,'Something old, something new, something borrowed: microelectronics in Calcutta', a paper presentedat the international workshop on 'Information Technology and Women's Employment' at the UnitedNations University Institute for New Technologies (UNU-INTECH), Maastricht, Holland, co-ordinatedby Swasti Mitter, 26-29 April 1993.

3Sujata Gothoskar et al, Management Strategies and Union Counter-Strategies: Report of a studysponsored by Asia Partnership for Human Development, Trade Union Research Centre, Bombay, India,1990 (mimeo).

4Nirmala Banerjee, 'The unorganised sector and the planner' in A K Bagchi (ed), Indian Economy, Polityand Society, OUP, India, 1988, 1991.

5Anne Posthuma, 'Japanese techniques in Brazilian automobile components: best practice model as basisfor adoption', paper presented to the conference 'Organisation and Control of the Labour Process',Aston University, UK, 28-30 March, 1990

6Rosalinda Pinenda Ofreneo, 'Industrial homework in the Philippines', paper prepared for theInternational Labour Office, Geneva, 1987.

7Frank Pyke & Werner Sengenberger (eds), Industrial Districts and Local Economic Generation, ILO,Geneva, 1992.

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so-called 'network' firms also produce for each other, displaying horizontal as well as verticalinterdependencies8. In such subcontracting units, employers are less encumbered by theemployment and labour legislation that usually adds to the recruitment costs of biggercompanies. The implicit organisational efficiency of this subcontracting network,understandably, has captured the imagination of policy makers - both in Europe and beyond -particularly for its significance for a decentralisation of economic power and opportunities forself-employment9.

Women in Italy, and in some developing countries, have benefited quantitatively from theexpansion of subcontracting; but it is debatable whether women experienced muchimprovement in the quality of their work. Admittedly, small-scale units, in ideal situations,generate a better employer/employee relationship. It is much easier to feel involved and to beinstructed in a working environment that is bureaucratically less impersonal and hence lessdaunting. Such units could also provide informal work training, at a pace and in a form thatis more accessible to women who generally have less formal qualifications than maleemployees. Nonetheless, conditions of work are generally worse in small-scale unitscompared with large-scale ones; wages are low, benefits are negligible and there is littlemonitoring of health hazards10. Even in the much vaunted Third Italy, the decentralisation ofwork, in some cases, led to erosion of the rights and privileges of women employees. Insmall firms, in the absence of institutional procedures, women find it difficult to get redressagainst sexual harassment11.

There is always scope for self-employment for women in the small-scale sector. In mostsocieties, it is possible to locate some successful businesswomen but rarely a womanindustrialist. In Italy, the model of productive decentralisation indeed has allowed women tocarve out niche markets for entrepreneurship - especially in the area of fashion and design12. This, albeit limited, experience has some learning effects for women in developing countries. However, a successful transition from wage employment to entrepreneurship in the modernsector involves expensive and complex skills, including in some cases computer literacy. Without a well-formulated programme for training and business education, women in thedeveloping world are unlikely to benefit from the prospect of self-employment that theflexible specialisation model, in principle, holds out for them.

8Fiorenza Belussi, 'La grande transformazione: la nascita di nuovi modelli organizzativi di impresa' inFiorenzi Belussi (ed), Nuovi Modelli D'Impresa Gerachie Organizzative E Imprese Rete,Franco Angeli, Milano, Italy, 1992; Fiorenza Belussi, 'Benetton Italy: beyond Fordism and flexiblespecialisation. The evolution of the network firm model' in Swasti Mitter (ed), Computer-aidedManufacturing and Women's Employment, op cit.

9F Pyke, G Becattini & W Sengenberger, Industrial Districts and Inter-firm co-operation in Italy,International Institute for Labour Studies, Geneva, 1990; and A Amsden, 'Third world industrialisation:'Global Fordism' or a new model?' in New Left Review, No 182, 1990.

10On Italian decentralisation, see relevant papers in Swasti Mitter (ed), Computer-aided Manufacturingand Women's Employment, Springer-Verlag, London, 1992.

11See, for example, Vicky Franzinetti, 'The informal sector in an industrialised country: textile andgarment workers in Northern Italy', paper commissioned by the Interdepartmental Project on Equalityfor Women in Employment, ILO, Geneva, for the volume on Organising the Unorganised, 1993.

12Gaeta, Belussi & Mitter, op cit.

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Externalisation of services work

Externalisation of parts or the whole of the production process is not limited tomanufacturing. It is spreading in the services sector - most notably in office work. Innovations in computers and office equipment, changes in telecommunications technologyand international organisations and regulation of telecommunication services have resulted ina virtual fusion between the office machinery, computers and telecommunications sector. These new developments have affected volume of employment and structure of workorganisation. Increased use of new technology for information processing in a wide range ofindustrial and service activities has given rise to an accelerating requirement for thepreparation and entry of data into computers; women, rightly or wrongly, noted for theirdexterity and typing skills, have received a large proportion of these new jobs that are relatedto data entry13.

The increased flexibility offered by the new hybrid technologies has also enabled major usersof information processing work to decentralise the preparation and entry part of theiroperation. Large companies are able to utilise the flexibility offered by innovations intelecommunications, computers and office technology to separate the physical location oflabour and space-intensive operations - such as invoicing, payrolling, stock control, salesrecords, market analysis and routine accounting procedures - away from the headquarters ofthe company to a location where the cost of appropriate labour and office accommodation isconsiderably lower. The decentralisation of office work has in fact taken a variety of forms,which are often grouped together under the following terms that tend to be usedinterchangeably: 'teleworking'; 'telecommuting'; 'distant working'; 'remote working'. Theseterms refer to a range of organisational strategies which have evolved to take advantage of theflexibility and cost savings inherent in geographically separating various tasks connected withdata preparation and processing.

The range of technology-related work which can be decentralised using new informationtechnology is extensive. However, a major demarcation can be made between programmingand software development work of professionals and basic data entry work which is carriedout by clerical workers. The division between programming/software development anddata entry work also reflects a difference between the gender composition of the labour force,with women being concentrated in data entry, whilst professional work is mainly, though notentirely, carried out by men14. An increased number of data entry jobs for women hasallowed clerical workers to have access to some amount of computer literacy, which could bea stepping stone to more skill-intensive and financially rewarding occupations. Yet, to makethis progression a reality, well-formulated training programmes specifically targeted atwomen will be essential. For decentralised data entry workers, national initiatives are crucial,as it is difficult for companies to organised a well co-ordinated training programme forgeographically dispersed workers. The task becomes even more difficult when the13

Swasti Mitter & Ruth Pearson, Global Information Processing: the Emergence of Software services andData Entry Jobs in selected Developing Countries, Sectoral Activities Working Papers, SalariedEmployees and Professional Workers' Branch, ILO, Geneva, 1992.

14Swasti Mitter & Ruth Pearson, op cit., ILO, Geneva, 1992.

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decentralised workers are seen and defined legally as self-employed, especially when theywork for more than one company.

The spread of telework or electronic homework has been rather limited in the developingcountries. Homes of clerical workers in the developing world are not often suitable forinstalling the equipment that is an essential for distant working. However, the prevalence ofsuch work can already be identified in Malaysia, South Korea and the Philippines15.

Decentralisation of white collar work has allowed a small but growing number of women toset up as successful entrepreneurs in the information process business. In the sample surveys,especially in developed countries, core companies valued women entrepreneurs' socialcompetence, communication and 'people skills' as of special significance in the business. However, for those women who were successful, the hours of work reported were oftenextremely long and unpredictable, five to sixteen hours a day, sometimes seven days a week16. Male consultants faced similar challenges, but women's generally heavier commitment tohomemaking made the routine especially demanding. In addition, self-employed consultants- women and men - had to forego the security of the type provided by employers such assuperannuation, job tenure, sick leave or holiday pay.

Offshore decentralised work

There has been marked differentiation in the quantity and quality of relocatedinformation-intensive jobs by region as well as by gender. Despite a dramatic growth ofinternational subcontracting of software programming work to a number of poorer countries17,the overall share of poorer countries in the production of software has been small. Women'srole in this sector has been minuscule. In contrast, women in developing countries havegained a major share of semi-skilled data entry jobs - especially when they have beenrelocated from high-wage countries. This work is parallel to much of the teleworking carriedout within industrialised countries by women, working as homeworkers, or as part-timeworkers in satellite/branch offices, and to a lesser extent in independent distant workingenterprises.

The predominant form of enterprise in developing countries undertaking data entry is that ofdistant work enterprise, or satellite/branch office. Many offshore data entry facilities are fullyor majority-owned subsidiaries of US or Australian companies which are set up to carry outdata entry work for their parent corporation. American Airlines initiated its dataprocessing

15Govinda Kelkar & Dev Nathan, 'Social impact of new technologies', background paper prepared forESCAP All-China Youth Federation Seminar on the 'Effects of New Technologies on the Working Lifeof Young People', 20-24 October, 1992, Zhuhai, China.

16For an analysis of the impact of remote work on women's employment see Alison G MacKinnon,'Autonomy and control: women, work and computerization' in I V Eriksson et al (ed), Women, Workand Computerization, Understanding and Overcoming Bias in Work and Education, North-Holland,Amsterdam, 1991.

17For an account of Brazilian and Indian experience see Swasti Mitter & Ruth Pearson, op cit., ILO,Geneva, 1992.

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facilities in Barbados in 1984 in this manner. However, such enterprises, including AmericanAirlines' own expanded subsidiary Caribbean Data Services, also subcontract data entry workfor other clients.

Offshore data entry or dataprocessing is the term applied to the relocation of new technologyclerical work to low wage developing countries. The major location of such activities hasbeen in the Caribbean, principally in Barbados and Jamaica and more recently in theDominican Republic, with a handful of facilities in the smaller Caribbean islands, such as StLucia, St Christopher Nevis and St Vincent. Other facilities are known to operate in India,China, Singapore, the Philippines and Ireland.

Most of the foreign-owned subsidiaries in the Caribbean region and elsewhere are located inthe Free Trade Zones, which provide incentives to foreign investors parallel to those offeredto offshore manufacturing. Incentives available to foreign-owned data entry firms inJamaica's Montego Bay Free Zone include low cost space, tax benefits and full repatriation ofprofits and dividends to the home countries. Employment to date is difficult to estimate andno comprehensive source of data exists18.

There are similarities between the working conditions of offshore data workers and those ofelectronic distance workers (teleworkers) in industrialised countries19. This is particularlytrue of the insecurity of their contractual and earnings situation. In Jamaica it is frequentlythe case that workers are hired only after a lengthy period of selection and training, duringwhich they are paid a training allowance whilst actually processing data for commercialcontracts. Once a proper offer of employment is made, remuneration is dependent as muchon reaching (variable and non-negotiable) productivity targets as on a fixed weekly ormonthly wage. The basic wage is rarely more than half of the stated average earnings, withproductivity-related piece rates accounting for the remainder. It is also quite common forworkers to be laid off without pay, or to receive only the minimum payment, when there isinsufficient work to occupy the whole workforce.

In spite of the precariousness of employment contracts and low basic wage rates, totalremuneration for offshore data entry clerks often compares well with earnings in other localemployment (this was found to be the case in Jamaica, for instance, vis-à-vis manufacturingemployment). An American-owned dataprocessing company in the Philippines advertised topotential clients that wages were pegged to the US dollar and were adjusted to compensate forany devaluation of the local currency. Minimum wage rates cited were compared not withindustrial but with white collar and professional wages20. Even so, in comparison withprevailing rates in the developed countries, the cost advantage for employers is very clear. The OTA study estimated that wage costs in the early 1980s (calculated on the basis of hourlywage rates) were between six and twelve times higher in the United States than in ThirdWorld offshore locations21. A more recent source estimates that the wages of Filipino18

Swasti Mitter & Ruth Pearson, ibid, ILO, Geneva, 1992. 19

Ruth Pearson & Swasti Mitter, 'Employment and working conditions of low-skilled informationprocessing workers in less developed countries, International Labour Review, Vol 132, 1993, No 1.

20ibid

21ibid

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keyboard operators in 1989 were one-fifth of those of equivalent employees in US-basedcompanies, indicating that - at least in some locations - the gap may be narrowing as demandfor efficient data entry operators increases22. However, there are no systematic data allowinga reliable comparison of wage rates, and no comparative data on total labour costs includingnon-wage employee costs.

The situation regarding data entry employees' rights to organise in labour unions is alsounclear. Employment in Free Trade Zones often precludes the right to organise, as is the casein the manufacturing sectors of Malaysia and the Republic of Korea (though not, it should besaid, of Jamaica, Mexico or the Philippines). However, it was clear that in Jamaica there wasno unionisation among data entry workers; in both Jamaica and Barbados keyboard operatorswere encouraged to think of themselves as white collar employees, apparently in an attempt topre-empt the development of militancy characteristic of organised industrial workers. Management styles were often based on notions of responsibility for the employees' welfare,highlighting caring rather than conflictual relationships between workers and management23. In the Philippines managers stressed the benefits granted to their employees, includingbonuses, medical are and profit-sharing plans, while confirming these employees' non-unionstatus.

Employees in on-shore offices

Working conditions of employees in decentralised data processing on-shore offices ofdeveloping countries differ from those in the offshore data entry sector. Employees in theseoffices retain their status as core public sector employees, but often consider that their jobshave become deskilled and standardised according to Taylorist management principles.

In Brazil workers employed at a decentralised (branch) office of a large public administrationagency complained that lack of contact with the head office meant they had no say onquestions of skills, training decisions and job content, in spite of the flexibility required fromthem in carrying out their tasks. They experienced increased control over task performance,both by supervisors and by electronic surveillance, and deliberate minimisation ofcommunication between workers as a result of the physical fragmentation of the workplaceinto individual workstations. Data entry clerks were forbidden to talk during working hours;were allowed only limited rest periods; and were further discouraged from sentiments ofgroup solidarity by the payment-by-results system which encouraged not only continuallyincreased productivity but an individual rather than a collective work ethic. The fact that themajority of data entry workers are women was often used by management to justifyrestrictions on communications, since women are (stereotypically) considered to waste timeby gossiping24.

Before the decentralisation drive took place in Brazil, unionisation and militancy had been

22ibid

23ibid

24ibid

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increasing among information processing workers. After decentralisation, employees found itharder to sustain union activity because of the lack of communication with the head officeand difficulties in organising under the new conditions.

A survey carried out in Japan on the effect of working with computer terminals in bankingand other sectors tends to confirm the pessimism felt by the workers in the Brazilian study. The Japanese office workers felt that their working conditions had deteriorated as a result ofcomputerisation. They complained of a high level of electronic surveillance; restrictions ontheir physical mobility; high levels of exhaustion; and dissatisfaction with the monotonousand repetitive nature of the work25.

Health and safety concerns

A number of health and safety issues affect all information-processing workers who usecomputers. Because of the intensive nature of these workers' tasks, and the long hours forwhich they are immobilised in front of their computer terminals, often under close human andelectronic surveillance, these issues are of particular relevance to the low-skilled sector of thenew white collar workforce, where the majority of all employees, particularly women, areconcentrated.

In industrialised countries, where the dissemination of new technology is more thoroughlymonitored by government agencies and labour organisations, the existence of potential healthrisks arising from the intensive use of computers is well documented. But such control isextremely rare in the developing world, especially with respect to health hazards related toVDUs (visual display units or terminals).

Health hazards said to be associated with computer-based information-processing work are offive types26:

1) musculo-skeletal disorders;2) deterioration of visual capacity and related problems;3) stress and fatigue;4) skin complaints;5) reproductive hazards.

These conditions are attributed variously to:

a) poor ergonomic design of workstations;b) radiation emission from VDUs;c) static electricity and chemical emissions;d) over-use of eyes and muscles without breaks or rest. 25

ibid26

Angelo S Soares, 'Telework and communication in data processing centres in Brazil', inUrs E Gattiker (ed), Technological Innovation and Human Resources, Vol 3 Technology-mediatedCommunication, de Gruyter, Berlin & New York, 1992.

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In summary, offshore and onshore dataprocessing jobs have improved women's employmentopportunities. But as yet, little investigation has been made to assess the quality of their workin terms of:

- security of contracts;- training for long-term employment;- upgrading of computer literacy; and- health hazards arising out of intensive use of VDUs27.

The 'external' JIT augmented internal and international subcontracting by large companies. Itwill now be timely to evaluate the impact of such a phenomenon on the quality and quantityof jobs received by women in rich and poor countries.

2.2 Internal JIT

Modern management techniques have changed the structure of work and the nature ofemployment also within the core sections of the large manufacturing and service sectororganisations. Streamlining of work and personnel, a precondition for quality-consciousproduction and described as 'internal' JIT, have not necessarily meant a reduction in thenumber of employees, but it has definitely altered the kinds of skills and expertise needed bymajor companies.

The 'internal' JIT complements the 'external' JIT both in the services sector and inmanufacturing. Crucial to the 'internal' JIT policy is the Total Quality Control philosophy -which demands that organisations should be geared to all aspects of quality, that include'zero' defects, after-care servicing and guaranteed standards of products, aspects that are ofkey concern to the customers and thereby to the competitiveness of the companies. The maintargets of the Total Quality philosophy are:

- cost reduction;- time reduction;- defect reduction;- improved customer services.

These goals, along with the flexibility needed for a Quick Response Strategy, have made itincreasingly imperative for companies to shift from an old-fashioned 'Fordist' assembly-linework to a team-oriented work philosophy. Total Quality Control (TQC) is often referred to asTotal Quality Management (TQM), precisely to emphasise the significance of an integratedquality approach in an emerging management policy.

27Swasti Mitter & Ruth Pearson, op cit., ILO, Geneva, 1992; and Ruth Pearson & Swasti Mitter,'Employment and working Conditions of low-skilled information processing work in less developedcountries', International Labour Review, Vol 132, 1993, No 1, p63.

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The TQM or the 'internal' JIT offers contradictory possibilities to women employees. At theorganisational level, the approach entails a transition from the traditional division of labourbetween different sections and categories of employment, to a more integrated approachlinking functions, skills and experiences within a company. The key to success is viewed interms of 'interfunctionality' between different sections of the company, so that efficientcommunications among employees can be established in order to improve the quality andtiming of products and service deliveries. This paradigm shift in management practicesdemands of employees:

- complex and multiple business and technical skills;- craftsmanship;- professionalism;- high educational levels;- flexibility/ability to change.

As women are generally in the lower occupational categories and have limited access torelevant education and training, it is understandable why the introduction of TQM is likely tolead to displacement of women workers at core enterprises.

The impact of TQM on women employees has hardly yet been a topic of research; but thisshould be given a major focus at a time when the mainstream research emphasises thedemanding responsibilities that the workers are or will be expected to possess in order to keeptheir positions in the quality-conscious commercial companies. Studies of firms in Brazil28,29,for example, show that the workers are now expected to have responsibilities for:

- quality control with production work;- participation in the definition of norms and procedures related to quality inspection;- filling out of Statistical Process Control (SPC) charts or control charts;- participation in groups which solve problems or seek improvements;- preparation and adjustment of equipment;- rotation of jobs;- routine maintenance. - Even in the expanding and dynamic telecommunications companies of the EuropeanCommunity countries, women, while providing the bulk of the workforce, were poorlyrepresented in employment categories that demand and impart the above skills.

28Roberto Ruas, 'Notes on the Implementation of Quality and Productivity Programmes in sectors ofBrazilian Industry' in John Humphrey (ed), Quality and Productivity in Industry: New Strategies inDeveloping Countries, IDS Bulletin, Vol 24, No 2, April 1993.

29M T Fleury and R Fischer (eds), Cultura e Poder nas Organizaçõs, Sâo Paulo: Editora Atlas(second edition), 1992.

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Figure 1: A Summary of the Employee Profiles of the Survey Companies byGender in the Telecommunications Sector of the European Community

Source: Swasti Mitter, Gillian Shapiro & Paul Levy at the Centre for Business Research, University of Brighton, UK.

Without a specific gender focus in training programmes within and outside companies, it ishighly unlikely that women will have access to the necessary expertise. In the absence ofcounter-measures, the 'internal' JIT or the TQM therefore are prone to affect the quantity ofwomen's opportunities in an adverse way.

The TQM, at least in principle, holds promises as well. The move away from the 'Fordist'approach of the division of labour implies new flexibilities in existing bureaucracies. TheTQM replaces traditional 'vertical' hierarchical relationships with a matrix form of 'horizontal'project teams. The companies engage in innovative democratic practices, such as QualityImprovement Programmes, 'Team Building' Programmes, Customer Care Programmes orInvestment and Training in Ready-made (black box) Technologies. The democratic approachrequires employee involvement. TQM companies consider that the alienation of employees, afeature of 'Fordist' organisations, can be lessened by opportunities and training forself-development through resource centres, discussion groups, action learning sets30 andsuchlike.

This aspect of TQM that gives special emphasis to people's involvement is becomingsignificant in the context of new accreditation for Quality Control. The accreditation by theEuropean Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) is one such example. The EFQM'sspecific standards for Quality Awards are followed by companies in Europe but also in somedeveloping countries. The EFQM draws on many of the principles of the main TQMapproaches but strongly stresses the 'people involvement' as a condition for ensuring quality.

30action learning sets: a management development concept originated by Reg Revans in the UK. It isbased on the idea that managers learn by doing and reviewing what they have done, and on providingopportunities for them to carry out this activity in a variety of different circumstances.

Top management(mainly men)

Middle management(almost proportional representation of

both men and women)

Technical and engineering (mainly men)

Blue collar workers/operators/clerical workers (mainly women)

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In this approach, the quality-conscious company is expected to:

- preserve and develop core skills through the recruitment, training and careerdevelopment of its people;

- promote the involvement of all its people in continuous improvement;- empower its people to take appropriate action.

Thus, in an industry where a substantial proportion of employees are women, companies arelikely to benefit by adopting those TQM practices that aim to elicit greater involvement fromtheir women employees31.

In practice, however, women are often excluded from the quality improvement sets or groups. The members of the sets are generally selected by the existing management who are, bytradition, used to a 'top-down' approach and unaccustomed to including blue collar womenworkers in decision making. In the absence of a conscious change in the culture of theorganisation, women, in practice, do find it difficult to have entry to groups that assess themanagement of quality32.

In some cases, a partial application of TQM simply accentuates the intensification of workand thereby health and occupational hazards for women employees. Increased expectationsfrom employees lead to increased physical stress. Applications of JIT/TQM have beenknown to contribute also to emotional stress. TQM expects employees to think of continuousimprovement or Kaizen33 in Quality Circle groups. The innovative, challenging ideas thatwomen or men give in the Quality Circles make them feel important or involved; yet it leadsto suspicion or fear that the management gains experience from blue-collar women workerswithout any compensation or assurance against redundancy, tensions and addedresponsibilities34. The research in Argentina again shows that when Temporary TechnologyGroups (TTGs) are formed35, they give rise to stomach ulcers and nervous ailments. Qualitycircles or groups do not always lead to women's employers' progression and access tomultiple skills. Thus, in Argentina, even in an electronics company where women comprise

31For an assessment of the benefits of women's involvement in TQM, see Swasti Mitter et al, A NewApproach to Positive Action Programmes in the European Telecommunications Industry, Centre forBusiness Research, University of Brighton, UK, 1993.

32ibid.

33Kaizen, or continuous improvement, is the practice of institutionalising the search for improvement. This can be done by forming groups of workers (quality circles, small group activities) and managementtask forces to seek better (less costly) ways of doing things. Kaizen works best when (i) JIT and TQChave simplified production systems so that their workings are transparent, and (ii) workers areorganised into teams and have some knowledge of jobs other than their own.

34Martha Roldãn, 'Women organising in the process of Industrialisation: JIT, technological innovations,industrial restructuring and gender relations' in Amrita Chhachi and Renée Pittin (eds), ConfrontingStage, Capital and Patriarchy: Women Organising in the Process of Industrialisation, Macmillan,1993 (forthcoming).

35A Temporary Technology Group (TTG), more often called an 'amoeba', is a term used in the context ofTQM and cellular flexible manufacturing that involves two or more employees for a production of agiven model or a 'family' of goods.

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one hundred per cent of blue collar workers, quality control takes place in a differentdepartment and is the preserve of male engineers and technicians36. Women operators,instead of acquiring polyvalent skills, simply learn a new way of rotating circuit boardassembly so that they can assemble all different models needed by customers, without addedinvolvement in expensive training or technology. Similar has been the experience of bluecollar workers in the telecommunications industry in the EC.

36Martha Roldãn, 'Industrial restructuring, deregulation and new JIT labour processes in Argentina,towards a gender perspective?' in John Humphrey (ed), Quality and Production in Industry: NewStrategies in Developing Countries, IDS Bulletin, op cit., p49.

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3. New technologies and women's employment

The observed changes in work organisation as well as in work practices generally are apreparation for a smooth and cost-effective transition to advanced technologies. Newtechnologies generally refer both to biotechnologies and computer technologies.

3.1 Biotechnology

Biotechnology is usually associated with the techniques of genetic engineering,i.e. recombinant DNA and cell fusion. These are what may be called the 'new' techniques. Biotechnology, however, also involves some 'old' techniques like fermentation, use ofenzymes in biological reactions and tissue culture. To date, use of new techniques ofbiotechnology has been small in the developing countries. However, the technology isrelatively cheap and is already spreading.

Food processing, pharmaceutical and many other chemical industries, some of the majorsources of employment for women in the developing countries, are already undergoing visiblechanges. The impact of biotechnology is likely to be even more deeply felt than that ofcomputer technology in the late twentieth century, and it will bring revolutionary change toboth developed and developing countries. Improved and new methods of agricultural andindustrial production in the industrialised countries, for example, will displace moretraditional products from the developing countries.

In the sugar industry the application of biotechnology is displacing workers. Fructose madefrom maize grown in the industrialised countries is emerging as an economically viable andwidely-used substitute for cane sugar. This has spelled disaster for cane sugar exportingcountries, as they can no longer control the price of exports or compete in quality. They arelosing an export crop and the industrial work-force involved in sugar production and relatedprocessing industries is being displaced37.

The application of tissue culture technology may cause further displacement of women fromthe manufacturing workforce in the developing countries. This technology has distinctadvantages over the traditional technique of extracting chemicals from plants. Tissue cultureyields products that are more easily purified and ensures that both the quality and the quantityare predictable and planned. Given these advantages, it seems likely that there will be anincreasing shift towards tissue culture production, even in some of the developing countries. This shift, however, will imply the replacement of direct labour, as the number of workersneeded for tissue culture production tends to be much lower than that for traditional industriesthat produce chemicals from plants. Moreover, the tissue culture factories themselves areunlikely to generate significant employment, since these factories are highly automatedthrough the use of computer-guided production techniques.

37Swasti Mitter, Women in Industrial Development in Developing Countries: Trends and Perspectives,UNIDO, the Unit for the Integration of women into Industrial Development, Vienna, 1987, p137.

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It is too early to assess the full implications of the introduction of biotechnology on thestructure of employment, yet the emerging evidence indicates that new jobs, in the age ofbiotechnology, are going to be those that demand a high level of technical skills andmanagerial competence. Consequently, women's prospects for retaining their share ofemployment in industries such as food processing or chemicals will depend on the followingfactors:

a) the ability of developing countries to create an institutional and educationalinfrastructure that will promote the necessary skills;

b) the success of the developing countries in resisting recent moves towards imposing anintellectual property law on the fruits of the research undertaken in the developedcountries;

c) the willingness and support of national governments and intergovernmentalorganisations in extending opportunities to acquire relevant skills to women and menalike.

3.2 Computer technologies

Implementation of biotechnology is still at the early stage in the developing countries. Computer-aided technologies, in contrast, have already made their impact on women'semployment felt. The computer-aided technologies, combined with telecommunications andsatellite technologies, have changed the skills requirements and quantity of industry andservice jobs available to women employees.

In the field of manufacturing, the applications of computer technology have been most widelymade in Computer-Numerical Control of machine tools (CNC), Computer-Aided Designs(CAD), automatic materials handling and more recently Flexible Manufacturing Systems(FMS)38. A move away from 'islands of automation' to an integrated system is also beingexperienced through Computer-Integrated Manufacturing systems (CIM)39.

The application of information technology has revolutionised automation in production, sincethis technology is much easier to apply to the whole series of processes involved. Earliercontrol systems used pneumatic or hydraulic means for sending messages to the machines andwere limited as tools for automation. Computer-aided technology, however, results not onlyin automation. It allows important flexibilities into production, such as modular productionof components in different locations. The production of cars and television sets givesexamples of such modularisation of products. In some cases, information control systemshelp to miniaturise production equipment, as in printing machinery. The technology thusopens up fresh possibilities of decentralisation of production within and across countries. The use of computer-aided technology that includes telecommunications has significantmanagerial implications; it enables a centralised management of production units that are

38John Bessant, Managing Advanced Manufacturing Technology: The Challenge of the Fifth Wave,NCC Blackwell, Manchester, Oxford, UK, 1991.

39Karl-H Ebel, Computer-Integrated Manufacturing: the Social Dimension, ILO, Geneva, 1990, p3.

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geographically dispersed. The technology, thus, alters the organisation, location as well asthe nature and volume of industrial work.

Impacts of computer technologies on women's work have been in many ways complex and insome ways contradictory. Digital automation and robotic technologies, by replacing theimportance of feminised labour-intensive work, reduce the scope of employmentopportunities for women. Much of the documented decline of women's employment in thetextiles industry of Argentina and Brazil in the last decade has been attributed to theintroduction of computer-aided technology40. Introduction of computer-aided technologieshas likewise been a contributory factor to the dramatic decline of women's employment in thelarge-scale manufacturing sector of India in the 1980s41.

Computer technology gradually erodes the developing countries' comparative advantages that,in the past, were based on the cheap labour of their women blue collar employees. Ascomputer-aided machines make the role of labour-intensive work less significant,multinational companies do not locate work in developing countries for the sake of cheaplabour. The current flow of foreign direct investment highlights that it is the countries whichoffer the promise of cheap but skilled labour that receive sizeable foreign direct investments. ASEAN countries have been, significantly, recipients of such investment: there, women havea relatively better chance to obtain the requisite training and skills42.

The domestic companies also look for different expertise in the wake of new technologies. Manufacturing companies, even in a labour surplus country, now adopt a certain amount oflabour-replacing methods of manufacturing to achieve speed, flexibility and quality control. As a result, even in the middle of diverse patterns and directions of manufacturingemployment in all parts of the world, one can identify certain trends in the corporate sector, inthat:

- the cost of capital is rising;- the input of labour is falling;- the demand for multi-skilled operators is increasing;- new skills requiring hardware and software development are becoming important;- expertise in material resources planning and total quality management is proving

crucial;- marketing skills are becoming significant;- skills in the management of organisation as well as of technologies are becoming

essential.

40Liliana Acero, Textiles Workers in Brazil and Argentina, United Nations University Press, Tokyo,1991.

41See the relevant papers presented at the _Information Technology and Women�s Employment�workshop, United Nations University Institute for New Technologies, Maastricht, Holland,co-ordinated by Swasti Mitter, 26-29 April, 1993.

42Swasti Mitter, 'New skills requirement and appropriate programmes for the enhancement ofparticipation of the female labour force in industry in selected economies of the Asian/Pacific region',paper presented at the regional workshop on promoting diversified skill requirements for women inindustry, ESCAP, 23-27 March, 1992, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

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The changing nature of skill requirements often means displacement of women workers evenin an expanding industry. In Malaysia, for example, the introduction of the JIT system in thesemiconductor sector increased the demand for expertise in material control systems such asMaterials Requirement Planning (MRP) and Materials Resource Planning (MRP II)43. Theresult of introducing JIT has been impressive. In one firm, the use of JIT and automationsince 1984 has halved the labour and factory space needed and resulted in a reduction in theworking week to four days44. Most firms in Penang have reduced machine set-up time, idealtime and manufacturing lead time.

The increased overall productivity, however, has meant a reduction in the share of femaleemployment in the electronics industry of Malaysia. Whereas up to 80 per cent of theworkers were women in the first phase of the industry, a 1986 survey showed that femalerepresentation had fallen to 67 per cent. The percentage is even lower in the 1990s. Computer technologies have affected the quality of women's employment as well. Bylowering the number of highly repetitive manual operations, computer-aided technologies, forexample, have reduced the physical strain of assembly line work. Yet, the increasing productrates, achieved by the same technological progress, have also reduced employees'opportunities to regulate their work rhythm45. Workers frequently had to pace their workwithin ever narrower limits set by the ever-quicker machines, to which they feed parts orwhose products they have to test. In these situations, job rotations and group technologieswere at times viewed by women employees as managerial strategies to ameliorate the workintensification�s, following from the introduction of CAD technologies.

With the implementation of CAD/CAM technologies, assembly workers' tasks are becomingmore versatile and changing qualitatively, from manual assembly line to machine-feeding,machine minding, quality control and routine maintenance. The implementation of computertechnologies has thus altered the required skills at the enterprise level. In the productionprocess of semiconductors, for instance, cheap labour alone does not guarantee a foothold inthe internationally competitive market. In the pioneer days of Thailand's electronics industry,for example, the employers needed the nimble fingers of women workers for connecting tinywires to a semiconductor. The same task is now being done by a machine, with as many as

43Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) refers to a technique which takes a forecast of anticipatedsales over time and produces a breakdown of the total materials requirements - raw materials,components, sub-assemblies - for meeting those targets. From such information a series of activities -purchase orders, subcontract orders, in-house production of component orders - can be initiated. Materials Resource Planning (MRP II) extends the concept of Materials Requirements Planning byintroducing the idea of a master production schedule which is generated by a mixture of forecasting ofsales demand and actual customer orders. From this master schedule a materials requirement plan and acapacity requirements plan are generated and used in connection with the bill of materials to produceorders for materials. MRP II differs from MRP in its strategic nature, taking into account the entireoperational resource base of the company.

44Suresh Narayan & Raiah Rajah, Malaysian Electronics: the dimming prospects of employmentgeneration and restructuring, (MIMEO), 1990.

45See, for example, Tuomo Alasoini, 'Technological changes and gendered division of labour in the lightelectrotechnical industry: observations from a Finnish study' in I V Eriksson et al (ed), Women, Workand Computerization: Understanding and Overcoming Bias in Work and Education, North Holland,Amsterdam, 1991.

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ten machines under the charge of just one woman. It is not only the labour content that isdecreasing; the quality of labour that is being demanded of the electronics workers is rising atthe same time46.

Computer technology, decentralisation and women's opportunities inentrepreneurship

Computer technology itself has been instrumental in shaping the growth of the small- andmedium-scale sectors both in the rich and in the poor countries.

Changes in technology have facilitated the possibilities of decentralisation through:

- miniaturisation of machines, as in printing and publishing;- modularisation of products, as in television;- fragmentation of the production process, as in garments and pharmaceuticals.

The process of decentralisation has been enhanced also by:

- government policies which encourage the small-scale sector as a cost-effective way ofcreating employment;

- the increased role of new forms of investment (NFI) by multinationals in the shape ofjoint ventures with smaller firms, less encumbered by intellectual property rights.

- Women's opportunities in entrepreneurship and high-tech decentralised units proved limitedin management jobs. The success in this sector depended on having specific marketing andbusiness skills (Table 2). Even when women acquired the production skills they frequentlyfailed in the world of business in the absence of requisite marketing and business skills.

46Financial Times Survey of Thailand, 5 December 1990, p5.

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Table 2: Requisite marketing and business skills in the era of new technology:quick response and flexibility in design and delivery

Conditions of success Strategic issuesOffer consistently low defect rates QualityOffer dependable delivery promises DeliveryProvide reliable/durable products DesignProvide high performance products DesignOffer fast deliveries DeliveryCustomise products and services to user needs Customisation/FlexibilityProfit in price-competitive markets PriceIntroduce new products quickly Product innovationProvide effective after-sales service ServiceOffer a broad product line Variety/FlexibilityISO9000

47International Standard for Quality

In the developing world, it is in the services sector, especially in clerical and data entry work,that women have become main beneficiaries of new employment opportunities. Over the lastdecade, owing to the development and application of microelectronic technologies, the officeas a workplace has come under closer scrutiny in the assessment of the impact of computertechnologies on women's employment. In the early 1980s, analyses of office activitiesfocused on areas where deskilling and automation were taking identifiable forms, specificallyin the application of word processing to text production. More recently, however, broadercomputing applications such as the development of network systems and the integration ofoffice and manufacturing production via control and management systems have becomewidespread, demanding a greater level of skill and a knowledge of organisation from certaintypes of office workers and secretaries. Limited evidence, mostly from the developedcountries, indicates that the application of microelectronic technologies does not necessarilyimpede the upgrading of secretarial skills; in fact, information technologies, and moreprecisely microcomputers in the office, provide secretarial workers 'potentially' with a widerange of experience and activities, such as database management or desktop publishing,which broaden their jobs and expertise. Appropriate training that enhances the hands-onskills, learnt on-the-job, in these areas benefits the companies as much as the secretaries.

In the 1990s, faced with the prospect of skills shortages in strategic areas, businesses in thewestern world have started to regard new technology secretarial skills of women asincreasingly valuable resources. In progressive and forward-looking companies, training

47ISO9000/4: _The International Organisation for Standardisation has developed a series of standards fortotal quality management. ISO9000 provides guidelines for their selection and use. ISO9001 coversproduct design, development, production, installation and servicing. ISO9002 covers production andinstallation, and ISO9003 covers final inspection and testing. ISO9004 includes all elements ofstandards 9001-9003� (Tenner and DeToro 1992: 241). Countries which adopt similar standards shouldbe able to have them recognised by other countries and in theory, this mutual recognition of standardsshould lead to freer trade.

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programmes and better working conditions are being offered to secure their commitment, andto exploit their tacit skills, some efforts have been made in structuring ergonomically soundcomputer-aided offices for the secretaries. In the services sector generally, the use ofcomputers has been generally women-friendly. The QWERTY keyboard of the computersallowed women to use the typist's skills in many information processing jobs. In the banking,insurance and telecommunications industries, the entry of women has been impressive both inthe richer and in the poorer parts of the world48. In India, in some of the major foreign banks,70 per cent of the workforce is comprised of women. In the 1970s, the comparable figurewas 5 per cent49. A similar rise in women's jobs in the telecommunications sector has alsobeen documented in Malaysia. In Brazil, women on average hold more than 25 per cent ofjobs related to software programming.

Women's visibility in the management and technical positions, however, is still nil ornegligible in all these countries. As women are excluded from the decision-making process,women-specific concerns receive less attention. In the context of low paid but white collarjobs, the emerging issues are in the areas of:

- decline in the number of unionised jobs;- rise of VDU-related health hazards50.

In-depth investigation of these issues, particularly in the context of developing countries, isstill rather scant.

48Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay, 'Computerisation, human resources management and reflection of women'sskills' in I V Eriksson et al (eds), Women, Work and Computerisation: Understanding and OvercomingBias in Work and Education, North Holland, Amsterdam, 1991, p140.

49See the relevant papers presented at the 'Information Technology & Women's Employment' workshop,United Nations University Institute for New Technologies (UNU-INTECH), Maastricht, Holland, co-ordinated by Swasti Mitter, 26-29 April, 1993.

50Ruth Pearson & Swasti Mitter, op cit. ILR, Vol 132, 1993, No 1, p63.

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4. Conclusion

Analyses of the effects of changes in technology and in the organisation of work on women'semployment have been limited. In an agenda for work on equality in employment, attentiontherefore should be given to the relationship between the introduction of new technologiesand the changing nature of organisation of work at the enterprise level. In such analyses,special attention should be given to:

1) the need for diversifying women's skills;2) new approaches appropriate to vocation-specific and transferable skills;3) the assessment of women's opportunities for self-employment in the age of new

technologies;4) changing conditions of women's employment with the introduction of JIT/TQM,

ISO9000 and related management practices at the enterprise level;5) implications of a fall in the number of jobs in the unionised and/or large-scale sector

on the quality of women's employment;6) the factors that inhibit women's entry into the decision-making process;7) the health and safety hazards of occupations related to new technologies and emerging

work organisation.

Research materials on the impact of technological changes are an essential precondition foreffective policymaking. To this end, a close collaboration with the interested and concernedresearch and policymaking bodies will be a useful way of promoting women's employmentopportunities in the wake of novel work organisation and computer-aided technologies. Inthe areas of working hours, working locations and collective bargaining procedures, anongoing dialogue among the employers' federations, trade unions and concerned governmentbodies will be essential in formulating policies that promote women's opportunities withoutjeopardising the companies' profitability. ILO could play an important role here in bringingthe relevant bodies in to a common forum, to pool their experiences of technological changeson women's employment. The differences of perspective will themselves be a valuablecontribution.

To this goal, it may be productive for ILO to foster co-operative work with those UN agenciesthat are monitoring the impact of technological changes on women's employment indeveloped and developing countries. The United Nations Institute of New Technology(UNU-INTECH) in Maastricht, Holland, UNIDO in Vienna, Austria, and UNIFEM in NewYork, have already embarked on such a joint venture. ILO's contribution to such an initiativewill be a welcome step in strengthening inter-agency collaboration within the UN family.