Change and Development in Industrial Society | Class 12 Sociology Notes

5.4 HOW IS WORK CARRIED OUT?

This section explores the nature of work processes in Indian industry and services. Work settings vary from highly mechanised large factories to small home-based production units.

The manager's primary role is to control workers and increase productivity, either by extending working hours or increasing output per hour. Machinery boosts production but also threatens to replace human labour. Both Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi viewed mechanisation as a threat to employment.

Workers in textile mills, such as those in Kanpur, describe themselves as extensions of the machine, requiring continuous focus and energy to keep multiple machines running simultaneously. The more mechanised an industry becomes, the fewer workers it employs, but those workers must keep pace with machines, leading to exhaustion and early retirement, as seen in Maruti Udyog Ltd., where two cars are assembled every minute, and workers get only 45 minutes of rest per day.

Outsourcing parts and services to smaller companies or home-based units keeps costs low but increases worker tension due to just-in-time production demands.

In the services sector, IT professionals are expected to be self-motivated and creative, but their work is also subject to Taylorist labour processes, with long working hours often extending into nights due to time zone differences with clients. Flexi-time policies often translate into extended work hours due to project deadlines and peer pressure.

The rise of IT and call centres has changed urban life, with shops and restaurants operating late and joint families re-emerging to help with childcare. Sociologists debate whether industrialisation and knowledge-based work lead to greater skills or deskilling, as machinery and computers automate tasks previously requiring skilled labour.

📊 Diagram: See figure_6: The more mechanised an industry gets, the fewer people are employed, but they too have to work at the pace of the machine. In Maruti Udyog Ltd., two cars roll off the assembly line every minute. Workers get only 45 minutes rest in the entire day - two tea breaks of 7.5 minutes each and one lunch break of half an hour. Most of them are exhausted by the age of 40 and take voluntary retirement. While production has gone up, the number of permanent jobs in the factory has gone down. The firm has outsourced all services like cleaning, and security, as well as the manufacture of parts. The parts suppliers are located around the factory and send the parts every two hours or just-in-time. Outsourcing and just-in-time keeps costs low for the company, but the workers are very tense, because if the supplies fail to arrive, their production targets get delayed, and when they do arrive they have to run to keep up. No wonder they get exhausted.

🧪 Activity: Activity 5.2: Reflect on Gandhi’s views on machinery and labour-saving technology from Hind Swaraj (1924 and 1934).

🔗 Connection: Prepares for '5.5 Working Conditions' by describing the nature of work and labour processes.