Struggles over Skills: Lived Experiences of Evolving Technologies and Gendered Hierarchies at Work

Abstract

How are skills struggled over in occupations transforming through evolving technologies? This article contributes a feminist labor geography perspective amidst reinvigorated interest in skills. Within economic geography, human capital approaches view skills as resources measurable through quantitative proxies. Such analyses reveal place-based endowments and skills mismatches but, unable to capture lived experience or uneven power relations, overlook how skill facilitates agency for different workers. In contrast, we theorize skill as both processual—constantly unfolding and contested—and a mechanism unevenly empowering workers based on recognition (or lack thereof). Ethnographic research proceeded with workers employed by automotive shops, a context at the forefront of disruptive technologies. Two key roles underpin profitable operations. Technicians, overwhelmingly men, work individually from shop floors, diagnosing problems, repairing, and maintaining vehicles. Customer care staff, predominantly women, work in small teams from reception spaces, managing “car count” and mediating interactions between technicians and customers. In both roles, workers upskill to meet shifting service demands and retain brand-managed expertise. Yet, enduring and newly acquired skills are unevenly recognized and rewarded. Three factors fortified systemic barriers to progression: tasks extended and co-evolved unevenly with multi-skilled working bodies; gender-biased skills recognition favored technicians (skills with cars/deemed scarce) over customer service (skills of interactive translation/deemed replaceable); and workers positioned atop hierarchies refuted co-workers’ skills claims within workplaces. For geographers concerned with the quality and fairness of work amidst evolving technological change, we argue that skill unveils the socio-spatial foundations of agency: materializing unevenly and struggled over in everyday life.

技能如何受到技术进步带来的职业变革的挑战？在重新关注技能的背景下, 本文研究了女权主义劳动地理学。经济地理学的人力资本研究认为, 技能是一种可以通过量化指标去度量的资源。这些分析能揭示基于位置的天赋以及技能不匹配, 但无法捕捉到生活经验以及不平等的权力关系, 也忽略了技能在员工管理中的作用。我们将技能理论化为一个持续的竞争性的过程, 也是一种基于认可(或缺乏认可)的不均衡赋权机制。本文对处于颠覆性技术前沿的汽车店工人进行了民族志研究。两个关键角色决定了盈利性运营：技术人员(绝大多数是男性)在车间里单独工作、诊断问题、维修车辆, 客服人员(主要是女性)以小团队形式在前台管理“汽车数量”、调节技术人员和客户之间的交流。这两个角色的员工都会提升技能, 以满足不断变化的服务需求并保持品牌技能。然而, 新旧技能得到的认可和回报并不相等。三个因素强化了系统性进步的障碍：不同技能人员在任务上的不均衡发展和演变, 对技术人员(稀缺的汽车技能)而非客服人员(可替代的交流技能)的性别化认可, 高等级员工否认其他员工的工作技能。做为关注技术变革中工作质量和公平性的地理学家, 我们认为, 技能揭示了管理的社会空间基础：日常生活中的不均衡和挑战

¿Cómo es la lucha por adquirir y actualizar competencias en las ocupaciones que se transforman al ritmo de tecnologías en evolución? Este artículo contribuye una perspectiva de la geografía laboral feminista en medio del interés renovado por las competencias. Dentro de la geografía económica, los enfoques sobre capital humano perciben las competencias como recursos mensurables por medio de indicadores cuantitativos. Dichos análisis revelan las dotaciones basadas en lugar y los desajustes de las competencias, pero, al ser incapaces de captar las experiencias vitales o las relaciones de poder desiguales, pasan por alto el modo como la competencia facilita la agencia de diferentes trabajadores. Por contraste, nosotros teorizamos la competencia tanto como un proceso –en permanente desarrollo y cuestionamiento– y como mecanismo que empodera desigualmente a los trabajadores con base en el reconocimiento (o la falta de éste). La investigación etnográfica se adelantó entre trabajadores empleados en talleres de automotores, contexto que está a la vanguardia de las tecnologías disruptivas. Dos roles claves sustentan las operaciones rentables. Los técnicos, hombres en su inmensa mayoría, laboran individualmente en la planta de los talleres, diagnosticando problemas, reparando y dándoles mantenimiento a los vehículos. El personal de servicio al cliente, del que se ocupan predominantemente mujeres, labora en equipos pequeños en los espacios de recepción, en control del “recuento de carros” y mediando en la interacción entre técnicos y clientes. En ambos roles, los trabajadores se capacitan mejor para enfrentar las cambiantes demandas de servicios y retener la experticia administrada por la marca. Sin embargo, las competencias anteriormente logradas y las que se han adquirido después se reconocen y recompensan de forma desigual. Tres factores reforzaron las barreras sistémicas a la progresión: las tareas se ampliaron y co-evolucionaron desigualmente con los cuerpos de trabajo de competencias múltiples; el reconocimiento de competencias con sesgo de género favoreció a los técnicos (competencias sobre coches, que se consideran escasas) frente al servicio de atención al cliente (competencias de traducción interactiva, consideradas remplazables); y los trabajadores posicionados alto en las jerarquías, refutaron el reclamo de reivindicación por competencias de sus compañeros dentro de los lugares de trabajo. Para los geógrafos a quienes preocupa la calidad y equidad del trabajo en medio del cambio tecnológico en evolución, consideramos que las competencias revelan la fundamentación socioespacial de la agencia: materializando de modo desigual y siendo objeto de rivalidad y lucha en la vida cotidiana.

Key Words:

• automotive industry
• feminist labor geography
• gendered divisions of labor
• labor agency
• skills
• technological change

关键词：:

• 汽车产业
• 女权主义劳动地理
• 性别化劳动分配
• 人力资源管理
• 技能
• 技术变革。

Palabras clave::

• agencia laboral
• cambio tecnológico
• competencias
• divisiones del trabajo por género
• geografía laboral feminista
• industria automotora

Notes

1 Labor geography refers to a conceptual-political project that centers workers in geographical analysis, in response to earlier Marxian perspectives that focused critique on capital-led dynamics, at the expense of acknowledging labor’s agency (Herod 2001). Feminist labor geographers have advanced the project through acknowledging work and workers beyond the neatly bounded workplace, the social foundations of agency, and diverse activities that constitute work outside of the formal waged employment context (McDowell 2015; Strauss 2020).

2 We acknowledge “gender is never a single issue” and intersects with other aspects of identity in workspaces, labor markets, and institutions of work (Collins 2003, 171). In our research, the most significant element for understanding workers’ uneven struggles over skills in work on and with evolving technologies was gender.

3 Managers attributed scarcity in technical skills to industry exit due to the demands of auto M&R work. Several also relayed concerns about low apprenticeship completion rates. Although city-scale data were unavailable, analysis of NCVER (2021) figures for New South Wales on automotive technician apprenticeships showed that for commencing workers in 2016, 65 percent completed training in 2020. This rate was notably higher than for completions of trade-based occupations overall (54 percent). For those training in clerical and administrative roles (reflecting the standard classification for customer care staff), completion rates averaged 55 percent, below the New South Wales completion rate for nontrade occupations (59.5 percent). Perceptions of local skills supply did not clearly reflect industry-wide trends.

4 We assisted the customer care workers in preparing their claims to management, which ultimately had limited success.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Warren

ANDREW WARREN is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests are in economic and labor geography, including working people’s place-based experiences of industrial restructuring and technological change.

Chris Gibson

CHRIS GIBSON is a Professor in the School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the lived experience of regional transformations, and vernacular capacities among workers and households to respond to environmental, economic, and social change.