The working class is stretched thin, divided by the digital factory. There are many foreign workers in the service sector
Not one, but three. Scholars are now beginning to argue that there is more than one working class, and the trend towards differentiation is accelerating. Simply being under the same roof is not enough to guarantee uniform working conditions; indeed, in many respects, the rigid organisational structure applied to assembly-line workers is closer to that of a supermarket cashier or a call-centre agent than it is to the new roles of manual-cognitive workers that technology demands. These changes are affecting the quality of work, but we can already glimpse processes of differentiation which, in the medium term, will impact pay structures, relations with trade unions and, more generally, identity. This is also because, in the meantime, segments of manual labour with partly new characteristics have developed within sectors such as logistics (porters) and personal care services (care workers), and consequently ‘there are three working classes’, as the sociologist Antonio Schizzerotto argues. To redraw the map, it makes sense to start with technological innovations: from companies applying lean production and Kaizen techniques, through to those that have adopted the WCM system, right up to the first experiments with Industry 4.0. All of these require a cognitive workforce that is deeply involved in the processes of controlling and regulating machinery.
