From Taylorism to Algorithmic Governance: Debating Control and Democratization at Work at the International Labour Organization ca. 1970–1990

This chapter aims to place current discussions on algorithmic governance and its impact on workplace democracy and other forms of workers’ capacity to participate in the shaping of their work life, in a broader historical perspective. It uses the lens of the International Labour Organization (ILO) which from its inception in 1919 has provided a tripartite forum for debate on both the effects the introduction of new technologies in the workplace caused for workers as well as on the latter’s capacity and rights to shape their working lives through various forms of participation. The chapter will highlight the link between both debates in a long-term perspective. Its focus however, will be on the 1970s and early 1980s as the historical moment when workplace democracy became part of a broader global conversation on working conditions, a conversation in which the ILO reflected the various trends of these discussions while aiming to shape them through activities eventually leading to the launch of the Programme international pour l'amélioration des conditions et du milieu de travail (PIACT) in 1976. I will argue that the ILO way of treating questions of participation at the workplace as part of its renewed interest for working conditions in the period reflected a compromise between more far-reaching ideas of democratization and the resistance that these ideas encountered. This chapter addresses the historical moment, the ‘ILO’s long 1970s’, in which the question of workplace democracy within the International Labour Organization gained unprecedented and unparalleled attention.