Exploring the 'zone of Contestation': Quality of Working Life amid Technological Change in the Automotive Industry

The paper contributes to debates on technological change by tackling these voids. It uses a comparative qualitative cross-national design of two German- and one Swedish-based multinational leading companies within automotive assembling cars and trucks respectively, and with plants of similar size in Belgium and the Netherlands. We conducted five plant-based case studies: three in Belgium and two cases in The Netherlands, in both same first tier suppliers in automotive and truck manufacturers.

We found that the potential scale of workplace change due to the transition to Industry 4.0 in the automotive industry in Europe have made workers protagonists of what Marsden (2013) terms the employment relation’s ‘zones of acceptance’, i.e., the scope employees allow employers in setting their duties. We introduce the term of ‘zones of contestation’ which we define as the scope for employees to push firms to better establish their rights for meeting both production goals while better securing their QWL. Overall, the extent and nature of frameworks facilitating both collective and individual channels for workers’ voice, were often solidified through the ‘zone of acceptance’, and play a crucial role in creating a platform for both workers and unions to actively engage in navigating the transition to new technologies. The degree to which workers can enhance their participation in negotiations and influence the outcomes of this transition particularly concerning the QWL, however, is contingent upon workers’ building ‘zones of contestation’ aside ‘zones of acceptance’, reflecting workers, management and unions diverse interests and power within distinctive local contexts. In essence, how far and how workers can make the subjective experience of work more democratic and participative is affected not only by institutional arrangements of collective workers voice but also by product complexity, flexibility and horizontal market pressures across organizational locates.