Contested Automation: Double Indeterminacy, Union Power, and Job Quality in Call Centers

This article analyzes how unions contest the harmful impacts of automating algorithms and AI on job quality in frontline service workplaces. Integrating two theoretical approaches (labor process and power resources), we examine worker and union experiences with self-service job replacing technologies (self-service applications, chatbots, and interactive voice response systems) in Canadian and US call centers. Building on Smith's concept of double indeterminacy, we suggest that issues with automation lead to two types of bargaining over job quality: work effort bargaining and mobility bargaining. Work effort bargaining concerns contestation over work intensification arising from automation-driven disruptions to service delivery. Mobility bargaining concerns contestation over job insecurity arising from automation-driven labor replacement. We argue that these types of bargaining are not novel, but rather extensions of longstanding conflicts across different indeterminacies in the labor process. Unions can promote better outcomes across both indeterminacies. However, their effectiveness hinges on their ability to build, sustain, and mobilize institutional power resources over time. In doing so, unions face strategic challenges in contesting both work intensification and labor replacement across temporal scales. We conclude by suggesting that labor process and power resources scholarship examine broader scales of resistance to better understand union struggles over technology.