Re‐examining technology's destruction of blue‐collar work
研究澳大利亚运输物流业，发现技术替代蓝领工人受地理、行业结构、商业模式和阶级结构等机制制约，并非必然导致蓝领工作消亡。
Abstract Despite research suggesting certain death of blue‐collar work due to technological advancements, blue‐collar jobs continue to be in demand. Through a study of the blue‐collar dominant Transport and Logistics sector in Australia, we apply a Critical Realist framework to consider the tendencies contributing to, and limiting, technological uptake and worker displacement. Our analysis of interviews with sector managers demonstrate how technological uptake decisions to enact labour saving technologies are often constrained by other causal mechanisms and associated (counter) tendencies. Causal mechanisms related to geographical artifacts, industry structure and established business models, along with class structure, mitigate against ‘big bang’ technological transformation and the demise of blue‐collar work. We conclude that tracking the future of work is important, but it cannot be done solely on the basis of technological capacities to displace labour or without consideration of the complex interplay of causal mechanisms and tendencies shaping employer decisions about technology.