This concern is not just from the firm’s workers. A common theme emerging from these Wales TUC convened sessions has been the lack of participation by the workforce in the roll out of new technologies.

Some of the participants reflected how this had changed over the decades they had been at the steel works. Alan said workforce participation “pre-1995 was good. When new machinery was installed, staff were given extra money as their jobs required more training and more skill. You’d have been taken to wherever the kit was already in use. The unions, the operators and the managers would have looked at it together. And the unions would have negotiated a pay rise on the back of needing extra skills to operate.”  

But now such co-determination seems to have weakened A said. “New technologies are always sold to us as if the management is doing us a favour. Normally y new technology comes in under a reorganisation. The union is told about the new equipment and we may be told that in time it will take a person out of work. We are pushed down the health and safety route in terms of being persuaded to adopt new machinery.” 

Or as Barry put it, “when new software is introduced you're told ‘this is it’”. Shop floor workers are not involved at all, while union officials might have more of a say. “There’s no engagement really, workers are left alone on the shop floor. People feel undervalued. Sometimes a new system was put in and we were told to get on with it. Until it’s pointed out to them that it’s breaking health and safety law” Barry said. 

Exacerbated by remote meetings with management, the worker concurred that this led to poor industrial relations. “They just sent us new policies” Barry said. “The old school HR directors aren't there anymore. And there is no consultation. The art has been lost. We end up arguing with them then and there’s friction.”