ABSTRACT
By the late 1950s, the Industrial Revolution was under way in the factories of the aircraft industry. Management intentions, fuelled by the promises of technical enthusiasts and bolstered by complementary military objectives, became fully explicit. For the new technology created opportunities for management, new possibilities which were anticipated at the outset and seized upon once the machinery were ready. Numerical control, managers hoped, would turn the proverbial power of "numbers," the traditional source of worker and union strength, to their own advantage. Numerical control appeared to make it possible to eliminate altogether skilled machinists, long the most recalcitrant of workers, and the backbone of militant trade unionism in the metalworking industries. These workers would be replaced by more tractable "semiskilled" "button-pushers," who would be less disposed toward challenging managerial authority. The union of electrical workers also challenged management choices in the deployment of the new technology, beginning in 1961 with a study of the effects of automation.
