Organizing as AI and automation reshape India’s mechanical engineering sector

Participants acknowledged that while new technology can improve productivity and product quality, there is also a growing impact on employment and working conditions.

Automation is reducing the number of workers needed, while permanent jobs are increasingly being replaced by temporary and contract employment. Yet at the same time, workers are facing faster production, heavier workloads and greater pressure to meet targets.

Concerns were also raised about workplace safety, digital monitoring and the stress associated with increasingly technology-driven production. Unions stressed how workers affected by technological change must have access to retraining and redeployment instead of being pushed out of employment.

The issue, then, is not technology itself but who benefits from the gains it creates.

Organizing must keep pace with change

As production becomes more fragmented and supply chains more complex, organizing individual factories is no longer enough.

The workshop highlighted the need to organize across companies and supply chains while bringing contract and precarious workers into union structures. This is particularly important as women and young workers enter the sector in growing numbers but are often concentrated in less secure forms of employment.

A stronger presence of these workers in unions is essential to ensure that the workforce most affected by changing employment patterns has a voice in shaping the future of the industry.

Unions agree on action

Affiliates concluded the workshop by agreeing to establish a network for sharing workplace experiences, map company supply chains and assess how automation differs in impact across different groups of workers.

This approach is important because by organizing workers before decisions are made, unions can build the bargaining power needed to ensure that automation and digitalization serve not just industry, but the workers too.

IndustriALL director for metal process and mechanical engineering industry Alexander Ivanou reflects:

"Technological change does not only change the jobs workers do, it is also actively changing where work is done and how production is organized. As companies restructure their global supply chains, unions must look beyond individual factories and build power across the entire production network."

IndustriALL regional secretary for South Asia Ashutosh Bhattacharya adds:

"We cannot talk about the future of industries without considering the workers who will make up that future. Women and young workers are entering in greater numbers, but too many are being channelled into precarious jobs. Organizing them is essential to ensure technological change does not deepen insecurity."