How Robots Stole Our Jobs: Struggles of Suzuki Workers in the Age of AI

When the temporary workers of Maruti Suzuki learnt that a massive factory was being constructed at Kharkhoda in Haryana's Sonipat district, they assumed it would create more job opportunities. But they were shocked to learn that, in fact, no permanent jobs were being offered at the new plant. Suzuki was replacing permanent jobs with apprentices, temporary workers, and contract labour, whose wages were less than half of what was being paid to permanent workers in other Suzuki plants. The workers assumed that Suzuki was merely maximising profits by avoiding permanent recruitment. But they soon realised that a far more devious strategy was at play: robots were being installed in place of human labour in the automotive industry even as algorithmic management was becoming the accepted business model. This book, for the first time, explores the impact of robotics on the working class and the future of trade union movements. It questions the growing control of corporations over the national economy, their aggressive anti-trade union practices and future of workers' rights in a world driven by maximum profits, artificial intelligence and robots. This is the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Propelled by technologies based on artificial intelligence and robotics, we are hurtling towards a future which will see the annihilation of permanent jobs and jobless economic growth.