How Does the Local State Mediate the Relationship Between Technological Change and Work? Evidence from Warehousing in England

The debate on technology and the future of work has so far engaged little with the local state. This is surprising, since the local state's role as a potentially progressive actor in employment relations systems is attracting renewed interest in sociological scholarship. Through a study of warehousing in northern England, we examine how local state actors can mediate the relationship between technological change and work. We show that they often questioned the policy orthodoxy that private employer-led technological innovation always benefits local working populations, and we develop a typology of three strategies through which they sought to engage with technological trajectories in warehousing workplaces: engagement and advocacy , activation, and conditionality . Our study also shows how their regulatory capacity was limited by the opacity of technological innovation in warehousing, confining them to “soft” strategies which enshrined employer discretion and market imperatives. It concludes by reflecting on alternative visions whereby the local state may become more empowered to shape the future of work.