366 JÜRGEN DANYEL AND ANNETTE SCHUHMANN
formerly powerful groups of employees, such as the typesetters, were
made redundant by photosetting. The fi rst major protests and strikes re-
lated to computerization in fact took place at newspaper publishers and
large printing facilities. Microelectronics had an even more far-reaching
eff ect on the metalworking industry and the automobile manufacturers
in particular. CNC (Computerized Numerical Control) machines and in-
dustrial robots made it possible for the automation of entire production
workfl ows, which pushed people out of their jobs. The list could go on
and on, ranging from offi ce work and public administration to the entire
banking and insurance industries.^52
In West Germany, the new catch word of the decade was “streamlined
out of a job” (wegrationalisiert; literally, rationalized away). Yet the job
crisis that hit the countries of the OECD in the early 1970s had more to
do with a decisive structural change than just the introduction of new
technologies. But this feeling of threat left an indelible mark on the pub-
lic debates about the computer revolution. Since the end of the 1970s,
the media had provided striking images and headlines for the ongoing
debates over the growing clout of computer technology; it thereby am-
plifi ed the fears and dangers associated with the advent of computers. In
these debates and predictions that appeared in the major West German
media outlets, the main leitmotif was the eff ects of computer technology
on industrial work. As Der Spiegel wrote in 1978, “Tiny electronic compo-
nents are threatening millions of jobs in industry and service companies.
Neither the government nor the unions have any idea how to keep the
consequences of progress in check.”^53
In comparison, little attention was paid to the “revolution”—or, bet-
ter said, “evolution”—of offi ce work that had been taking place for a
long time as seen in the example of the West German social services
administration in the 1970s.^54 In the 1980s, most of the administrative
offi ces within the West German industrial factories were outfi tted with
what were called “terminals” on a large scale. Above all, this aff ected
the payroll, bookkeeping, purchasing, and sales departments, as well as
most other administrative departments. The use of new “intelligent” elec-
tronic data processing systems primarily changed workfl ow processes
that involved repetitive steps governed by logical rules. This sparked an
enormous wave of rationalization in administrative offi ces across West
Germany. By the late 1970s, computers could not only process, save,
and combine data, but also they could take over many tasks that had pre-
viously been done by bookkeepers. A huge number of jobs were cut as
a result, and many administrative professions were almost completely
wiped out. Over the course of the 1980s, the jobs of some employees at
the mid-management level also came under threat for the fi rst time.^55