Abstract

The manufacturing working class has not disappeared, nor have the forms and techniques of capitalist exploitation of labour. The new forms of work organisation (Lean Production) and the new technologies (Industry 4.0) are fully functional for this purpose, despite being presented as tools for improving work performance, work content and worker participation. In order to grasp the consequences that these organisational and technological transformations are having on working conditions, the tool of the workers’ enquiry proves to be very valuable: on the one hand it constitutes an instrument of trade union intervention that has never been sufficiently used, and on the other it allows us to build knowledge based on the concrete experience and perceptions of workers on the various aspects of work: loads and rhythms, content and quality, health and safety, the role of the trade union and the attitude that workers have towards it.