There is a high degree of truth to the statement. When we speak of the Industrial Revolution, it's important to note that it was strictly a British phenomenon, observed in the period of approx. 1790 to 1840. We should differentiate between the Industrial Revolution and industrialization. The latter was a universal, yet later, phenomenon.

Traditionally speaking, it has been commonplace to explain the changes in work (work tasks, work environment, work organization etc.), and hence workers' reactions to these changes, as a result of the mechanical inventions of the time. Historian Arnold J. Toynbee, in his Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the 18th Century in England, states:

[...], we find here the all-prominent fact to be the substitution of the factory for the domestic system, the consequence of the mechanical discoveries of the time.

A counter-point to Toynbee is that the mechanical discoveries weren't widespread enough to explain the economical growth we attribute the Industrial Revolution to.

Another historian, the modern Kristine Bruland, argues that the organizational changes preceded the mechanical changes (in other words, changes in work tasks, environment and organization preceded the mechanical inventions). She illustrates her point through the example of potter Josiah Wedgwood.

In the 18th century, it was commonplace for pottery-workers to take several days off from work to drink, and when they finally did work, they would do so following rules of thumb, involving great waste and general inefficiency.

In his pottery, Etruria, Wedgwood innovated the workplace in three ways: division of tasks, hiring and training, and discipline. The first point involved monotonizing the labor. Workers were assigned tasks and prohibited from leaving their stations. The second point involved a new form of flexibility. The workers could specialize, through training, in new ways according to changes in consumer-demand. The last point involved fines for misconduct and the implementation of management to oversee the production.

According to Bruland, these organizational changes work to explain the economical growth we attribute the Industrial Revolution to.

The organizational changes, exemplified through Wedgwood, influenced mechanical (or rather technological) innovation in two ways. First and foremost, it made it easier to control production and decide upon where in the chain of production mechanical innovation should be implemented. Second, and to answer your question more precisely, the organizational changes naturally caused some resistance within the workforce. A way around this problem was to "innovate around the worker", and more specifically the experienced worker, so as to lower the value of the worker by lowering the requirements needed to operate the machinery, and ultimately lowering the worker's negotiating power. If women or children, with no experience, could operate the machinery, why hire more expensive men? An example of movements protesting this technological "innovation around the worker", were the Luddites.

Lastly, and also relevant to your question of disobedient workers, factory-owners many times preferred child-labor, due to it being cheaper than adult-labor. Sources, specifically some factory rules from that time, illustrate the presence of working children due to the mischievous nature of what is being prohibited. I wish I still had the print-out given to me by my professor, so I could give some examples, but I have sadly binned it. It was in the nature of "don't throw paper-planes on the Overseer" etc.