We are entering the dawn of
a new age in industry and new technologies are revolutionizing every
sector of our production and office economy.
Productivity is rising in our nation as we
replace old equipment with the latest computer controlled
systems.
In the near future up to 70% of all vehicle
assembly facilities will utilize automated inspection systems, 45 %
of the direct labor in small component assembly and 20 % of the
direct labor in vehicle final assembly will be replaced through
programmable automated devices. Thousands of welders and painters and
material handlers in our nation's factories will be replaced with
machines.
We must be concerned with all sectors of our
workforce including the low seniority, medium seniority, and high
seniority worker, as each group has unique problems.
As technology increases to enter the workplace
the remaining jobs will become more and more skilled . The older
worker will find it much more difficult to accept this change and
enter the area of reeducation.
We must be looking for ideas to lesson this
burden for older workers. One of the most obvious is a voluntary
earlier retirement financed by a special profit sharing or tax
derived from this new technology. This earlier retirement is a major
part of the C.E.R.P. program.
A voluntary earlier retirement program for these
higher seniority older workers would save many of the younger
seniority workers jobs by voluntarily easing out the older
workers.
Workers and our communities must benefit from
rather than become victims of new technology which is one part of the
new corporate restructuring strategies.
The medium and low seniority worker must have
training available to them to guarantee them and their families a
secure future.
What about the future of our children? We must
not wait for someone else to give them a sense of direction.
Most of today's shop workers had fathers and
grandfathers that were factory workers.
When they reached working age they knew that
there would be a secure living wage job available to them in the auto
industry.
Today the situation is totally different and
unless our children are made aware very early of the importance of
education and the learning of a skill we could be bringing up a
generation with earning potential much less then ours.
The UAW could organize high school guidance
conferences designed to educate high school councilors as to what
direction to give to their students on future occupations.
Our unions need to create a staff of speakers to
make presentations to our high schools and colleges.
Television could also play an important part in
the technology equation.
The UAW has applied for a license for a Flint
area television channel. This channel could show live coverage of
technology conferences and have debates on all of the issues
pertaining to technology.
Technology will touch every worker in our society
and any regular technology program on this situation would surely be
popular and educational.
The auto industries are creating a new age in
manufacturing and an age with fewer employees in their system from
concept to finished product..
The new products these companies produce will be
designed and engineered by computer aided machines and will be
produced on an automated factory floor step by step.
When these automated factories are integrated
with their computerized systems for planning, engineering, design,
assembly, material flow, production management and scheduling just
how many of our jobs will be eliminated in the process?
How will our community tax bases hold up?
What about our community services including
police, fire, schools?
The auto industry is not just any industry in
this country. One out of every 7 American jobs is auto related and
the auto industry is our nation's "largest" employer. Our economy and
our communities depend on it. It will be a sad day if we do not
address this corporate restructuring away of America's better paying
jobs and become a nation of much lower paid restaurant cooks and
store clerks. It could happen and it could happen in our lifetime
because these powerful companies are marching in lockstep to do just
that.
These are vital questions and are they really
being addressed or are they being passed over in the hope that fate
will treat the working people and their communities fairly.
Well, we only have to look at Flint or Detroit to
see hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters jobs slotted
for export, downsizing or a robot.
The speed and degree with which this new
technology is installed will determine how quickly our jobs will be
sliced.
As a union of working people we have an
obligation to be examining where we are and where we are going.
Now there are some very important questions that
need to be answered.
So what needs to be done, who is responsible for
getting it done and what should they do?
We need in depth studies to accurately forecast
technological impact in advance and we need laws protecting
communities against the mass introduction of automation without
concern.
We need contractual protection in our union
contracts and government protection from those who govern us.
Now, who is responsible and what can they do?
One group that is responsible is industry.
Corporations must realize that if people can't find a job paying a
decent livable wage that they can't but the company's products.
Corporations must be made to realize that
industry does not exist for management alone and it is a privilege to
do business in this or any other country and with this privilege
there must be certain social responsibilities.
Social responsibilities which include considering
impact on workers and communities when companies decide to move
plants and make major dislocations and social responsibilities in the
form of human rights when they deal with workers in other countries.
All too many of our American based multi nationals are willing to
exploit foreign workers with low pay and inhuman working conditions
because foreign governments allow it. This practice may not be
lawfully wrong but it is morally wrong and instead of being
exploiters of their fellow human beings theses multi nationals should
be setting examples for foreign governments. These practices need to
be exposed and advertised and that is one thing our growing group is
doing.
Government officials must be held accountable and
become educated to the importance of the technology issue. Our
society is based on decent paying jobs. Laws must be passed which
penalize corporations that deliberately make large segments of our
manufacturing workforce unemployed due to their corporate
restructuring without concern for the workers or communities that
made them great.
Frank C. Pierson, economic professor at
Swarthmore College, says that most jobs that require simple
mechanical skills are being transferred from the United States to
other developing countries where the wages are lower.
There is a general consensus that education is
the key to a living wage in this new technological generation in
which we live.
Judith kayser, manager of C.P.C. Statistical
Services, said that job placements on the bachelor's level in
engineering will be up 12% this year, on the master's level they will
be up 32 % and up 37% at the doctoral level. In the non technical or
unskilled category there was only a 5% increase in hiring between
1980 and 1981.
The society of manufacturing and engineers stated
that automation combined with robotics and computerization is
bringing a different breed of worker to the plant floor.
50% of the workforce in automated plants will be
technicians and engineers.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently predicted
that by 1990, 80% of the available jobs will require post secondary
training of some kind.
Of Those jobs, 80% will necessitate something
other than a traditional [liberal arts] college education.
We must instill into our children an awareness of
the community and an intellectual restlessness that spurs them to
continued learning.
The good paying unskilled blue collar jobs of
today are quickly disappearing and being replaced with the highly
skilled jobs of tomorrow.
In conclusion, we are not going to stop
technology, nor should we.
Technology throughout the decades has brought a
much higher standard of living to us all and there is not one person
reading this newsletter that doesn't want this standard of living to
improve even further.
If we face these questions today in a socially
responsible way then our auto industry and steel industry and
manufacturing industries which have made our standard of living what
it is and become the symbol of our strength will all have more not
fewer jobs in the year 2000.
If we face these problems today we will have a
much brighter legacy for our next generation workers but if we don't
then these jobs will evaporate and the next generation will be
handcuffed to a high tax base that our generation created and a
nation of underpaid employment opportunities because we did not
protect our decent paying job base. The victims will be our children.
Copyright 2004: " Web Site Creator/Editor : Bernie Lowthian / America's Workers For Historical Accuracy ": October 15, 2004