TECH CHANGE. Shorter hours creates jobs _ By EMIL BJARNASON R= wing economists are fond of ; However, because the average ee of work declined, the num” employed increased much more f ath the projection in column 5. In ‘ there were just under two million mo") jobs in 1984 than there would have with 1946 working hours. In spr i that, unemployment had reachee million. Working hours are not the wholeet? lanation of unemployment, but they an important one. It can also be SiO although space does not perm! the demonstration in this article, that rate of unemployment is closely to the gap by which the increase NF Productivity (manhours per Jobs Available Employment Manhours billion $ of Labor at 1946 Current at current No. employed, only people who won’t Year worked output) (2) Force (3) working hrs. Ave. hrs hours Unemployed millions of dollars ........ ) at take the jobs available to them at the Gui offered wage. That’s a dandy way of 1946 9.805 490.4 laying the basis for making people work tet ea, 7 SE at the kind of wages that can compete 1975 83.103 13.207 158.922 with Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. 1984 105,273 14.521 137,032 In large measure, that’s what ‘‘free economic zones’ are all about. The concept is actually being tested in a sur- reptitious way at Expo 86: many work- ers are being brought in from places like the Philipines at wages about one third of the B.C. minimum wage (which itself _ is the lowest in Canada), and the Expo saying that there are no un- GDP in 1971 )(1) 4,259,580 4,096,580 2,394 4,837,000 4.253.387 2,217 5,676,000 4.698.646 2,080 7,570,000 5,517,642 1,924 9,395,000 6,066,467 1,816 4,096,580 4,592,000 5,396,000 280,000 6,863,000 707,000 7,996,000 1,399,000 163,000 245,000 Notes: (1) Commercial Sector only (2) In this column increasing productivity is indicated by the reduction in hours for a given output (3) No. of employees in commercial industries plus unemployed Source: Statistics Canada output per hour of the workers, the of manhours required for each billion Expo for no wages at all. that lower wages will mean more jobs. perienced. force that produces it. The bigger the management is brazenly calling for thousands of volunteers to work at Unemployment is a cruel fact of life. The right wingers are not at all unhappy about it because they see in it a weapon for forcing unions to accept sub- standard wages and conditions. But no unionist should be fooled into believing If they really believed that, they should take a look at the countries where wages are a dollar a day and unemployment reaches levels far beyond what this country has ever ex- The amount of employment availa- ble, in this or any country is governed by the size of the Gross Domestic Pro- duct and the productivity of the work GDP the more jobs, but the higher the fewer jobs. The accompanying table shows how this works and points the way to a solution. Unemployment has been increasing more or less continuously during the postwar years. From 3.4 per cent in 1946, it rose to 4.4 per cent in 1955, 3.9 in 1965, 7.1 in 1975 and 10.5 per cent in 1985. Those are official figures which are greatly understated, but which nevertheless reveal the trend. In the accompanying table, it may be seen that the gross domestic product in constant prices, and therefore repre- senting actual physical volumes of out- put, was 5.26 times as high in 1984 as in 1946. But this was accomplished with only 48 per cent more manhours work- ed. The productivity, or output per man- hour, therefore went up by 256 per cent. This is expressed in the third col- umn of the table by showing the number dollars worth of output, which provides a measure of the number of jobs pro- vided by a given output, as the advance of technology proceeds. The average hours of work in 1946 were 2,394, roughly equal to a 46 hour week. Column five of the table shows the number of jobs that would have been provided by the GDP ofeach year, if working hours had remained at the 1946 level. That would have meant staggering increases in unemployment, since the available labor force considerably more than doubled, while the available jobs would have increased by only 50 per cent. However as the result of union bargaining, average working hours declined to 1,816 per year, although part of that reduction is a statistical illu- sion due to the inclusion of increased numbers of. part time workers in the average. - ter hours of work. In short, W ductivity exceeds the increase gs real wage. In our economy, rea i vith almost always fall behind product! “and the greater that shortfall, the Mi™ the rate of unemployment. That is why concession bargainine” a self-defeating policy. If we truly wish to deal with employment, therefore, two thing necessary: higher real wages a”! P the uth er) trade unions must do is to conti pursue their traditional policy, DU ‘ay. a level of militancy appropriate ©" | magnitude of the problem. Otherwise, a whole genera young people may be doomed t0 time of enforced idleness. Emil Bjarnason is the director of Trade Union Research Bureau and @© tor of Economics. ‘Tech change’ — a Marxist analysis. By MAGGIE BIZZELL e are the people who will go Wiewss in the history books as the generation which had to cope with the beginning of the second major revolution in science and tech- nology. Not a social revolution, won by the struggles of the people and in which power passes from one class to another, but a revolution nevertheless. Since the mid 50s, we have seen dramatic changes in the place occupied by human beings in the production pro- cess. New science and technology is having a revolutionary impact on the actual production process, the organ- ization of production, raw materials, management, communication and, most significantly, on labor and its rela- tions with capital. Under socialism new technology is introduced as fast as possible without dislocating the economy, and in such a way as to lift society to a higher level in the interests of the people. In capitalist societies, however the inevitable introduction of tech change is carried out at a tremendous cost to the people. Profits and the need to sur- vive cut-throat competition come first while the working people’s concerns are merely problems to disguise, divert and suppress because they get in the way of profit making. Unemployment soars as a capi- talist-wide phenomenon, as mod- ern technology replaces people. Work- ers are fed the myth that they’re not productive enough, that labor costs have to be cut, and profit must come first. Capital, therefore bears no responsibility for unemployment. Along with higher ‘‘acceptable’’ and permanent unem- levels of ployment comes unprecedented per- manent ‘‘new poverty’’. Women and youth are particularly hard hit. Exploding Myths The fight for control over tech change, for shorter work time with no reduction in take-home pay can be won, but only by a united, militant labor movement that can stand up to the cor- porate strategy of divide and rule, and its use of the unemployed, the unor- ganized, part-time and temporary workers to blackmail the trade unions into submission and concession. It requires education to explode the myths about high wages and low productivity that workers are saddled with. They have to be exposed to the truth about soaring profit levels, and the impact of mergers and takeovers which concentrate capital and decision-mak- ing power in fewer hands, often outside Canada and beyond our control. Workers see the link between mas- sive unemployment and _ shrinking purchasing power. The employers have to be made to answer the question of who is to buy all those new and better goods created by the expanding new technology when buying power is decreasing? This question must also be linked to the increased tax burden on working people (and not the corporations) to fund the increased demands for social services like welfare and unemploy- ment insurance as joblessness grows. When workers can see it is the corpo- rations who are to blame for the eco- nomic crisis, and that these same cor- porations dislocate the economy with their drive for profits, they can grasp the possibility of winning shorter work- time with no loss in pay and can under- stand that working over time for badly needed dollars isn’t really in their in- terests. Implications The implications of tech change go far beyond any single plant or office — far beyond the bargaining table. They demand a united political fightback by labor for the protection of jobs and the communities they support; for shorter work time with no loss in pay; for a say in the introduction of tech change; for new policies in education, skills train- ing and upgrading pensions; for health and safety legislation and protection of the environment. The problem is that such legislation would require a government which is prepared to ‘interfere in the market place’’, not one such as the current Tory crew whose majority rests on a platform of less interference. There’s not much chance of protec- tive legislation for people from either Tory or Liberal governments. They have their own corporate agendas of intervening to help the transnationals find the ways of accumulating capital to finance new machines and move along with intense international competition. Mulroney's Tories won’t interfere: with the rights of business, but the government will redistribute the na- tional income in favor of the cor- porations, ignoring the people’s rights in the process. As long as there is a pro-business, pro-U.S. Tory majority in Parliament the majority of working people outside won't get full protection against the harmful impact of tech change. - Then, there is free trade and the Mul- roney government’s frenzied efforts to find new markets and investment for the corporations by opening up Canada ~ to the U.S. transnationals. New tech- [? nology, as the General Motors work in Quebec are finding out, ™ 10 easier for the TNCs to relocate ' wage, non-union areas. és At the same time our Tory 80% ment in Ottawa favors nurturing high tech companies that are # Canada to the U.S. military indU> complex and dragging us into com Ny city with Reagan’s Star Wars prot i Most Canadians understand thal _trade would eventually turn into the 51st state, poor, but 2 © source of natural resources fo" TNCs. Fundamental Changé There are alternatives for C® But to win them requires a unite? by all patriotic Canadians, if y progressive people united around fl for a government that will stand UF the demands of the corporatio” ; build a healthy, balanced Cam economy. is The advance of technol08) outstripping social, and_ poll! f developments. Combined with other crises of the capitalist worl! i change is accelerating the polariZ of capitalist society between thos? own production and the growing bers of increasingly exploited who work. rr As the industrial revolution bra an end to feudalism, the problem ‘ rounding tech change today, © the seeds of the end of capitalis™, jab | tal will fight with all of its for™ power to keep the system going, the end working people will s&% only fundamental social change bring real solutions. a Maggie Bizzell is the central edu oe Director of the Communist Party ~~ regular columnist with the Tribun® 18 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 30, 1986