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TECH CHANGE

Tech change in B.C.

The effects of the technological revolution
are pushing the question of ownership:and
control into the political foreground.

By DAVID FAIREY

This is an edited text of a paper on ‘‘The
Politics and Economics of the Technological
Revolution in B.C.” presented to the confer-
ence hosted by the Centre for Socialist Edu-
cation and the journal Communist Viewpoint
and held in Vancouver March 22-23. The
author is a trade union economist.

t has long been established that the

scientific and technological revolution

— knownas the STR — involves radi-
cal changes in what Karl Marx termed the
“forces of production.” The STR is manif-
ested in many ways: the replacement of
skilled and unskilled manual labor and
manual machine control by complete
mechanization and automatic machine
control; the replacement of intellectual
labor by artificial intelligence; the miniatur-
ization of components and self-contained
processes by factors in the thousands; and
generally, the widespread application of
advanced scientific knowledge to the pro-
duction process.

One of the main features of all revolu-
tions in the forces of production is the rapid
intensification of the labor process and rais-
ing of the productive power of labor.

For Canada as a whole this intensifica-
tion and power raising process was well
under way during the 1970s. A study by the
Economic Council of Canada estimated
that the labor market effects of technologi-
cal change in the private commercial sector
of the economy between 1971 and 1979

Closed in 1983, the Chemainus sawmill was replaced with a new mill in

resulted in the elimination of approximately
530,000 jobs. Advances in technology dur-
ing the 1970s made it possible to produce
the 1979 level of output with eight per cent
fewer workers than would have been
required in 1971. And 71 per cent of the jobs
lost to technology in that period were in
manufacturing.

In recent years, across Canada and B.C.,
there has been a dramatic change in the level
of unemployment and in the industrial and
occupational structure of both employment
and unemployment. In 1985, the unem-
ployment rate was higher in seven out of 10
provinces than in 1982. In 1985, in seven out
of 10 provinces, the unemployment rate was
at or above the rate in 1984. In the so-called
“booming” provinces of Ontario and
Quebec, the 1985 unemployment rates were
significantly above the 1981 rates. The rate
of increase in unemployment between 1981
and 1985 was the greatest in Alberta, closely
followed by British Columbia.

This continuing jobs crisis is being caused
by the combined and interwoven factors of
world-wide capitalist cyclical crisis, capital-
ist structural crisis, and the STR.

In B.C. over the past decade, several
patterns of employment and unemploy-
ment change have emerged according to
Statistics Canada data:

On the employment side:

e A relative and absolute decline in
employment in manufacturing and con-
struction;

e@ A dramatic increase in part time
employment among workers who want and
need full employment;

e An absolute decline in employment
among construction and materials handling
occupations.

On the unemployment side:

© Increased unemployment in all indus-
tries and across all major occupational
groups;

@ The greatest absolute increases in
unemployment among workers formerly
employed in the construction, services and
trade sub-sectors;

© The greatest number of unemployed
among service occupations, clerical occupa-
tions, and among managerial, professional,
technical and administrative occupations.

Clearly the greatest impact of STR in
B.C. has been in the manufacturing, trade,
and community, business and personal ser-
vices sub-sectors; and among workers in
service, clerical, and professional/tech-
nical/administrative occupations.

Under capitalism, because the extra
wealth created by more efficient production
is appropriated as profits, the STR results not
in a general reduction of hours and an
improvement in the material conditions of
all workers, but rather the elimination of
jobs for large sections of workers.

Although the overall impact in B.C. has
not been precisely detailed, some effects are
immediately apparent.

The southern interior communities of
Trail, Kimberley, Salmo, Creston and
Cranbrook are in deepening crisis because
of the elimination of approximately 1,000
jobs over the past four years at Cominco’s
large mining and smelting operations in that
area. In the period 1977-84 Cominco

1985 but it brought a net loss of the equivalent of 35 1 jobs, a threefold
increase in productivity for MacMillan Bloedel and a loss of income to
the community of $12.5 million per year.

20 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 30, 1986

_ tor of the B.C. forest products indus

invested $400 million in new technology: W

a result, the work force has been redu a
about 28 per cent. In one modernia |
project, a new zinc plant was built 10%)
duce three times more zinc with 14087)
workers. Compared to the previously
ing technology this new zinc plant im “a
labor productivity by a factor of IT
what would have taken 600 workers ig
duce in the previous plant now takes oni!
workers. ml
Just over to the east, at Sparwood, ‘dl
workers at Westar Mining’s Balmet”
Mine increased labor productivity b? le
1982 and 1983 by 30 per cent. In thel#®
1985, 190 were laid off.
At B.C. Rail, a $5 million self-preoPy
rail grinding machine will repla }
replacement crews by 50 per cent.”
CP Air, through improvements
puter software over six years, reduced
in the message edit section of their P4)
control office by 64 per cent, while im 4
ing the volume of messages handled i
per cent. : af
In the Vancouver Island forest ind ,
based community of Chemainus, a ff
$21:5 million sawmill built in 1985, Pr
jobs for 100 workers in three shifts.“
replaced an old sawmill with 510 y
Labor productivity in the new mill 8")
times that of the old mill. Therefo%,
equivalent of 351 jobs have been lost ae
community for the same level of PY
tion, while at the same time labor incom™,
the community has been redu
approximately $12.5 million per yan
In the area of new logging techit,
forest industry monopolist Mac 4
Bloedel is now introducing a comp
controlled mechanical tree harvesteh’
loped a decade ago in Sweden. It cuts”,
trees, climbs 40 per cent grades W' 4
ting, bucks trees and cuts them intl,
determined log sizes and, with a comP
rig, picks up pre-cut logs and loads ¥
onto a carrier. Under the trade fi
“Ranger,” this system, with one ope
capable of eliminating five fallers, ine
ing timber recovery by 20 per cenh

C0!

off
(|

reducing the cost of producing 1og8 y

per cent. a

In the highly monopolized fish-p!0 od!
industry the investment of just a
mechanical fish washing machines * 3
resulted in labor cost savings of OV,
million during the three-month 1989 if

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onxfnoonxraest Fg — a

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mon season (a season of record produ fh
as a result of the elimination of 4PF gj

mately 250 manual fish washing J°
women. afl
Employment in government servi’
the public sector has also been sig? BH:
affected by technological change: "if

’ the provincial ‘civil service, theré ‘ot
t

examples of the 32 per cent reductt
staff in the Land Titles Branch as 4 reg
computerization, and the reduction ° ff)

- vey crew sizes in the Ministry of Hi

q nil
|

from eight to one as a result of the “p()

laser measuring instruments. .
Hydro, employment has recently
reduced to the level it was in 1973-7 ig
while domestic electricity sales have 19°"
by 52 per cent since 1972, and don
natural gas sales have increased by 4 st
amount. “ali
Although industry investment sp&
bemoan the fact that the manufactunit if
been slow to modernize and is still @ Z i
ing to them) under-capitalized, rec d eA
of lumber production have been achi€ fel
the past 2-3 years with 25,
workers. ¢
This reduction in jobs in the forest) ig
tor alone stands in sharp contrast yt
4,300-odd manufacturing jobs sal jf
Social Credit government to be found io
province’s miniscule high technology
try. a 5
The list of examples of recent job 1”
social dislocation due to technol (
change in B.C. could go on and on. It Hf
to demonstrate, however, the ext’
which resource industry based tO 4s
threatened with economic decline 4°"
and indicates for the future greatet ©
tration and centralization of POP™ if
and economic activity ine one or tW?: