Chris Harman

Is a Machine After Your Job?

Supplement

The jobs at risk

THE NEW TECHNOLOGY is eventually going to have an impact on the whole range of office and factory work. Here is a list of some of the most important occupations which are already being threatened by the introduction of the new technology. If your job is not on the list, don’t feel safe: it could be there in a year or two’s time.

Accounts clerks

ALREADY affected by the electronic calculator and, in the bigger firms, by the computer. Will be further hit as the microcomputer and the computer terminal move into medium and small firms.

Banking

VDUs are already installed in many banks, as computers take over from old filing systems.

The bank card and the automatic cash dispenser are already beginning to take over jobs that used to be done by counter clerks. Significantly Barclays announced last summer a plan to begin to reduce the number of their branches.

At the same time the number of jobs needed to feed information into computers is going to be cut by the microprocessor. Lloyds Bank, for instance, have bought a new computing system based on Optical Character Recognition. Work which took 150 hours on Lloyds’ old key board system takes only 2.5 hours on this (Financial Times, 9 Nov ’78). The supervisory and technical union, ASTMS, estimate that the total workforce in banking and insurance will fall from 1,100,000 today to a figure of 600,000 by the mid-1990s.

Broadcasting

THE TELEVISION companies and the BBC are trying to introduce ENG (Electronic News Gathering) and multi-mode cameras. These enable two people to replace an eight person camera team, and, by substituting tape for film, to cut out most processing work.

‘ENG is only the first step in what is likely to be a continuing revolution. Television people quite realistically talk of a ten year span by which time cameras and sound equipment could be cut down in size to match the average telephone book ... The technical skills that were once required are being rapidly replaced by electronic gadgetry’ (Financial Times, 9 Oct ’78).

Already, the sort of abuse usually directed against Fleet Street workers is being directed at Broadcasting workers, with talk of ‘overmanning’ and even claims that unless ‘restrictive practices’ are ‘bought out’, ‘the fate of the Times will be the fate of Thames’ (The Observer, 24 December ’78).

Car repairs

ALL THE major companies are investigating the application of micro-electronics to automotive components such as ignition systems and engine control systems. Present mechanical skills will not then be needed for many repairs; faulty parts will simply be slotted out and replaced. Even locating the faulty component will cease to be a skilled job eventually: ‘chips’ will be used to provide automatic readings on the functioning of the different components, indicating to anyone who can read a dial which part needs changing.

Civil Service

COMPUTERS already in use are now being updated so as to eliminate many data preparation staff.

At the same time computerisation is entering whole new areas of work, e.g. in the Inland Revenue there is a six-year plan for computerisation. ‘The manpower implications have not been fully worked out, but the computers will undoubtedly replace the thousands of clerical staff currently assessing PAYE ... (Financial Times, 5 Oct ’78).

For other implications see sections on word processors, floppy discs, typing, secretaries, managers.

Clerical work

FILING, typists and secretaries have headings of their own. But they are not going to be the only groups of clerical workers hit by the new technology.

Research is already under way into methods of using electronics to increase the ‘productivity’ of those who feed work to typists and for filing, so as to enable them to keep up with the word processor and the electronic file.

In the US the use of ‘computerised mail services’ (computers linking directly to computers elsewhere, instead of via printed out letters) has produced ‘a 30 per cent reduction in labour costs which would otherwise have gone into the dispatching and receipt of letters.’ (Financial Times, 30 Oct ’78).

Society Post, the journal of the Society of Civil and Public Servants reports that already,

‘Over a six year period productivity improvements reduced the demand for clericals (in Post Office telecommunications) by 60 per cent ... Two thirds of the 9,500 person saving was attributed to large computerisation changes, such as billing, payroll and directories ... About 4,800 operators’ jobs were eliminated by automated ticket pricing, push button dialling and improved working procedures.’ (March 1978).

Siemens, the German firm, reckon that as many as 40 per cent of all German clerical staff, over two million people, could be redundant by 1985 (Guardian, 14 Sept ’78).

Electrical manufacturing

ONE INDUSTRY, the Swiss watch industry, has already been transformed by the new technology. The workforce has been cut by 40 per cent in the last eight years. And many of the old workers have been replaced by new workers. This applies particularly to middle-aged women who used to work part time; they could not adjust to the new methods of working associated with the new technology and have been replaced by younger women, ‘fulltimers, often school leavers, who are considered more suitable for today’s type of assembly work, which is more mentally demanding ... The good eyesight and manual dexterity of young women is in strong demand (Christopher Lorenz, in Financial Times, 12 September ’78). So the lives of a very large section indeed of the old workforce have been completely shaken up by the new technology.

What has happened to watchmaking is an indication of what can be .expected right across the consumer goods industries in the years ahead. Christopher Lorenz goes on, this ‘is an indication of what is in store all over Europe during the next decade for all sorts of workers’.

And Professor Freeman, of the Science Policy Research Unit, believes that ‘the production of most consumer goods – especially household appliances and domestic entertainments systems-will go the same way’ as the Swiss watch industry (quoted in New Society, 9 Nov ’78).

Electronic repairs

MICROPROCESSORS are increasingly being used to build devices which will take all the skill out of testing circuits for faults. For instance, Racal Automation have produced a ‘Racal Rebate’ system that allows ‘reliable high speed testing of assembled printed circuit boards, cdntaining both analogue and digital elements’ (Financial Times, 9 Oct ’78).

Again, the Zehhtel Troubleshooter means that ‘the test operator does little more than load each board on the fixture and press the start button. If the board fails, precise rework instructions are printed out in clear and simple English’ (Financial Times, 30 Nov ’78).

Filing

See section on The Floppy Disc (chapter two). But the floppy disc and similar devices don’t exhaust the way in which the new technology can revolutionise filing work. Any word processor may well be connected up to a distant, large computer which has literally millions of pages of material on tape or disc. Even a quite small firm could computerise thousands of accounts by hiring capacity on a distant computer – and do away with filing clerks.

Hotels

THE FACT that hotel workers are underpaid, overworked and virtually without union organisation does not mean that the new technology will leave their jobs alone. The Instal Hoskyns hotel computer is claimed to ‘produce a more efficient service at greatly reduced cost’ – about half the savings coming from staff costs! Hoskyns claim that the cost of a computer – £70,000 for a 800 bed hotel – can be recovered in just nine months. Grand Metropolitan Hotels have already ordered eight of these computers. And much cheaper versions of the computer are available that would suit all but the smallest hotels. (Financial Times, 14 December ’78).

Insurance

See Banks.

Libraries

SOME councils are already investigating the use of microcomputers for indexing, for automatically sending reminders for overdue books and for various other routine tasks. Prestel (see Viewdata, chapter two) and other systems will soon enable libraries to do away with standard reference works completely, replacing them with VDUs linked to central data banks. The British Library already has an Automated Information Service in operation which supplies, via computer terminals, ‘instant bibliographies and some abstracts of papers to 375 customers, ’70 of them overseas’. (Guardian, 29 Nov ’78) By the late 1980s ‘electronic mail’ may well be making it possible for researchers in other libraries to gain instant access to full documents in the British Library. That will mean that many librarians employed in these other libraries will have been replaced by computer terminals.

Local government

THE Common Market Commission recently set up a ‘Standing Technology Conference of European Local Authorities’ with the aim of ‘continuously discussing their needs for new products, processes and services, to discuss with potential suppliers, to exchange experience of advance technology’. Subjects for demonstration projects included, ‘waste disposal systems, vehicle management and design, and construction techniques’ (Financial Times, 18 Oct ’78).

Maintenance work

MAINTENANCE work in large factories is already being affected, as the new technology is being used to provide automatic reports of breakdowns and faults in machinery. The same technology can keep a close check on how long it takes for each fault to be repaired.

Management

YES – even these (at least, the lower ranks of them) are not going to escape scot free. Senior management are beginning to recognise that ‘non-clerical costs ... managers and professionals. amount to 66 per cent of the labour costs’ of offices (J.H. Blair of the SRI Institute, quoted in the Financial Times, 23 Oct ’78). The increased speed of office work with the word processor and computerised filing systems means that junior managers will be expected to work harder. As the Financial Times noted on 23 October 1978: ‘One or two executives have already discovered that while they approve of increased productivity below them, they are hot quite so sure when it reaches, their level.’

Newspapers

THIS INDUSTRY has been in the forefront of struggles over the new technology, with the introduction of computerised typesetting. These struggles are far from over – as the lockout that began at The Times in November of 1978 shows. But they represent only the beginning of the revolutionising of the industry. Already, there is discussion on technology that will transform the work process in the print room as much as computers have transformed the setting process. The move from letter press printing to litho printing may well be followed by techniques which do away with plates completely and use minute ink sprays.

Teletext, Prestel and so forth are all going to affect the newspaper industry – beginning by taking away from them much of their present classified advertising, and eventually, perhaps, leading to the printing out of whole papers in the living room by a ‘printer’ attached to the TV.

Postal services

DIRECT LINK ups between computer systems will mean, over time, that businesses will use the postal system jess and less to communicate with one another. On top of this, Prestel will enable subscribers to be reached electronically by firms that do business with them. Eventually, very few bank statements, rent demands, phone bills, advertising brochures, will go through the post.

A £500,000 study of many of the world’s postal authorities by MacKintosh Consultants suggests that ‘electronic mail will begin to bite deeply into conventional posts, and into postal business profitability by the mid-1980s’. It predicts that electronic mail will account for five per cent of business to business post in 1982 and 10 per cent by 1987. (Financial Times, 13 Dec ’78).

The result will be growing pressure on the Post Office to cut back on ‘unprofitable’ postal deliveries. The number of postal staff will be slashed, and services reduced, until only people with Prestel etc will be able to communicate with each other cheaply and readily.

The Post Office is also using computers itself to reduce staff loads – witness the use of computers as ‘aids’ to those who work in Directory Inquiries. How long will it be before they are replaced by computers?

Post Office Telecommunications

THE MOVE towards System X (the fully electronic telephone system), the introduction of optical fibres, and the ‘telephone shop’, are all going to have a dramatic effect on the number of workers required – unless the fight to significantly cut the working week is successful.

Print

IT IS not only in newspapers that the new technology is having an impact. The Financial Times could report on 26 October 1978:

‘More than 3,300 British printing companies have been asked to contribute to a £1m fund set up by the British Industries Printing Federation to protect them against industrial action by printers who have been blacking new machinery.’