B.C. LUMBER WORKER

: ‘ond Issue, June

By WALTER REUTHER

President, Congress of Industrinl Organizations

The rate of scientific and technological development
in the United States is being greatly accelerated, resulting
in rapidly increasing output per hour worked. These tech-
nological changes can be a blessing, if wisely used. Or they
can result in unemployment and human suffering, if they
are introduced and operated without proper social controls.

For some fifteen years and
more, scientists have been bring-
ing forth a host of new develop-
ments in the field of electronics,
Many of the electronic devices
developed during World War II
in connection with military equip-
ment have been applied since
then to civilian use.

Automation is the most com-
mon term used to describe these
developments of electronic con-
trols and electronic computers.
The impact of this new technol-
ogy on the economy and society
will no doubt be tremendous in
the years ahead,

Second Industrial
Revolution

Automation has been heralded
by some scientists as introducing
the second industrial revolution.
Whereas the first industrial re-
volution has replaced human and
animal muscle-power with ma-
chines, automation tends to use
electronic devices to replace hu-

man regulation and control of
machines,

Regardless of how it is defined;
this new technology represents
the use of electronic devices,
rather than human workers, to
regulate and control the opera-
tion of machines. It makes pos-
sible the automatic office, as well
as the automatic factory.

These electronic devices are
being introduced into American
factories and offices. Radical
changes in production methods,
work-flow, office procedures and
labor skills are already under
way in scattered parts of the
American economy.

Easy Conversion

Some industrial processes lend
themselves to easy conversion to
automation. With others, auto-
mation can be introduced only
after changes in the production
process itself, and perhaps, in the
re-design of the end-product.

Labour Displaced

No one can be certain, at pre-
sent, whether these technological
changes will be introduced very
rapidly or slowly. Neither is
there any certainty now about
the degree of automation’s effect
on productivity and employment.
But the implications are clear
from an examination of the facts
on hand.

Ford Company

A spokesman for the Ford
Motor Company, which operates
an automated engine block de-
partment in its Cleveland, Ohio,
plant, says: “Automation reduces
labor tremendously. Our experi-
ence has shown that we can
count on a reduction of 25% to
30% in what we call ‘direct
labor.”

According to a recent article
in a scientific journal, an elec-
tronic computer at the General
Electrie Company plant in Louis-

ville, Kentucky, “will undertake
the preparation of payrolls, bas-
ing its computations on informa-
tion stored in its memory, con-
cerning wage rates, overtime and
the various deductions that must
be made, It will compile sales
records and prepare bills. It is
expected ultimately to be used
to make sales analyses, denote
regional shifts in the sale of
various appliances, and to modify
production accordingly.”

Electronic computers are being
used by several insurance com-
panies for the billing of custom-
ers’ premium payments, calculat-
ing agents’ commissions, figuring
out dividends and ultimately they
will work up the companies’
actuarial data.

Promises and Threats -

Automation holds out the pro-
mise of vast improvements in
living conditions, in increased

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leisure for workers and in greatly
inereased economic strength. It
likewise promises the elimination
of routine, repetitive jobs.

But the widespread introduc-
tion of automation within the
coming decade or two will present
serious economic and social pro-
blems, involving dislocations of
the labor force, geographical
shifts of industry, labor displace-
ment, changing the skills of
workers, and the need for sub-
stantial increases in consumer
buying power for rapidly grow-
ing markets.

We know that you cannot hide
from technological progress. We
know, too, that the labor move-
ment, which is itself a progres-
sive movement, must not stand
in the way of scientific improve-
ments,

Man’s Progress

We have, therefore, weleomed
automation as a new step in

“We Cannot Hide From Change”

man’s progress towards the pro-
duction of abundance and the
establishment of a better and
richer life for all people. At the
same time, however, we are com-
mitted to the proposition that the
transition to automation must not
result in the dislocations and
human suffering that accompan-
ied the first industrial revolution
more than a hundred years ago,
or that followed the introduction
of mass production techniques
after World War I.

The recent CIO Convention,
held in Los Angeles, California,
last December, adopted a resolu-
tion on” technological progress,
which stated:

“To solve the problems result-
ing from increasing productivity
requires full use of all the forces
at our command . . . The legisla-
tive powers of the government
as well as the economic power of
organised workers must be fully
mobilised to find the correct

Guaranteed

Employment

answers, to insure that purchas-
ing power is expanded to keep
pace with the growth of our abil-
ity to produce, and that, as there
is lessened need for human ef-
fort, inereased productivity: is
reflected in increased leisure,
through reduced hours of labor
rather than in the barren idleness
of mass unemployment.”

Investigating Automation

This resolution called upon the
Congress of the United States
“to investigate and to report up-
on the present and prospective
impact of technological develop-
ments of our economy.” A Con-
gressional committee is now lay-
ing the groundwork for such an
investigation. z

Within the next few weeks, the
CIO will hold a national confer-
ence on’ automation, at “which
scientists, businessmen, afd gov-
exfiment officials as well as trade
unionists, will participate. From
the Congressional investigation
and the-CIO conference, we hope
willarise a wider public under-
standing of the economic and
social implications of automation
and the need. for action by gov-
ernment and private groups to
enable an orderly transition into
the era of the new technology.

The various national unions are
also studying the effects of auto-
mation in their respective indus-
tries and are developing pro-
grammes to enable us to pass
through the transition period
with a minimum of economic and
social dislocation.

My own union, the United
Auto Workers, has established a
Committee on Automation, with
a professional staff that is keep-
ing up to date on these techno-
logical developments. Engineers
and other technical consultants
are working with the unions’
negotiating committees in devel-
oping new job classifications and
new wage rates for automated
jobs, 3

The United Auto Workers is
now in the midst of negotiations
with two of the largest manufac-

turing corporations in the world
—the General Motors Corpora-
tion and the Ford Motor Com-
pany—in which we are demand-
ing a guaranteed employment
plan, We are demanding that the
companies guarantee forty hours’
pay each week to a worker in any
week he is employed at all, and
up to fifty-two weeks’ pay for
every regularly-employed eligible
worker to continue during any
lay-off.

Many.unions are in the process
of formulating collective bargain-
ing demands for retraining pro-
grammes for displaced ‘workers,
for agreements that give hiring
preference to displaced workers,
for collective bargaining contract
provisions to prevent the degrad-
ation of standards in the skilled
trades, The unions are also alert
to the improvements in produc-
tivity and to the need for wage
inereases to enable workers to
share in the profits of techno-
logical progress.

Science and technology are
giving us the tools for economic
abundance. We intend to do all
in our power to see to it that
these tools will help to bring
peace, freedom, and improved
living conditions, as well as a
greater measure of security and
leisure.

Gross Rises

OTTAWA (CPA) — Can-
ada’s gross national product
—the value of the goods and
services produced by the na-
tion—climbed by three per-
cent in the first quarter of
1955 compared with the last
quarter of 1954, the Domin-
ion Bureau of Statistics re-
ports. On the basis of the
first three months, Canada’s
1955 GNP will be $25 bil-
lion compared with $24 bil-
lion last year. .

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BURY
FACES
OUSTER

OTTAWA (CPA)—A Cana-
dian. labor official stationed in
East Africa may be refused
permission by the Kenya gov-
ernment to return to his post
following leave in Vancouver,
it has been learned here. Jim
Bury, representative of the In-
ternational Confederation of
Free Trade Unions in East Af-
rica, has no re-entry permit to
return to his job in Nairobi fol-
lowing two months’ leave in
Canada.

Mr. Bury, a former Packing-
house~ Worker and secretary of
the Vancouver Labor Council
(CCL), has just completed two
years’ service in East Africa.
Prior to his departure from Nai-
robi it had been reported that
Mr. Bury might be asked to leave
the troubled British colony but
this situation did not materialize.
Further rumors indicated that the .
ICFTU representative might not
be allowed to return to Kenya on
completion of his leave. When
questioned in the Kenya Legisla-
tive Council as to the truth or
otherwise of rumors that Mr.
Bury’s return might be barred,
the Minister of Labor made no
reply.

Settler Opposition

Much of the controversy sur-
rounding the labor official, who is
also a former member ‘of the
British Columbia Legislature, is
believed to stem from opposition
to his activities by some white
settlers. Mr. Bury’s activities in
improving the working and living
standards of African employees
are not too greatly appreciated
by some settlers’ who employ na-
tive labor.

‘While Mr. Bury is not in pos-
session of a re-entry permit to
facilitate his return to Nairobi,
it is probable that he would be
allowed to resume his union work
at the request of the British
Trades Union Congress. When he
first took over the ICFTU post in
Kenya, Mr. Bury did not have a
permit to enter the country but
representations by the TUC re-
sulted in his being granted entry.

NO-RAID
PACT
SIGNED

TORONTO (CPA) — The
United Steelworkers of Amer-
ica (CIO-CCL) has signed the
‘no-raid’ pact agreed upon be-
tween the Trades and Labor
Congress and the Canadian
Congress of Labor last year.
The Steelworkers, Canada’s
largest single union group, had
delayed signing the agreement
until it was made one of the
terms of the forthcoming TLC-
CCL merger that will establish
the Canadian Labor Congress.

C. H. Millard, Canadian direc-

tor of the union, and Bill Mahon-
ey, assistant Steel director,
signed the agreement on behalf
of their union. The pact forbids
raiding between signatories and
lays down procedure for arbitra-
tion of alleged breaches of the
pact, ,

“OLD DOC”

Dr. R. Llewellyn Douglas hes
moved his Dental Office from
9 East Hastings St. to 712
Robson St., Vancouver, B.C,

NEW ADDRESS