In a speech to the OECD’s Global Forum on Technology, Christy Hoffman, General Secretary of UNI Global Union, drew from history and her own past experience to argue for technological change to be accompanied by labour policies that favour and even incentivise unionisation.
Speaking at a session ‘The human future: What’s on the horizon?’ Christy Hoffman said “When you hear ‘Luddite’ you think of a backward person who foolishly tries to block inevitable progress. Well, I’m not a Luddite but I do think that they’ve been treated unfairly by history.
“They waged a widely supported campaign for about a year to protect their jobs and communities from the sudden introduction of the mechanical looms that would eventually displace many thousands of workers, ruining lives and communities. A campaign that was so widely supported that it ended only when the Parliament decided that it was a capital offense to be a Luddite and nearly 50 men were put to death. The workers just had too little power, and the social and political leaders were not willing to act in order to protect their livelihoods. And so ended the first conflict between workers and capital over technology after the industrial revolution.
“We can say that these are the hard lumps of progress. But let’s remember that the mechanical looms relied on child labor and broken lives beyond what we could imagine today. it took over a century for the wages of workers in the UK to level up to the increases in GDP brought by the industrial revolution. Quite hard lumps indeed.
“Let’s fast forward to the 1960s and 1970s when digital tools were introduced into factories, especially in the auto and aerospace industries. Most of the affected workers had union representation and this marks the beginning of a serious union engagement around technology.
“Using myself as an example, beginning in the late 70s I worked in a jet engine factory for 8 years operating a vertical turret lathe, a large metal cutting machine. At that time numerical control was introduced to the machines which meant that the manual turning of the wheels was no longer required, but that I was still needed for the set-up, the quality control, and many other tasks. Many of my almost all male co-workers feared a de-skilling of the job, but I was so happy to be relieved of the physical work. For me it was liberating –
“But this technology was introduced into a context which rarely exists today, and especially not among workers most likely to be affected by AI, including many sectors that UNI represents. I had union representation. This meant that we were able to negotiate over any risks to safety, the implications for job security and a requirement for on-the-job training. I was not insecure about being replaced, because the new machine did not automate my job, it augmented my capacity. I knew that higher productivity could lead to higher wages for me and my co-workers. I had every incentive to make this technology a success. In fact, I was elected to be on the negotiating committee and negotiated my first New Technology clause in the 1982.
“Today workers everywhere are fearful about a looming replacement by AI, because employers have been publicly salivating about the big productivity boost which allegedly is in the pipeline. And most of the workers do not have a collective voice. And although I think we overestimate the changes in the short term, we underestimate the longer-term impacts at work and the shifts in wealth and power on the horizon if we do nothing. So, whether the shift takes place in 5 years or 25, we must start our work to shape the future now to build the economy and society that we want. And as we think about the future, we can learn much from looking back.
“It is said that in the long run, workers and society as a whole will always benefit from technology. But we know that the long run can indeed be very long, with immense suffering and misuse of tech along the way which can cause deep and irreparable harms. Let’s not forget that slavery exploded after the invention of the cotton gin because it made new ways of harvesting possible.
“But hardship is not inevitable. We can shape the use of technology so as to maximize a shared benefit which allows workers dignity and a decent life. This means that we must favor technology which augments human capacity, rather than automates. Technology which creates new tasks to replace those which are eliminated by AI. This can be done in many ways, including Direct interventions like wage subsidies funded by taxes on capital income, or other tax policies. We must offer incentives for companies to reskill or upskill their own work force -on the job -which will increase the incentive to keep people at work. Too often when workers lose their jobs, they are retrained for jobs that are inappropriate or don’t exist.
“We need labor policies which favor and even incentivise unionisation, for example through co-determination or sectoral bargaining, through lowering the barriers to collective bargaining or even a requirement to consult with legitimate worker representatives before technology adoption. This would enable unions to negotiate over health and safety matters, including mental health; to reimagine jobs so that even if some tasks are eliminated, others can be added and negotiate the fair distribution of the benefits of enhanced productivity
“To conclude, I share my own story with you to illustrate the positive environments that can exist around tech at work. It won’t happen on its own. Public policy needs to actively take that fork in the road.”
Also taking part in the OECD Global Forum on Technology were trade unionists Eric Peres of FO Cadres (France), Claudio Franchi of CGIL (Italy), and Peter Lerner from Histadrut (Israel).
