1. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 1 Work WORK CHANGE & IT

2. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 2 Predictions The Future Of Work  Many of us are now free to work anywhere….we are free to escape our offices and the cities in which our offices are located…”. [Visions of Heaven & Hell] p8-9.  “Life is now horribly confusing. We are mixing up home and work, and work is no longer secure.” [C. Handy quoted in the Irish Times Oct 2, 1996.]

3. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 3 The Future Of Work  “.. there is no country and no people, I think, who can look forward to the age of leisure and abundance without a dread. It is a fearful problem for the ordinary person, with no special talents, to occupy himself, especially if he no longer has roots in the soil or in custom or in the beloved conventions of a traditional society... “ Keynes (1930)  “Workers of the world, be warned. The future will have fewer middle-class jobs to offer. Lifetime careers will be rare. Retraining will be constant.” [Newsweek cover page, June 14 1993].

4. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 4 ISC  “The Information Society will give birth to a ‘second renaissance’ in Europe in general and in Ireland in particular.”  “We will witness an unprecedented wave of entrepreneurial activity...”  “(knowledge is)...the only sustainable competitive advantage in the Information Society.”  “The Social Partners will work together to manage the transition towards new working and learning paradigms”.  Information Society Steering Committee Report  [http://www.isc.ie/summary.htm]

5. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 5 ISC Day in the Job…… www.benefitscanada.com/Content/ 2002/03-02/insights.html

6. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 6 [Heaven & Hell, M Harrison]  Heaven  My father’s generation had a working life of 100,000 hours……p3  The creative information workplace is not the industrial workplace turning out widgets….. p9  I feel excited about the world my grandchildren will live in …. p13  Technology is neutral…. We decide what to bring into being and what to do with it. p13  Hell  All technology is a Faustian bargain: It giveth and it taketh away…p 17  a contract worker …may be someone struggling to pay a mortgage and make ends meet in a technology assisted global market place which picks them up and drops them as it pleases…p19  There are more telephones in Tokyo….p19  So the inequities in our society and the cruelty that exist in the way our species deals with itself are likely to continue….p19

7. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 7 Questions  Why are these people saying these thinks?  What has IT got do with it?  What of previous upheavals?

8. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 8 Previous Technologies & Change http://www.aros.net/~zxorb/pc-industrial.jpg

9. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 9 Industrial Revolution & Social Change  Land declined as the chief source of wealth.  Output increased faster than labour input.  Work centralized in factory units.  The beginning of a massive population move from the country side to urban areas. => Social problems and urbanisation! http://www.operationoutreach-econed.org/images/indrev.jpg

10. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 10 ASIDE: Life Expectancy  In 18th century French villages the median age of marriage was higher than the median age of death.  The average life expectancy was one third of ours!  Role of technology in changing this? http://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/images/1lifeexp.jpg US Figures

11. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 11 (Source: Sleepers, Wake! Barry Jones) Pre-industrialIndustrialPost-industrialPost-service (Labour Absorbing) (Labour Displacing) From a Pre-Industrial to a Post-Service Society Manufacturing (Secondary) Tangible services Information services (Quaternary) (Tertiary) Agriculture (Primary) Longterm Labour Trends

12. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 12 The Four Sectors  Primary: Extractive comprises the production of basic materials, agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil extraction etc.  Secondary: Manufacturing and construction  Tertiary: Tangible economic services such as transport, maintenance services, heating, plus the supply of goods and services not primarily information based  Quaternary: All services which are primarily information based such as banking, legal & accounting services, publishing etc.

13. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 13 The role of IT  IT enables or speeds up work in 3 ways.  Automation  Robots, factories etc.  Data processing  Databases, word processing, etc. etc.  Information transfer  Electronic commerce, the internet, file transfer etc. etc.  It also does away with certain types of job while creating new areas of work.  Web design maintenance etc. is a new work area.  Manufacturing typewriters is an obsolete business.

14. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 14 Networks & Time Chicago New York 850 miles Send One Page of Text Chicago to New York [The Corporation of the 90s’. P72, M. Scott Morton] (Costs expressed in actual dollars i.e., no inflation adjustment)

15. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 15 Jobless Growth  “Since 1975, employment growth has consistently lagged behind output growth, and this gap is likely to widen in the 1990s........We are beginning to witness a new phenomenon - jobless growth”. UNDP 1993 Human Development Report.

16. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 16 Irish Figures – CSO.IE  Live register - http://www.eirestat.cso.ie/diska/LRAA401.html http://www.eirestat.cso.ie/diska/LRAA401.html  GNP http://www.cso.ie/principalstats/pristat5.html#gdp  GDP http://www.cso.ie/principalstats/pristat5.html#income

17. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 17 Hours Worked and Pay Industrial

18. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 18 Downsizing in the USA  40% of workers have a college education.  70-80% of incomes have been stagnant since 1975. The remainder have increased.  Selective automation used to introduce inequalities across all strata of the work place.  UPS packers and drivers earned 8-12$ per hour in 1982. Today the packers earn the same while drivers earn 20-25% per hour.  Drivers are skilled, packers are not.  [Louis Uchitelle, NY Times, Downsizing America]  Between 1982 and 1985 the workforce at General Motors shrank from 400,000 to 100,000. Turnover rose! The lost jobs were NOT on the factory floor!  [Handy 89]

19. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 19 Outsourcing http://www.houston.oao.com /

20. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 20 The Shamrock Organisational Model [Handy 89] Core Professional Employees Contract Work (Out sourced) Part Time (Seasonally Adjusted) Employees

21. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 21 Globalisation Core Professional Employees Contract Work (Out sourced) Part Time (Seasonally Adjusted) Employees Network

22. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 22 Globalization  Tele-commuting or tele-working.  Working form home.  Customers, competitors and employees are global rather than local.  Early Irish examples: Kenny’s bookshop in Galway; claims department for a New York insurance company in Kerry.  High profile examples: call centers in Dublin  Production can shift.  “Kindle plans to move key work to India! A leading Irish-run banking software company plans to move much of its development work from Dublin to Bangalore, India, in a shift partly driven by the higher cost of engineers here.” Irish Times Monday, October 19, 1998 [www.ireland.com]

23. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 23 Globalisation “We are undergoing the deepest rearrangement of global power since the birth of the industrial revolution”, u A. Toffler (author of Future Shock ) quoted in the I.Times Dec 6, 1993. "Given the amazing communications facilities available around the globe," Greenspan told the United States Congress recently, "trades can be initiated from almost any location… Any direct US regulation restricting their flexibility will doubtless induce the more aggressive funds to emigrate from under our jurisdiction.” “Think about that statement for a minute," Michael Elliot, wrote in Newsweek. "The most experienced financial regulator in the world's most advanced economy just said that he can't control a few hundred bond traders and mathematicians living (for the moment) in Greenwich, Connecticut. To the question "Who's in control of the global economy?" we now have an answer. Nobody.” [Quoted in Nua Thinking www.nua.ie]

24. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 24 Bigger Picture CHANGE Demographics Economics Technology Politics Globalisation Down Sizing It is not just a question of weighing up the number of jobs created against the number destroyed. There is a lot more going on.

25. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 25 Current Irish Government Thinking Enterprise Strategy Group Report Published on 7 July 2004 http://www.forfas.ie/esg/index.html

26. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 26 Summary  Information technology is fueling dramatic changes in the way work is organised and carried out.  The closest previous upheaval was during the Industrial Revolution since when things have not been quite the same!

27. 1BA6 Computers and Society Work p- 27 SOURCES [ Kling 96] Computerization and Controversy: Values Conflicts and Social Choices. R. Kling (ed.) Academic Press. 1996. ARTS 301.24 N64 [Jones 90] Sleepers Wake! - Technology & the Future of Work. B. Jones. Oxford University Press, 1990. S-LEN 600 N01. [Handy 89] The Age Of Unreason. C. Handy. Arrow Business Books, 1989, PB-130-147 (See also other books by Handy). [C4 95] Heaven and Hell. M. Harrison, Channel Four Television, 1995, PL-241-603. [CSO] The Central Statistics Office - www.cso.ie [Irish Times] The Irish Times - www.ireland.com [Rosenberg 97] The Social Impact of Computers. R. Rosenberg, Academic Press, 1997. S-LEN 500.4 N22.