----------
Hi,
[Ed Weick wrote..]
>Jim Dator:
>
>>>Gail Stewart wrote under the thread Basic Income:
>>
[snip]
>Usually, however, there is little discussion of balancing employment against
>automation. Most often its a pitched battle between unions, who of course
>favor employment, and management, who want to automate. Cases that come to
>my mind are whether it was necessary to continue to have a "fireman" in
>locomotives or an "engineer"(or whatever he was called) on the flight deck
>of a jet aircraft. Unions said yes; management said no. Management won.
>These are just a couple of examples. There must be thousands of others -
>e.g. timber harvesters displacing loggers; a computer in every office
>displacing steno pools; big fish boats displacing little ones; no ticket
>takers on buses (they still have them in Brazil). It's a continuous
>process, and it would seem that automation always wins in the end.
>
>Ed Weick
>
>
I agree that management normally wins. But my concern is for those,
who for whatever reason, do not want to be, or are unable to be,
'knowledge' workers.
Will there be a place for them in our future economy? Sure, you can
retrain many workers, but we need decent jobs even for those who do
not fit in to the ideal of the 21st century worker.
So the issue is not just automation. It is finding a place in our
economy for everyone that rewards knowledge, effort and ability.
If we cannot find such a place, we will not have a sustainable
economy, or a sustainable social system.
If the industrialists will not learn this message, I hope that the
public will elect politicians who do!
Dennis Paull,
Los Altos, CA
Note! I am a well paid automation engineer.
