Any good simulation would have picked this up. right? It was obvious, in
1905, what impact the horseless carriage and flying machines would have on
the global economy. Y2k? Hell, even without a simulation, all the experts
know exactly what the impact will be on Jan. 3, 2000.
Brian McAndrews
>Technology changes the job market. Bit by bit. Job by job. Community by
>community.
>
>Globe and Mail. Op-Ed.
>
>That phone doesn't ring here any more
>
> Monday, December 14, 1998
> MARJORIE DOYLE
>
> IN NEWFOUNDLAND -- Some years ago, I phoned a florist
>about a mile from my house to
> ask whether the shop was open that evening. A woman
>answered, said no, and gave me the store
> hours. Her accent was musical and charming but clearly
>not from these parts.
>
> Where are you? I asked.
>
> Virginia, she drawled.
>
> I had dialled a St. John's phone number and the
>business, I'd thought, was a local one. But
> someone, somewhere, had decided that lean and
>efficient business practice meant farming out
> services.
>
> Since then, I've had dozens of similar experiences. I
>call a local phone number to request servicing
> of a product. The call is answered on the mainland,
>and the arrangement (between me and a guy
> mabe two streets away) is made in an office maybe
>2,000 miles away.
>
> Every time this happens, the same feeling comes over
>me: a sense that there's nobody home. That
> I'm living on a raft with fewer and fewer mates and
>that, increasingly, we are in the hands of control
> central, far away. It makes me feel isolated,
>resentful and, ultimately, depressed. Depressed
> because by using companies like these, I'm actively
>helping to keep a Newfoundlander
> unemployed.
>
> This is not a phenomenon unique to this province. Many
>Canadians must feel equally enraged
> watching their small towns get smaller, while they are
>forced to spend money to keep other places
> thriving. (It puts a different spin on the subsidy
>thing: Who's really living off whom?) But allowing
> companies to do business in a community while
>maintaining such a small storefront at the local level
> strikes me now as completely unacceptable because of
>the seriousness of even one person being
> without work.
>
> The news that someone is thrown out of work doesn't
>incite gasps of horror from us, because our
> society is desensitized to unemployment. Unemployment
>figures are tolled so regularly that they fail
> to have any impact. There seems to be a sense that
>there isn't enough work, period.
>
> But perhaps the lead story in a newspaper should
>occasionally read: So-and-So lost his job today.
> And then the story should give us the details: the
>picture of a person struggling to find the right
> moment to tell his or her family, and the slow
>realization of the full impact of the news. It's not just
> the paycheque that's gone; there's also a loss of
>benefits. Suddenly eyeglasses and dental work
> shift into the category of luxuries. Worry turns to
>fear, even panic, as the new lay of the land
> becomes clear. Everything has changed.
>
> Politicians talk jobs, jobs, jobs during an election
>campaign, but later, if the matter of
> unemployment is raised, they shrug and say it's not
>the business of government to create jobs. But
> if creating jobs is not government's business,
>unemployment surely is. Unemployment is not just
> about being out of work. The connection between not
>having a job and physical and mental
> suffering is real.
>
> In many areas where government needs to be challenged
>and media attention won, there are
> lobbyists. But what of the unemployed? Many people
>without work are beaten down from
> hopelessness, bitterness, escalating debt and fear.
>They can't fight. And unemployment doesn't
> have the cachet of other problems; there is no
>potential to shock, no horror photos as there are
> with disasters such as floods. Yet the loss and
>destruction are just as great. The difference is that
> the effects unfold slowly.
>
> In a place like Newfoundland, where collective
>solutions are forever talked about and seldom
> realized, it seems more important than ever to
>concentrate on smaller solutions. Maybe job-by-job
> would be a better focus for a political party than the
>ceaseless speculation about pie-in-the-sky
> schemes that never materialize.
>
> How many jobs would be created in this province if
>government introduced legislation that
> required businesses operating here to maintain a
>stronger presence? Four or five jobs in a small
> community are significant, as are 20 jobs in a town,
>100 in a city. The corporate response to such
> regulating would probably be reluctant compliance,
>with the punitive threat that everything will cost
> more. Yet when companies and banks downsize, nothing
>costs consumers less.
>
> Perhaps the solution lies not with government or big
>businesses but with our collective will to make
> work for ourselves. On good days I convince myself
>this is happening here, as I see more and
> more companies advertising that they are locally owned
>and operated; and there seem to be more
> labels saying, "Manufactured right here."
>
> On bad days I remind myself of the security company
>that's operating here in St. John's. If a
> burglar (more often a fly) triggers the alarm on a
>premises, the alarm rings in Calgary!
> Marjorie Doyle is the host of CBC Radio's late-night
>classical music show That Time of the
> Night.
>
>
> Back to the top of the page
>
> We welcome your comments.
> Copyright © 1998, The Globe and
>Mail Company
> All rights reserved.
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* Brian McAndrews, Practicum Coordinator *
* Faculty of Education, Queen's University *
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