= [Overview]
More and more people were using digital technology. Previously
distinct information-based industries, such as printing,
publishing, graphic design, media, sound recording and film
making, were converging into one industry, with information as
a common product. This trend was named "multimedia
convergence", with a massive loss of jobs, and a serious enough
issue to be tackled by the ILO (International Labor
Organization) by 1997. The first ILO Symposium on Multimedia
Convergence was held in January 1997 at ILO headquarters in
Geneva, Switzerland, with employers, unionists, and government
representatives from all over the world. Some participants,
mostly employers, demonstrated the information society was
generating or would generate jobs, whereas other participants,
mostly unionists, demonstrated there was a rise in unemployment
worldwide, that should be addressed right away through
investment, innovation, vocational training, computer literacy,
retraining, and fair labor rights, including for teleworkers.
= [In Depth]
As explained in the introduction of the symposium's
proceedings: "With the advent of digitalization, technological
convergence has been set into motion. Today all forms of
information - whether based in text, sound or images - can be
converted into bits and bytes for handling by computer.
Digitalization has made it possible to create, record,
manipulate, combine, store, retrieve and transmit information
and information-based products in ways which magnetic tape,
celluloid and paper did not permit. Digitalization thus allows
music, cinema and the written word to be recorded and
transformed through similar processes and without distinct
material supports. Previously dissimilar industries, such as
publishing and sound recording, now both produce CD-ROMs,
rather than simply books and records. (...)
Multimedia convergence deserves our attention for reasons which
go far beyond the entertainment, mass media and
telecommunications industries. The technological revolution
which has made multimedia convergence possible will continue
apace, creating new configurations among an ever-widening range
of industries. The digitalization of information processing and
delivery is transforming the way financial systems operate, the
way enterprises exchange information internally and externally,
and the way individuals work in an increasingly electronic
environment."
Held in January 1997 at the ILO headquarters in Geneva,
Switzerland, the three-day Symposium on Multimedia Convergence
intended to discuss the social and labor issues arising from
this process. The industry-centred debates focused on three
main concerns: (a) the information society: what it means for
governments, employers and workers; (b) the convergence
process: its impact on employment and work; and (c) labor
relations in the information age. The purpose of these debates
was "to stimulate reflection on the policies and approaches
most apt to prepare our societies and especially our workforces
for the turbulent transition towards an information economy."
One of the participants, Peter Leisink, an associate professor
of labor studies at the Utrecht University, Netherlands,
explained: "A survey of the United Kingdom book publishing
industry showed that proofreaders and editors have been
externalized and now work as home-based teleworkers. The vast
majority of them had entered self-employment, not as a first-
choice option, but as a result of industry mergers, relocations
and redundancies. These people should actually be regarded as
casualized workers, rather than as self-employed, since they
have little autonomy and tend to depend on only one publishing
house for their work."
Wilfred Kiboro, managing director of Nation Printers and
Publishers, Kenya, made the following comments: "In content
creation in the multimedia environment, it is very difficult to
know who the journalist is, who the editor is, and who the
technologist is that will bring it all together. At what point
will telecom workers become involved as well as the people in
television and other entities that come to create new products?
Traditionally in the print media, for instance, we had
printers, journalists, sales and marketing staff and so on, but
now all of them are working on one floor from one desk."
Formerly, the production staff was keying in the articles, and
not the editorial staff. Journalists and editors could now type
in their articles online, and these articles went directly from
text to layout. In book publishing, digitization speeded up the
editorial process, which used to be sequential, by allowing the
copy editor, the image editor and the layout staff to work at
the same time on the same book.
Michel Muller, secretary-general of the French Federation of
Book, Paper and Communication Industry (Fédération des
industries du livre, du papier et de la communication), stated
that, in France, jobs in this industry fell from 110,000 to
90,000 in the last decade (1987-1996), with expensive social
plans to re-train and re-employ the 20,000 people who lost
their jobs.
He also explained that, "if the technological developments
really created new jobs, as had been suggested, then it might
have been better to invest the money in reliable studies about
what jobs were being created and which ones were being lost,
rather than in social plans which often created artificial
jobs. These studies should highlight the new skills and
qualifications in demand as the technological convergence
process broke down the barriers between the printing industry,
journalism and other vehicles of information. Another problem
caused by convergence was the trend towards ownership
concentration. A few big groups controlled not only the bulk of
the print media, but a wide range of other media, and thus
posed a threat to pluralism in expression. Various tax
advantages enjoyed by the press today should be re-examined and
adapted to the new realities facing the press and multimedia
enterprises. Managing all the social and societal issues raised
by new technologies required widespread agreement and
consensus. Collective agreements were vital, since neither
individual negotiations nor the market alone could sufficiently
settle these matters."
Quite theoretical compared to the unionists' concerns was the
answer of Walter Durling, director of AT&T Global Information
Solutions (United States): "Technology would not change the
core of human relations. More sophisticated means of
communicating, new mechanisms for negotiating, and new types of
conflicts would all arise, but the relationships between
workers and employers themselves would continue to be the same.
When film was invented, people had been afraid that it could
bring theatre to an end. That has not happened. When television
was developed, people had feared that it would do away cinemas,
but it had not. One should not be afraid of the future. Fear of
the future should not lead us to stifle creativity with
regulations. Creativity was needed to generate new employment.
The spirit of enterprise had to be reinforced with the new
technology in order to create jobs for those who had been
displaced. Problems should not be anticipated, but tackled when
they arose." In short, humanity shouldn't fear technology.
In fact, employees were not so much afraid of technology as
they were afraid of losing their jobs. In 1996, unemployment
was already significant in any field, which was not the case
when film and television were invented. What would be the
balance between job creation and lay-off in the near future?
Unions were struggling worldwide to promote the creation of
jobs through investment, innovation, vocational training,
computer literacy, retraining for new jobs in digital
technology, fair conditions for labor contracts and collective
agreements, defense of copyright for the re-use of articles
from the print media to the web, protection of workers in the
artistic field, and defense of teleworkers as workers having
full rights. The European Commission was expecting to have 10
million teleworkers in Europe by the year 2000, which would
represent 20% of teleworkers worldwide.
Despite unions' efforts, would the situation become as tragic
as suggested in a note of the symposium's proceedings? "Some
fear a future in which individuals will be forced to struggle
for survival in an electronic jungle. And the survival
mechanisms which have been developed in recent decades, such as
relatively stable employment relations, collective agreements,
employee representation, employer-provided job training, and
jointly funded social security schemes, may be sorely tested in
a world where work crosses borders at the speed of light."
Twelve years later, outsourcing has become a "standard" in
information technology, to cut the costs. How many companies
care about fair labor conditions for the employees of their
outsourcing partners?