[Summary]
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). The first ILO Symposium on
Multimedia Convergence was held in January 1997 at the ILO headquarters
in Geneva, Switzerland, with employers, unionists and government
representatives from all over the world. Some participants, mostly
employers, demonstrated that the information society was generating or
would generate jobs. 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.
***
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 International
Labor Organization (ILO).
# A symposium
The first ILO Symposium on Multimedia Convergence was held in January
1997 at the ILO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Employers,
unionists and government representatives from all over the world came
to discuss the Information Society, the impact of the convergence
process on employment and work, and 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."
As stated in the introduction to the symposium’s proceedings: "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 was “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."
In the book industry, traditional printing was first disrupted by new
photocomposition machines, with lower costs. Text and image processing
began to be handed over to desktop publishing and graphic art studios.
Impression costs went on decreasing with photocopiers, color
photocopiers and digital printing. 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.
In the press industry, journalists and editors could now type in their
articles online. These articles went directly from text to layout,
without being keyed in anymore by the production staff.
# Some contributions
One of the participants of the symposium, 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."
Another participant, Michel Muller, secretary-general of the French
Federation of Book, Paper and Communication Industry (FILPAC:
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 ten years, from 1987 to 1996, with expensive social plans to
re-train and re-employ the 20,000 people who lost their jobs.
He 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."
A third participant, Walter Durling, director of AT&T Global
Information Solutions in the United States, had quite theoretical words
about the matter: "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.
# Job creation vs. lay-off
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.
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."