massive new technological innovation One of the most shocking predictions of recent months from a group Cambridge forecast five million unemployed by 1990. oThere few could there ected with hoots people possibly know what levels derman seould prevain prevail in the 1980s?
But that wasn't what they were trying to predict. were merely looking at the growing capital intensity of Aritish industry - the rate at which machines are replacing WOTALES. There is no doubt that the world crisis of profitability bas dramatically boosted number of unemployed in the advanced capitalist countries.
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Socialist Challenge 17 August 19TH Page 7 and this seems certain to rise le 17 million by the end of 197K.
of Because the capitalist class who Internationally are producing more than they can sell at the 1970s bave seen the greatest waste of human and material resources since the 1930%. and Britain, as the oldest and weakest imperialist power, has been hardest inter-imperialist They for profitable markets fons uns But this competition produced a much more long team process. Technical prog ress has created "technological" unemployatens have replaced workers in the struggle for higher and higher levels of labour productivity. This structural unemploy: ment' now accounts for half of the total registered unemployleading Britain 800,000 jobs the schemes of left Labourites so utopian, increased investment schemes have little impact on unemployment. their Research carried NALGO, the local government officers" union, major investment projects in the manufacturing Wales in 1977 involved a total expenditure of created only 5,900 new jobs. rate of profit they need, the + That's nearly E300,000 per job.
that the investment, far from creating jobs, will dramatically increase the dole queues. Take the case of micro-processors. competition CHIPS the third electronics. They. machines computers, the torm Often no longer than a little fingernail, they can consist of 20,000 components and yet still cost less than IS.
ahout chance of room-sized compu- There 197147 ters taking over production.
collaborationist for thes form centres on investment, Ver task, , it can line. nul by of West SECTOr In E1,506m and There is increasing evidence telephone sysiem.
IF LULUES Micro-processors are part of generation grasped are miniof a silicon chip.
never much Capitalism is in erish, The lenders of the Labour Parts and the irades una But the micro processor in Programmed to do one simple introduced straight onto the production And in offices, banking, and local goverament the effects could be really drastic. Siertens Germany estimate that, by 1990, 40 per cent of these office centred jobs will be carried out by compulerised cquipment based on automatic typing machines linked 1o the you combine bus with another estimate that, with full ISOLATE computerisation, total British industrial output could carried out by two per cent of the present manual workforce, the tremendous consequences of this new historical stage in technology can start to be Among the Tiest groups of workers to realise that this scale of job loss is involved have been the Post Office engineers. They have had to. New technological innovations there could cut the total output. work force by 50 percent The most far-sighted POEL! milisants have endersiond that •an overall a 35-hour week with no laws of
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chosen to discuss away their members' claim for the 35-hour week rather than take the fight into the rest of They argue that the POEU is a special case - that no other section of workers faces the same problems of members. It isn't true. STEVEPOTTER explains why