The publication of the Ministry of Labour's Manpower Research Unit report number 1 was the occasion for much press comment. It was claimed in several papers that the report 'proved' that automation would not bring unemployment, that the main threat to Britain's economy on this front would be a shortage of labour, that therefore the unions should drop their restrictive practices, etc. etc. No doubt these views will find an echo in the labour movement and we may very well hear Ray Gunter sounding off again. What are the facts? Have we of the left been wrong all along about threat of automation under capitalism to jobs? Is there something ‘special! about the British economy so it will not be stricken, as the U.S. economy has been, by, technological unemployment?
First of all, let us put the record right - far from the report 'proving' that there would be no unemployment from automation it assumed it. We quotes "...As regards the working population forecasts, the main assumptions were that (a) there would be full employment with a high pressure...." page 37 (our emphasis). In fact that report did not intend to impinge into this field at all; to quote again: "...This is essentially a study of total manpower resources at the national level and of their future distribution. The aim is to give a broad assessment of the main trends in employment..eit is no more than a first step. Technological progress is constantly altering the occupational structure of the labour force snd creating demands for new types of skill....These important occupational questions are the subjects of separate study and are outside the scope of the present report." page 5 (our emphasis).
Really the report amounted to the projection of trends in population change, both in numbers and distribution. It took into account such things as the changing birth rate (with its consequences of decreasing the number of young people coming on to the labour market); the increase in the proportion of young people doing full-time education; the reduction in the net increase of working population due to migration (this dropped to a mere 10,000 against an average of 60,000 in previous years); the tendency for women to marry earlier; a continuing decline in the death rate, etc. These are in important matters and should be studied, as should be the changes in the st ture of the working class, but it must be emphasised that these factors of small importance compared with the social changes which take place owing to technological change and the economic atmosphere. A change of 1% in the bank rate (as a deflationary step) would play absolute havoc with all these figures.
If those 'friends' and 'advisors' of the trade unions who write for the daily press wish to help they could draw the attention of trade unionists to such pieces as recently appeared in the American Economic Report. The latter, we think, would be considered 'safe' even by the Daily Telegraph. In an article entitled "Automation- the impact on Jobs and People" the writer,an Amcrican trade unionist, drew attention to the many consequences of the technical changes taking place in the U.S. One has been the rapid increase in unemployment among youth and the Negroes (one in four of Negro youth is now unemployed). It is true that the many oldfashioned ideas need to be discarded in the trade union movement. But. what is needed is more militancy, not less, as an intezral part of an offensive strategy. What is needed is more, not less, politicalisation of the unions as part of an overall drive to bring about social change,