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Labour Wrap: Why trade unions are still relevant

Cape Town - Trade unions are, if anything, more relevant now than they have ever been, says Terry Bell in his latest Labour Wrap. 

He says this fact was highlighted by a book produced in the United States last month by a leading computer software developer, Martin Ford.

WATCH: Terry Bell's Labour Wrap

Bell points out that Ford, in an earlier book, speculated that the advance of automation and robotics would cause massive joblessness. This is something that has been argued over the years, and has featured in the Inside Labour column that appears on this platform. But such arguments have always had a host of critics and, says Bell, Ford has now answered the criticisms.

He has done so by careful research into how far automation has already been applied and what projects are already in the pipeline.  It is something that should concern every seller of labour, says Bell.  And not just the unskilled and those doing repetitive jobs on conveyor belts or factory floors.  

Even his own trade, journalism, has already been undermined, especially in the reporting of financial and some sports news. Raw data is fed into computers and comprehensive reports and analysis appear, faster than any human could manage. Even such influential magazines such as Forbes now use this service.

With both employers and employees trapped in the existing system of competition and accumulation, Bell sees this is an enormous threat to working people, both employed and unemployed, who comprise the bulk of humanity. He maintains that they require organisation to ensure that billions of people are not impoverished by developments that should be a boon to all.  

Here, Bell says, is a role for unions, but perhaps not as they are now organised, aping structures that date back to an earlier era.  A new unionism is required that fights to ensure that this technological surge can liberate rather than enslave and possibly destroy humanity.

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