Keep humans in good jobs in the robot era, ILO commission urges
Keep humans in good jobs in the robot era, ILO commission
urges
By Tom Miles JANUARY 22, 2019 / 6:38 AM / UPDATED 16
HOURS AGO
GENEVA (Reuters) - Governments must ensure the global
economy keeps providing decent jobs - and not just for robots, a global
commission set up by the International Labour Organization said on Tuesday.
The “Global Commission on the Future of Work”, co-chaired
by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan
Lofven, said in a report that governments, employers and unions needed to adapt
to revolutionary changes in the world of work.
“In short, the future of our societies depends on how we
deal with the challenges and opportunities related to the world of work, we
need to reorient policies as well as actions to deliver a human-centred agenda,
which is what this report basically focuses on,” Ramaphosa told a news
conference.
Among the commission’s recommendations was the
establishment of an international governance system for digital labor platforms
to ensure technology supports, rather than supplants, decent work.
To illustrate that such an international labor code was
workable, Ramaphosa and ILO Director-General Guy Ryder cited the ILO’s 2006
Maritime Labour Convention, which set minimum working and living standards for
all seafarers working on ships flying the flags of ratifying countries.
The commission, which deliberated for 18 months, proposed
other far-reaching reforms to promote decent work, including ending the
corporate focus on quarterly financial reporting, investment in lifelong
learning and using broader metrics than simple GDP to measure success.
Ryder said the commission had also vigorously discussed
the merits of governments providing a universal basic income, but decided
against recommending such a step directly.
He said one of the questions raised most often about the
future of work is: “Will my job be lost to a robot?” but the commission
preferred not to take a binary view of technology in which “it’s us or them”.
“The future of employment is not going to be determined
alone by the autonomous forward march of technology and technologies. It
depends on policy,” Ryder said.
Depending on policy choices, technology could create
positive outcomes for jobs and societies, or lead to what Germany’s Chancellor
Angela Merkel had called 19th century-style “digital day laborers”, he said.
“We have to make the right policy choices to put humans
in control of the forward application of technology.”
Ramaphosa said robots had cut worker numbers in South
Africa’s car industry, but he wanted to see jobs in associated industries
“mushrooming”, which he said could be a win-win situation.
“We are now involved in a real, serious conversation with
the automakers about how best we can limit the loss of jobs that continues to
ensue as a result of robots being deployed.”
More than three million industrial robots will be in use
in factories around the world by 2020, according to the International
Federation of Robotics.
Reporting by Tom Miles, Editing by William Maclean
Comments
Post a Comment