Meeting June 28-30 2019
Chateaux d’Ettevaux
Poil, France

Programme and Background Notes

1. Note to Guide Discussion  
2. Note 1 : See French Resume of the Publication of the ILO: Employment and Social Questions
3. Note 2 : Summary of Work for a Better Future, Report of the Global Commission on the Future of Work
4. Note 3: The Right to Work in International Law
5. Note 4 : Extracts From the Book :The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
6. Note 5 : Summary of Comments of Participants
7. Arthur Dahl
8. Konrad Raiser
9. Charles Courtney
10. Michael Zammit-Cutajar
11. Marie-Aimee Latournerie

    Right to Work and Technological Change

Note to Guide the Discussion

The letter announcing this meeting, dated 12 Mars 2018, indicates that the central issue that could be treated is the following: Is it desirable, possible and if so through which means, to orient sciences and their technical applications towards the common good, including respect for the right to work?

QUESTIONS PROPOSED FOR THE DISCUSSION

1. A feature of our time is the magnitude of changes in sciences and their technical applications. One hear frequently that there is tremendous “technological progress” particularly in the in the domains of artificial intelligence, automation and robotics. Evoked is an ongoing scientific and technological “revolution» that will dramatically modified the human condition. In the past, however, humankind experienced several of such changes, or progress.  Suffice to mention, for instance, the introduction of the steam engine. Hence a first question: Is the current change fundamentally different from the changes lived by our ancestors? Is it a quantitative difference? A qualitative  difference? Are we entering an age of self-inflicted human obsolescence?_

2. Responses to this question may vary, but a most common view is that , today as yesterday, technological change, with its positive and negative effects, cannot be controlled and should not be controlled. Sciences and their applications are expressions of the human genius. Skeptics and true believers in technical progress meet in an attitude of laissez-faire. What are the counter arguments? How to justify an interventionist policy on matters of science and technology?

3. At least in Europe, and particularly since the first industrial revolution,  very few are the philosophers, writers, artists praising  “progress” in sciences and their applications. Indifference, contempt, warnings of a doomsday, exhortations for a change of course, have been and are common stances among intellectuals. And yet, this “progress” has been going on, relentlessly, and humankind has survived and, in some respects, is better off. How to interpret this fact? Could it be that  these protests and warnings have contributed to reduce the negative and increase the positive  effects of scientific and technological development?

4. Regarding work and employment   the most common view is that technological change constantly modifies, sometimes brutally, types of work and skills required, but are neutral for levels of employment.  In the past, jobs have disappeared in one sector of activity and have been created in another sector, typically from agriculture to industry and then from industry to services. What happened in the past is happening today and will happen again tomorrow. Thus, the International Labour Organization is telling us that jobs will disappear in industry and services because of automation and use of robots, but that these losses will be compensated by the creation of “millions” of jobs for the protection of the environment. What to think of this argument? Are there good reasons to consider that it will be less valid in the future than it was in the past?

5. Irrespective of our answer to the previous question, most important are questions of a more qualitative nature, such as: What about the remunerations brought by the new types of employment? What about working conditions and more precisely the right to work as defined by Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Are there not more and more “jobs” which are precarious and unsatisfying for those who have no choice but to accept them? What about work as self-realization?  Will the “Uberisation” of a growing number of activities be allowed to continue? 

6. Assuming the desirability of interventions in the development of science and its technical applications to protect and promote the right to work, are there means which are currently used to that effect? And, what are the means, the instruments that could be considered: policies of selective support to research centers? The same policies of selective support for innovative entrepreneurs and companies? Changes in the programs of business schools? More generally, changes in programs of schools and universities tending to shift away from the dominant values of productivism and competition ?

7.  In this regard, it is notable that currently a number of people are attracted by  “real” types of work  offering independence, requiring  the use of  both one’s hands and brain and responding to the authentic needs of the human community. Even farming, this occupation so essential and so downgraded  and perverted by the industrial civilization is attracting new adepts anxious to make a living by producing healthy food. Old and new crafts also generate vocations.  What is the magnitude of this movement? Should it be encouraged by public authorities? At the very least, should public authorities remove the obstacles, notably administrative, that these people are facing?

8. For these measures and policies that could promote the right to work, including the right to choose an independent work, what should be the role of public authorities at the local, regional, national and international levels? Could we conceive the coexistence, at these different levels of economies based on different values and different modes of operation, of economies with different speeds?

9. In a more radical perspective, some consider that the fundamental problem of our world is that technological development has become an end instead of remaining a means. This is what Pope Francis in his Encyclical Letter Laudato SI’ called “the globalization of the technological paradigm” which “shapes the lives of individuals and the workings of society” and “shows the urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural revolution.”  The Triglav Circle devoted its meeting of July 2016 to this Letter seen as source of enrichment for the objectives of the United Nations for 2030. In 2018,  in the context of its meeting on Science, Technology and the Human Spirit, the Circle discussed the following statement of the Japanese philosopher Tomonobo Imamichi:  “Instrumental rationality undermined transcendent ideals and spurred technological progress to a position of primacy over other human aims (…) Today’s goals are circumscribed by the horizons of technological know-how and power.” In his response to the letter announcing this meeting one of the participants write: “We need to re-imagine an economic system that has one of its primary purpose the creation of meaningful employment for everyone. Proposals like the universal basic income are half measures, since human dignity requires having a productive place in society (…)   We might pursue our reflections along those lines?

10. Keeping in mind the raison d’etre of the Circle, it might be appropriate at the conclusion of this discussion to consider again the risk of the obsolescence of Man that seems to be a part consequence of the current evolution of science and its applications. Obviously this risk is not certain.” But in this domain, the precautionary principle should apply.

ORGANIZATION OF THE DISCUSSIONS

The above mentioned questions are indicative and it would not be possible to treat all of them more than superficially. Participants are invited to give some thought to the subjects of particular interest to them. At the beginning of the meeting, through a tour de table, these preferences will be voiced and an agenda will be decided accordingly. This is the reason why a formal agenda is not proposed in this note.

Before the meeting, a number of  short background  notes will be circulated. At this point, three are in preparation: two will resume the main points of two recent documents published by the International Labour Organization, i.e. World Employment Social Outlook, Trends 2019, and, the report of the Global Commission on the Future of Work, entitled Work for  a Brighter Future; the third, more personal, will be on Homo Faber in an age of artificial intelligence.

Also, the comments and suggestions received in response to the letter of 12 March will be circulated. Sources of inspiration for the preparation of this note, these comments were from Arthur Dahl, Charles Courtney, Marie-Aimee Latournerie,  Konrad Raiser.

NOTE 2

SUMMARY OF WORK FOR A BETTER FUTURE

Report of the Global Commission  on the Future of Work (Ilo)

The starting point: “New forces are transforming the world of work. The transitions  involved call for decisive action (…) Without decisive action we will be heading  into a world that widens existing  inequalities and uncertainties. “

The objective: “To seize the opportunities presented by these transformative changes to create a brighter future and deliver economic security, equal opportunity and social justice – and ultimately reinforce the fabric of our societies.”

The path: “A human-centered agenda for the future of work that strengthens the social contract (…) This agenda consists of three pillars of action:

1.Increasing investment in people’s capabilities

• A universal entitlement to lifelong learning that enables people to acquire skills  and to reskill and upskill .
• Stepping up investments in the institutions, policies and strategies that will support people through future of work transitions
• Implementing a transformative and measurable agenda for gender equality.
• Providing universal social protection from birth to old age.

2. Increasing investment in the institution of work

• Establishing a Universal Labour Guarantee.
• Expanding  time sovereignty.
• Ensuring collective representation of workers and employer through social dialogue as a public good, actively promoted through public policies.
• Harnessing and managing technology for decent work (see below)

3. Increasing investment in decent and sustainable work

• Incentives to promote investments in key areas for decent and sustainable work
• Reshaping business incentive structures for longer-term investment approaches and exploring supplementary indicators of human development and well-being

In the analytical summary of the report, the text attached to the recommendation on “harnessing technology” is as follows: “This means workers and managers negotiating the design of work. It also means adopting a “human-in-command” approach to artificial intelligence that ensures that the final decisions affecting work are taken by human beings. An international governance system for digital labour platforms should be established to require platforms (and their clients) to respect certain minimum rights and protections. Technological advances also demand regulation of data use and algorithmic accountability in the world of work.

On this same issue, the full text of the report (pages 43-44) starts with this statement: “We call for the use of technology in support of decent work and a “human-in-command” approach to technology. “ This is followed by observations of a general character on the merits and dangers of technology in general and of artificial intelligence in particular. The  Maritime Labour Convention (2006, one of the 189 conventions adopted by the ILO since its creation in 1919) is presented as a useful model for the development of an international governance system for digital labour platforms.

Note 3

The Right To Work In International  Law

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1946)

Article 23

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and  favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24

 Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of   working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

International Covenant on economic, social and cultural rights ( UN, 1966), adopted the same year than the International Covenant on civil and political rights)

This Covenant, a treaty, develops in its articles 6,7 and 8,  Articles 23 and 24 of the Universal  Declaration. In particular, the right to strike is explicitly recognized. And, the ILO Convention of 1948 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize is mentioned.

The implementation of this treaty, ratified by 169 countries, is monitored by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), composed of 18 independent experts and meeting twice a year in Geneva. The States parties periodically submit reports to this Committee on their implementation of the various articles of the Covenant. The Committee makes observations and recommendations.

The Optional Protocol to the International  Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was added to the Covenant.  It came into force in 2013 and has been ratified by 24 countries. Under certain conditions, it gives the possibility to individuals or groups of individuals to make communications to the CESCR on violations of the provisions of the Covenant.

Conventions are adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO), which, created in 1919, is part of the United Nations system, and has the particularity to be a tripartite organization made of governments, employers and workers. The ILO Conventions are covering specific aspects of labour law, for instance freedom of association, right to organize and to form and join trade-unions, minimum age to work, child labour, or equal remuneration. Numbering 219, they are treaties submitted to ratification by States. The ILO also produced Recommendations, at this point 202 of them. Three points may be noted: all committees involved in the monitoring of the ILO Conventions and Recommendations are tripartite; communications and complaints can be made by each of the three partners; and, general reports and studies analyzing the level of respect of Conventions and Recommendations by all members of the organization (187 countries) are debated and made public. But, as the UN, the ILO is deprived of any coercive means to enforce respect for its laws.

The USA, a member of the ILO since 1934, with an interruption of a few years  in the last part of the 20^th century, has ratified only 14 Conventions (France, 127, United Kingdom, 88, Germany, 85, Mali, 34…)  The US has not ratified the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was signed under the Carter administration.

The Council of Europe, created in 1949 in London to promote human rights and the rule of law, has 47 States members. It put in place a system of promotion and protection of human rights with no equivalent in the world. In 1950, in Rome, was adopted the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, better known as the European Convention of Human Rights. This Convention, covering civil and political rights, came into force in 1953 and has been ratified by the 47 members of the European Council, including the 28 members of the European Union. It has been amended and completed by several  protocols. The European Court of Human Rights, instituted by the Convention,  receive communications from the States parties, from individuals or from groups of individuals.  Its judgments, some 20,000 since 1959, are binding on the countries concerned.

The right to work, as well as the other economic, social and cultural rights stemming from the Universal Declaration and its Covenant, are not part of the European Convention and claims for their violations are not receivable by the European Court. But, in 1961, the European Council adopted the European Social Charter . Revised in 1996, coming into force in 1999, ratified by 35 States, completed by a Protocol, this Charter has 31 very precise articles, 19 of which concerning directly the right to work. Some of these are similar to those of the UN and the ILO. Others are new, for example: Article 24 , All workers have the right to protection in case of termination of employment; Article 25, All workers have the right to protection of their claims in the event of the insolvency of their employer; Article 26, All workers have the right to dignity at work. For the control of the implementation of this Charter, the Council of Europe put in place a system comparable to the UN practice. The European Committee of Social Rights examined the reports submitted by the States parties and make observations which in some cases lead to recommendations by the Council of Ministers. Also, through the “Collective complaints procedures” social partners and non-governmental organizations are able to directly apply to the Committee for rulings on possible non-implementation of the Charter in the countries concerned.

Since the Lisbon treaty, which came into force in 2009, the European Union has the obligation to adhere to the European Convention of Human Rights. This has yet to be done. With the same Lisbon treaty, however, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union  became a legally binding instrument  for the EU members (with the exception of the United Kingdom, Poland and the Czech Republic, these three countries having obtained a derogation).

This Charter has 54 articles divided in seven chapters with the following titles: Dignity, Freedoms, Equality, Solidarity, Citizens’ rights, Justice, General Provisions. Articles 15  is Freedom to choose an occupation and right to engage in work and Article 16 is Freedom to conduct a business. Article 23, Equality between and women in all areas including employment, work and pay, specifies that The principle of equality shall not prevent the maintenance or adoption of measures providing for specific advantages in favour of the under-represented sex.  The Chapter on Solidarity has seven articles related to the right to work, including Article 33 Family and professional life.  Article 51 reads as follows: This Charter does not establish any new power or task for the Community or the Union or modify powers and tasks defined in the treaties. But, failure by a State member to apply the provisions of the Charter can be brought to the Court of Justice of the European Union (Luxembourg) by another State member or by the EU Commission.

NOTE 4

Extracts from the Book  The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

This book, written by Shoshana  Zuboff, Professor at the Harvard Business School,  was published in January 2019. Its sub-title is  The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. Here are quotes from the introduction and conclusion. The book has about 500 pages.

The definition—Sur-veil-lance Cap-i-tal-ism, is:

1. A new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, production and sales.

2. A parasitic economic logic in which the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new global architecture of behavioral modification.

3. A rogue mutation of capitalism marked by concentration of wealth, knowledge and power unprecedented in human history.

4.The foundational framework of a surveillance economy.

5.As significant a threat to human nature in the twenty-first century  as industrial capitalism was to the natural world in the nineteenth and twentieth.

6. The origin of a new instrumentarian power that asserts dominance over society and presents startling challenges to market democracy.

7. A movement that aims to impose a new collective order based on total certainty.

9. An expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from above: an overthrow of the people’s sovereignty.

Conclusion

Surveillance capitalism departs from the history of market capitalism in three startling ways:

1. First it insists on the privilege of unfettered freedom and knowledge.

(…) Surveillance capitalism’s command and control of the division of learning society are the signature feature that breaks with the old justification of the invisible hand and its entitlements. The combination of knowledge and freedom works to accelerate the asymmetry of power between surveillance capitalists and the societies in which they operate. This cycle will be broken only when we acknowledge as citizens, as societies and indeed as a civilization that surveillance capitalism know too much to qualify for freedom.

• Second, it abandons long-standing organic reciprocities with people.

Surveillance capitalism not only jettisons Adam Smith, but it also formally rescinds any remaining reciprocities with its societies. First, surveillance capitalists no longer rely on people as consumers. Instead the axis of supply and demand orients the surveillance capitalists firms to businesses intent on anticipating the behavior of populations, groups and individuals. The result  is that “users” are sources of raw material for a digital age production process aimed at a new business customer. Individual `customer continues to exist in surveillance capitalism operations – for example purchase of behavior-based insurance policies – but social relations are no longer founded on mutual exchange. Products and services are merely hosts for surveillance capitalist’s parasitic operations.

Second, by historical standards, the large surveillance capitalists employ relatively few people compared to their unprecedented computational resources (…) Compare GM and Google or Facebook or Amazon (…) In 2017, 24hyper scale firms operated 320 data centers with anywhere between thousands and millions of servers (…)

The absence of organic reciprocities with people as either sources of consumers or employers is a matter of exceptional importance in light of the historical relationship  between market capitalism and democracy (…)  In sharp contrast to the pragmatic concessions of Britain’s early industrial capitalists, surveillance capitalist’s extreme structural independence from people breeds exclusion rather than inclusion and lays the foundation for the unique approach that we have called “radical indifference.”

3.Third, the specter of life in the hive betrays a collectivist societal vision sustained by radical indifference and its material expression in Big Other.

Accumulation of freedom and knowledge combined with the lack of organic reciprocities to shape a collectivist orientation that diverges from the long-standing values of market capitalism and market democracy while also sharply departing from surveillance capitalism’s origins in the neo-liberal worldview. Surveillance capitalism aims us toward the hive collective. This privatized instrumentarian social order is a new form of collectivism in which it is the market, not the State, which concentrates both knowledge and freedom within its domain(…) “termite state”(….) Even Hayek derided it as incompatible with human freedom (…) Privileged priesthood of “tuners” rule the connected hive, cultivating it as a continuous source of raw material supply (…) A fundamentally asocial mode of knowledge (…) With the application of radical indifference content is judged by its volume, range and depths of surplus as measured by the anonymous equivalence of clicks,  likes and dwell times(…) Profoundly antidemocratic social forces (…) Paine argued for the capabilities of the common person  against aristocratic  privilege (…) Tyranny (…) The obliteration of politics (…) The aim is not to dominate nature but human nature. Seventh extinction, not of nature but of what has been held as most precious in human nature, the will to will, the sanctity of the individual, the ties of intimacy, the sociability that binds us together in promises and the truth they breed. The dying off of the human future will be as unintended as any other.

NOTE 5

SUMMARY of COMMENTS by PARTICIPANTS

Arthur Dahl

A topic that requires further reflection in both economic and spiritual terms is how to create work for all. Leaving no one behind includes employment. For Baha’is, work in service to the common good is a spiritual obligation equivalent to worship, and everyone should have an occupation (including of course housekeeping and raising children). Society has an obligation to give everyone the skills necessary to contribute in some way to society, as well as an opportunity to use those skills. No one should be idle.

However, our present economic system tries to reduce labour costs and increase the return on capital in the name of productivity. The result is high levels of unemployment, especially among the young, and half of humanity that can barely earn a living, despite adequate wealth on the planet. Many activities contributing to social goo, as well as subsistence production and the informal economy, are ignored in the present materialistic economy and not considered as employment and not remunerated. There seems no way to create jobs for the exploding numbers of African and Middle Eastern youth. Populist movements and xenophobia are fueled by the masses that have not benefited from globalization and see the elites keeping all the benefits for themselves. We need to re-imagine an economic system that has as one of its primary purposes the creation of meaningful employment for everyone. Proposals like a universal basic income are half-measures, since human dignity requires having a productive place in society, although it does at least free people to explore new possibilities for service.

A second dimension of this problem concerns all these forms of employment and sectors of the economy that do not contribute to human welfare, ranging from the arms industry and military though tobacco, narcotic drugs and luxury goods for conspicuous consumption. They cannot easily be reduced until we can propose alternative jobs that are more beneficial.

So how do we imagine new forms of employment? How do we pay for them? Should they be in the public or private sector? What do we have to change in corporate charters and the purposes of business to make employment creation a priority? What can our spiritual values tell us about human needs that are not being met by the present economy that could lead to new forms of employment? How do we empower the poor to create their own jobs and integrate them better in our communities?

Konrad Raiser

I believe that the methodologies of vocational training and professional education could well form an important part of the thematic discussion at the next meeting. The process of digitalization of all areas of work and production calls for new forms of vocational training and job preparation. Perhaps we could link this with a discussion about the role of artificial intelligence. (…) We could, perhaps, do some research about the particular system of vocational training in Germany that seems to draw interest at least among European neighbors.

Charles Courtney

On the question of the right to work, I find it helpful to refer to the International Bill of Rights. (then  Charles  explain Article 23 of the Universal Declaration and the relevant articles of the Covenant (see Note 3). Important for our consideration of the impact of technological change on work is that these statements locate work in the larger context of human well-being. They acknowledge that everyone will not always have access to decent work or even work at all; that those who have enjoyed good jobs are vulnerable. What then has to be done to assure a dignified and secure existence?

One proposal that is gaining acceptance and that has been successful in pilot projects in several countries is that of the Universal Basic Income 9UBI). Universal mean that it would be given to everyone, corporate CEOs and mall children. The very poor, who have been excluded not only from a work contract but also from the social contract in are included. Basic, (500 to 1,000$ per month) assure that the basic needs enumerated in Article 25 are met. Income would be guaranteed to arrive each month and indefinitely.

Results from the pilot projects show that people do not waste what they receive. They can purchase a used car that increases their ability to seek and travel to work. They are freed to care for children and aged or disabled family members. UBI regards everyone with respect, regardless of circumstances. The UBI enables persons to exercise their human rights. Perhaps more important, people are freed from knowing and debilitating worry about staying afloat.

In a 1994  talk at the University Populaire of ADT Fourth World in Paris, the philosopher Paul Ricoeur said that it is not enough to bring the excluded poor into existing society. He calls for thinking beyond the question of the hours in a work week. In face of advancing technology the entire modern conception of work must be put in question. The voices of the under-represented must be heard.

In a recent book, The End of the Myth, Professor Greg Grandin calls for the recognition of limits. His reviewer in “The Nation” (April 15, 2019) writes: “Grandin demonstrates compellingly (that) the notion of an infinite frontier has helped Americans evade a material dilemma. The continent’s wealth is finite and, past a certain point, zero-sum; the same holds for the entire planet. Our uses of that finite wealth are deeply interdependent: Your labor is my rest, and my drudgery makes room for your “doing what you love.” These material constraints pose [problem for the American desire to be free and left alone in a community of equals – the formula of the Declaration of Independence, and most of the canonical American politics ever since. Yet the more we accept the equality of others, the more constraints we have to take on ourselves. The point of politics is to engage with these problems, to set the terms on ourselves. The point of politics is to engage with these problems, to set the terms of interdependence as well as our independence, and this requires setting limits.” I include this long quotation because I think it is relevant to the human and planetary consequences of technological development. Before being implemented, a new idea must pass the person and earth test.

Michael Zammit-Cutajar

The future of “work” is a very interesting topic – and timely given the ILO’s centenary. As a retiree with a decent pension derived from past work, my personal interest in the matter relates to the economic prospects for my grandchildren. Will they even know what a “job” is? Even one without a pension at the other end? I don’t know the answer to that question. And I wonder whether people of our generation can work it out among themselves, without failing into the traps of nostalgia or Luddism.

My personal option is to opt out of technological change. No Facebook. No Uber. No meals delivered by an underpaid cyclist, etc. But can somebody entering working age afford to take such a line, without dropping out of the mainstream and becoming a real hippy? Unlike one of your commentators, I would not reject the concept of a guaranteed basic income for all citizens, politically unlikely as it may be –though an economist would have to comment on the inflationary potential of this approach. And I would question the realism of the “creation of meaningful employment for everyone.” That formula might work if one drops “meaningful” but it would lead to a phony economy (e.g.DPRK) or one in which the public sector I the employer of last resort for unproductive hangers-on.

( then Michael refer to the presence at a previous meeting of a young lady and “hope that she will guide the discussion to ensure its relevance to the present and the future”….)

Marie-Aimée Latournerie

Indiqua au “secrétariat” le travail de la Commission mondiale sur l’avenir du travail, mise en place par l’OIT, et  le rapport que cette commission devait soumettre a l’Assemblée de cette organisation a l’occasion de son centenaire (voir la Note 2) Marie-Aimée a eu l’occasion d’écouter un membre de cette Commission, Alain Supiot.

Marie-Aimée  signala aussi un ouvrage de Pierre-Michel Menger, Le travail créateur, s’accomplir dans l’incertain (2009, Gallimard/Seuil). Menger donne des cours au Collège de France. Il est le fondateur de la chaire Sociologie du travail créateur.

Enfin Marie-Aimée mentionna un livre (de classe ?) publié sous le régime de Vichy qui donne d’intéressantes perspectives sur la conception du travail que diffusait ce régime dont la devise était « Travail, Famille, Patrie .»