egarded as casualized workers, rather than
as self-employed, since they have little autonomy and tend to depend on
only one publishing house for their work."

This international symposium was held as a tripartite meeting with
employers, unionists and government representatives. Some participants
still thought our information society would generate jobs, whereas it
was already stated worldwide that multimedia convergence was leading to
a massive loss of jobs.

Michel Muller, secretary-general of the French Federation of Book,
Paper and Communication Industry, stated that the French graphics
industry had lost 20,000 jobs - falling from 110,000 to 90,000 - within
the last decade, and that expensive social plans had been necessary to
re-employ those people. He explained: "If the technological
developments really created new jobs, as had been suggested, then it
might have been better to invest the money in reliable studies about
what jobs were being created and which ones were being lost, rather
than in social plans which often created artificial jobs. These studies
should highlight the new skills and qualifications in demand as the
technological convergence process broke down the barriers between the
printing industry, journalism and other vehicles of information.
Another problem caused by convergence was the trend towards ownership
concentration. A few big groups controlled not only the bulk of the
print media, but a wide range of other media, and thus posed a threat
to pluralism in expression. Various tax advantages enjoyed by the press
today should be re-examined and adapted to the new realities facing the
press and multimedia enterprises. Managing all the social and societal
issues raised by new technologies required widespread agreement and
consensus. Collective agreements were vital, since neither individual
negotiations nor the market alone could sufficiently settle these
matters."

Quite theoretical compared to the unionists' interventions, here was
the answer of Walter Durling, director of AT&T Global Information
Solutions: "Technology would not change the core of human relations.
More sophisticated means of communicating, new mechanisms for
negotiating, and new types of conflicts would all arise, but the
relationships between workers and employers themselves would continue
to be the same. When film was invented, people had been afraid that it
could bring theatre to an end. That has not happened. When television