&T Global Information
Solutions (United States): "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
was developed, people had feared that it would do away cinemas,
but it had not. One should not be afraid of the future. Fear of
the future should not lead us to stifle creativity with
regulations. Creativity was needed to generate new employment.
The spirit of enterprise had to be reinforced with the new
technology in order to create jobs for those who had been
displaced. Problems should not be anticipated, but tackled when
they arose." In short, humanity shouldn't fear technology.

In fact, employees were not so much afraid of technology as
they were afraid of losing their jobs. In 1996, unemployment
was already significant in any field, which was not the case
when film and television were invented. What would be the
balance between job creation and lay-off in the near future?
Unions were struggling worldwide to promote the creation of
jobs through investment, innovation, vocational training,
computer literacy, retraining for new jobs in digital
technology, fair conditions for labor contracts and collective
agreements, defense of copyright for the re-use of articles
from the print media to the web, protection of workers in the
artistic field, and defense of teleworkers as workers having
full rights. The European Commission was expecting to have 10
million teleworkers in Europe by the year 2000, which would
represent 20% of teleworkers worldwide.

Despite unions' efforts, would the situation become as tragic
as suggested in a note of the symposium's proceedings? "Some
fear a future in which individuals will be forced to struggle
for survival in an electronic jungle. And the survival
mechanisms which have been developed in recent decades, such as
relatively stable employment relations, collective agreements,
employee representation, employer-provided job training, and
jointly funded social security schemes, may be sorely tested in
a world where work crosses borders at the speed of light."

Twelve years later, outsourcing has become a "standard" in
information technology, to cut