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.cb COMPUTERS AND THE QUALITY OF JOBS
.<<labor[w84,jmc]		Notes on science and labor>>

	Like every other organized part of society,
organized labor can best advance its interests if it understands
the technological changes that are likely to occur.  Mainly
this involves paying attention to the already great efforts going
into trying to predict these changes.  These efforts involve the
Government - NSF and the Office of Technology Assessment, quasi-official
bodies like the National Academy of Sciences, non-profit organizations
like Rand and the Hudson Institute, political and social think tanks
like Brookings and Hoover, the universities, and numerous private
consultants, publishers of newsletters and writers of books.  There is
no point in simply duplicating part of this effort, but there are
questions neglected by these others of particular interest to labor.

	I can't imagine what all of them are, and I'll concentrate
on the quality of jobs.  Here I'm following Tom Donahue's presentation
to the Arden House conference, although I forget the phrase he used.
As my previous memo said, there are many unnecessarily harmful
effects of the dictatorial instincts of people who write computer
programs for other people to use.  I believe that the problem can
be better understood and some standards formulated by means of a
an appropriate study group involving people from labor, government,
computer science departments of universities and business.

	However, instead of merely looking for menaces, it is possible
to take a positive approach to improving the quality of jobs.
Doing this requires first some understanding of what makes one job more
desirable than another.  Then it requires exploring the technological
possibilities.  Computers make it possible to organize work in many
different ways, so there is a lot to explore.

	Beginning this search for ways of improving the quality of
jobs may require overcoming some intrenched attitudes associated
with the concept of technology assessment which seems to me to have
concentrated on determining what ought to be forbidden and has
attracted people of a regulatory frame of mind.

	In this matter it seems to me that the AFL-CIO can best
act as an advocate and organizer.  It should advocate redirecting
some government, think tank, university and business research into
measuring the quality of jobs and into figuring out how to organize
work so as to improve it.  Areas where large changes are occurring
anyway such as those involving the use of computers are most
promising.

	Again it seems to me that the obvious beginning is to hold
another conference dedicated to specific issues of job enhancement.

.begin verbatim

John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305
.end