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ILO Symposium on multimedia convergence
It has been widely suggested that the economic impact of new information technology will be as far-reaching as the industrial revolution. Indeed, thanks to advances in computer and communications technologies, once distinct information-based industries are "converging" with broadcasting and telecommunications, creating new jobs, and eliminating old ones. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has begun to tackle the social and labour issues expected in a virtual world.
"The information technology revolution is a key element in globalization," affirmed Kari Tapiola, Deputy Director-General of the ILO, in his opening address to the Symposium on Multimedia Convergence. "But what does it really mean for governments, employers and workers and their organizations when information becomes the worlds principal economic resource and the economy restructures itself accordingly? How can we prepare ourselves for the changes ahead?"
Preparing for such change was the subject of the three-day Symposium, held 27-29 January at ILO headquarters in Geneva. More than 60 participants and experts from 31 countries - representing governments, employers and workers - discussed the social and labour issues arising from convergence. Employment, training and labour relations were the main focus of discussion.
The increased consumption of leisure and information products has been one of the hallmarks of the post-industrial, information-based economy. The entertainment and mass-media industries have surged to the forefront of industry earners as middle-class consumers have committed an ever-growing portion of their incomes to entertainment. The media portion of the industry is expected to be among the fastest growing segments.
Despite their tremendous variety, the products of the entertainment and mass- media industries share one core characteristic: they are knowledge-intensive. Teams of highly skilled writers, editors, performers, designers, and technicians provide the imagination, inventiveness and technological sophistication which make each product unique. It is the sum of these creative talents, diverse skills, and the mastery of information technology which instills value into the paperback books, plastic disks and cassettes which consumers buy. Indeed, one might well argue that the multiplicity of material forms in which these products appear - cassettes, records, newspapers - merely disguises the fact that only one product is being sold, and that product is electronically processed information.
This central shared trait makes it possible and increasingly necessary to consider the media and entertainment industries, not in their historic specificity, but in their ever-growing digitalized unity. Thanks to advances in computerization and communications technologies, previously distinct information-based industries - such as printing and publishing, graphic design, the media, sound-recording and film-making - are converging into one. Information is their common product. "Nations, enterprises and individual workers who are abl to acquire, transform and use information productively and imaginatively will benefit from the technological advances now set in motion," says Tapiola.
Each of the industries cited above has its own origin and history. Until recently, each had its own technology too. But with the advent of digitalization, all forms of information - whether based in text, sound or images - can be converted into bits and bytes for handling by computer. Digitalization thus allows music, cinema and the written word to be recorded and transformed through similar processes and without distinct material supports. Previously dissimilar industries, such as publishing and sound-recording, now both produce CD-ROMs, rather than simply books and records.
Technological innovation has been accompanied by profound structural change within the industries. In some countries, limitations on cross-media ownership have been relaxed allowing large media firms to acquire highly diversified holdings in film-making, music, radio and television broadcasting, as well as book, magazine and newspaper publishing. This horizontal integration allows one media product to be commercialized in a variety of formats (books, films and sound recordings) as well as in distinct end-markets (cinemas, television, and video rental shops, for example). It also concentrates control and marketing power in the hands of surprisingly few big players. In 1995, for example, just five record companies accounted for over 70 per cent of sales in the $40 billion global pre-recorded music market.
Just as technology has given large media and communications firms a global reach, it has also encouraged the proliferation of small players; indeed, an industry structure is emerging based on major conglomerates and myriad small enterprises. Individuals, teams and small and medium-sized enterprises create high-quality multimedia products, such as CD-ROMs, or provide niche services, such as building Web sites or developing on-line advertising campaigns. A plethora of small electronic publishing and multimedia service companies generate much of the content, as well as much of the employment, of this emerging industry. Many of these might qualify as micro- enterprises composed of two to ten employees, sometimes connected merely by a modem and a telephone line. "The whole notion of a workplace is changing from one rather finite entity to a potentially very extensive network," says Tapiola.
For some occupational groups, particularly those engaged in providing creative content, the multimedia revolution promises tremendous growth in opportunities for work as distribution channels multiply. In 1995, the production of films and audiovisual products employed more than 850,000 people in Europe, compared to only 630,000 a decade before. At least one observer believes that by the year 2010, films, multimedia and television will be the single largest employer in Europe. Musicians provide the notable exception to this optimistic forecast for creative content providers. Electronic music synthesizers have markedly reduced employment possibilities for studio musicians, for example.
For other workers, particularly those in craft occupations tied to particular technologies, the challenge will be to acquire new skills and adapt to new modes of working in a context of diminishing opportunity in their former specialties. Technology has erased or reduced the entrance barriers to much technical work by becoming more user-friendly. Skills have become more easily transferable from one domain or type of equipment to another, enabling more cross-over among technical and non-technical staff.
Many future jobs will be based on technology which is today in its infancy; these jobs will call for undreamed-of skills. While many job-specific skills are acquired in the workplace, either through employer-provided training schemes or informally through the sharing of knowledge among colleagues, employers will increasingly expect applicants to come to the job with a skills portfolio which is already well-stocked.
Enterprise-based training may no longer be sufficient to meet the needs of future media workers. The employment structures of many firms in these converging industries rely on a diminishing core of permanent, or at least long-term, employees and on a growing portion of contingent workers employed part-time, temporarily or on a project-by-project basis. Because of their part-time status and especially in the instance of short-term engagement, these employees rarely, if ever, benefit from employer-provided training packages, which are largely directed to permanent staff.
Also, small and medium-sized enterprises account for the most dynamic employment growth in this sector. Many operate with just a handful of employees; few are able to offer training themselves or to release staff from ongoing work. These employers depend almost entirely on the skills that their employees have acquired before being hired, either through formal education, previous work experience or at their individual initiative.
Participants at the Symposium stressed the cardinal importance of training and retraining in order to ensure both the growth of the industry and the capacity of the workforce to respond to ever-changing demands.
Workers in the converging multimedia industry should enjoy the same rights, in terms of freedom of association and collective bargaining as other workers, in line with ILO principles as contained in the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, 1948 (No. 87), and the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), and in the related jurisprudence of the ILO supervisory bodies. National systems of social and labour protection may also need to be adapted to meet the needs of tomorrow's workforce. Recently adopted ILO Conventions and Recommendations of particular interest to part-time workers and teleworkers include the Part-Time Work Convention, 1994, (No.175) and Recommendation (No. 182), and the Home Work Convention, 1996 (No. 177), and its accompanying Recommendation (No. 184).
"There was a clear understanding among participants in the recent meeting that there is a role for the ILO to play with regard to the social aspects of globalization, which has been spurred by the information technology revolution," said Marc Blondel, Secretary-General of the Confédération générale du travail - Force ouvrière, who chaired the meeting. "Respect for international standards - particularly those concerning freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining - were reaffirmed."