[00:07] Hello, welcome to another episode of the Azumuta podcast. As usual, we're talking about dark factories, automation, robotics. We've been talking with scientists and professors about the technological evolution or revolution in the last couple of months and years. We spoke with business leaders who have implemented automations and very deep implementations in the real field of industry. And today we're delving into the human aspect of all this, and therefore we're welcoming Stijn, the national secretary of the largest trade union here in Belgium. Welcome, Stijn.
[00:44] Thank you.
[00:44] To immediately jump into it: what I always hear is that machines, they only take over the dull, the dirty, the dangerous jobs. Where do you see that those employees, those workers that are currently doing these jobs, what happens with them? Are they promoted somewhere, or do they disappear? What's happening with them?
[01:06] First of all, I would like to state and underline that I think that's very good that machines take over uninteresting, dull, dirty, dangerous jobs. So I would say I'm not a modern Luddite. I don't know if you know the Luddites. The Luddites were workers in the British textile industry in the 1800s who smashed machines, who destroyed machines because they feared job loss in their factories. So I think that's very important to say at the beginning. I'm not a modern Luddite. And I think in all sectors there is something to be said that dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs are replaced by machines. Or for example, as is the case for artificial intelligence, that technology makes jobs more interesting. It can also be that artificial intelligence makes jobs more accessible to certain people. If you think of graphic design, for example, which becomes accessible for people who don't have the specific skills. Also coding, programming, for example. So accessibility is important, but also raising people up, upskilling people by using technology. I think that's a very good idea.
[02:19] Of course, we as a trade union, if people get upskilled, if they do more, if they are more productive, we are also convinced that they should get something out of it. More interesting jobs, as I already said, but why not higher wages as well? Of course, digitization, more technology, more machines can be interesting, but it might also have a negative effect on certain workers, on certain people in factories or in organizations. For example, for a group which doesn't have the skills to work with the new machines, that might be a problem. So we are pleading very much for training, lifelong learning also in an organization, in the firm. So that's something very important.
[03:10] And always, or in certain circumstances, you will also have the necessity to lay off some people because machines will take over labor and you will have too many people in your factory or in your organization. And then in such situations, it's of course very important that the government can support those workers who get laid off by offering them decent unemployment schemes, which is quite important to be motivated to look for another job, but also to have supportive activation and employment measures. For example, I'm also a member of the board of VDAB, that's the public employment agency in Flanders. So we need to have very good measures for people laid off, to be able to search for a new job, as well as good reskilling and retraining measures. I come back to the importance of training, of lifelong learning.
[04:11] One fundamental question I would like to raise here. What do we do with people, and what do we do often with older workers who get laid off, didn't receive a lot of training during their careers, and are also too old to easily find a new job? We see that a generation of workers, when they're 60, if they get unemployed and they didn't get the necessary training during the career from their employer, have a very difficult time to find a new job, because they are also confronted with discrimination on the labor market. So for me, that's a fundamental question. What do we do with those people?
[04:56] And the current political debate is that everyone has to search for a new job. But we see that there is a large group, and it's often older workers, who try and they send, let's say, 100 letters to employers to get a new job, but they even don't get an answer. And do you have an answer to that question? Because you talked about lifelong learning, but when you're 60 and nearing the end of your work life, so to speak, is there still value in that lifelong learning for this segment of workers?
[05:29] As you say, Jan, lifelong learning, I would like to emphasize lifelong. I guess some of these workers who get laid off, who get unemployed, didn't get a lot of training, a lot of lifelong learning during their career. And then when they get laid off, even if they're 55, it might be very difficult to change. They probably don't have the competencies as well, the learning competencies, to look for a new job, to learn a lot. So there, I guess we have to work on prevention. We have to prevent that those people come on the labor market and don't have the skills, don't have the competencies to find a new job. That's one thing. And of course, I guess government, I guess politics, policy also has to be sure that if there's, for example, some kind of discrimination, that we can also very much work on that.
[06:24] I actually don't quite like the title lifelong learning. It almost sounds like a death sentence. I like "a life full of learning." That might be better perhaps. And in terms of lifelong learning, where do you think the responsibility is? Is it with the people themselves or the government? Can they help the people to get a new job or reorient themselves? What's your approach?
[06:51] I think there's a shared responsibility, of course. I guess workers, employees have to take the responsibility to learn, to be open to learn also. There's a responsibility also for the employer: to give the opportunity to learn, but also to invest in learning. I guess for employers it's also interesting to have people who are evolving and getting new competence. And of course, also for the government, there should be enough training, skilling, reskilling measures. Government should also invest in it, not only during the career of people, but also in primary, secondary education, and not only in knowledge, also in what we call 21st century skills, which are skills like the capacity to change, flexibility, those elements who will get more and more important in the next years, the next decades. They are already very important because you see the changes are going so fast, people will have to change during their career. You cannot expect taking a job at one point in time and doing the same job for 30, 40 years without changing. You will have to change. So the capacity to change, the flexibility to change, has to be taught from a very early stage in life, I would say. Also through secondary and of course also tertiary education.
[08:12] That's exactly what we are seeing in the industry as well. The industry as a whole is changing so rapidly that not only the people need to learn to change, but the companies themselves need to learn to change, and they have to adapt to newest ways of working.
[08:30] Maybe that leads to the next question: where do you see companies misjudge the human impact of automation, both in a positive or in a negative way?
[08:40] If people are laid off because of automation, machines which take over the jobs, the labor of the people, of course there's a human impact of automation. But let's be clear that the downside of technological advance is not only because people lose their job. We also see that new machines, new protocols, automation, it leads to unlearning, to the necessity to relearn. And for some people, relearn things is positive, but for a lot of people, it's also something which is negative, or they worry about it. To give another example, if people have to relearn their job or they have to change their job, which they have been doing for maybe their whole career, and somebody comes and says, "Okay, now you have to change the way you work," but they did that job with a lot of pride, that might be very difficult for them as well. So there again, the capacity to change is important. And you have to trigger that capacity during the career by learning as much as you can, I would say.
[09:47] Another aspect is, of course, that while now you're working with your coworkers and your colleagues, many or some of these colleagues will be robots in some shape or form. And how would you foster a collaboration between a human and a robot? What is the impact of that?
[10:10] I guess collaboration between robots and humans is, of course, a technological challenge, but not primarily a technological challenge. It's also a social one and an organizational one. So you also have to look to the way you design the work organization. Next to the technological innovation, you also have to pay a lot of attention to the social innovation. How can we set up the organization? How can we set up the factory so technology and people can work together? So that's a very important element as well. You would, for example, be able to redesign jobs in a sense that the people, the humans can focus on making judgments, instead of technology which makes the judgments and decides. People do the problem solving, have an oversight, and then again, you can use the technology to do the repetitive jobs, the hazardous jobs, the dangerous tasks, for example.
[11:10] Also, if you introduce technology into a factory, into an organization, there's more than only technology. So the way humans fit on that, and which is very important, is also to be sure that the workers and their representatives are also involved in the process of introducing new technologies on the work floor. And not only at the end of the technology, but at the very beginning, because we also see that the people who work on the work floor, they have a lot of often tacit knowledge of how the production process works, which is not always that active, that knowledge, for example, with the engineers. So they often make mistakes, and then they introduce a technology on the work floor, and they miss some things. And that knowledge is sometimes very much within the workers.
[12:10] Have you seen real-life examples where automation has really clearly improved the work quality, but also the quality of work for the workers themselves?
[12:20] Yes. A few months ago, I was in Unilin, and Unilin is a factory which is quite known here in the region. They offer flooring solutions. They offer laminate, parquet, vinyl, carpet. They are known also for Quick-Step laminate, which is also famous for the cycling team, of course. And in Unilin we saw in the section where they prepared the orders for customers, which are custom orders, so which are always different. One customer orders, let's say, three packages of laminate, the other one five and six. So those orders are very different, and the packages which are made are also very different. First workers had to do it, had to take all those things. They had to pack them, but they were very different and they were very stressing also for their backs, for their shoulders, for example. And then they automated the packaging and loading process. And in that sense, strain for the workers was reduced immensely. And also problems, musculoskeletal problems for the back, for the shoulder, and so on, were also reduced. So here we have seen a process where labor was cut, really cut, because there were no workers involved anymore. But I think such processes and such changes, I think it's okay that machines take over. And those workers can be put at other places in the production process to do some elements where they don't have those health risks.
[14:10] And at the same time we can keep those factories here because we automate it. Yes. And because that's also a risk, of course, if we do not automate fast enough, then automation or cheaper labor elsewhere might take over. Indeed, and it was also a specific choice for Unilin to leave it here because they also offer or they promise their customers, if you order, you will get your package, let's say, in one or two days. That's impossible if you do the same in China or even in, let's say, in Romania.
[14:32] Maybe for you then, personally or as a trade union, how can worker representation actively improve the outcome of automation projects at companies? Or how do you support these automation projects?
[14:48] As I said before, I'm not a Luddite, so I will never say that we should stop automation and so on. But what is very important, of course, is that workers and workers' representatives have an essential role to play also, so they are involved in an early stage of the introduction of technology because they have knowledge, they have tacit knowledge, because it can also take away resistance if you introduce new technologies at the work floor. You still have the collaboration between workers, between humans and technology, machines. So it can take away resistance and again, it can also offer a lot of tacit knowledge which is maybe not that active within the engineers who make the machines. That is for me very important.
[15:48] To give one example, which is maybe a bit exaggerated, but still, I once heard the story of engineers who made a very big machine, a very large machine, and at the moment they wanted to take the machine to the factory, they were confronted with the fact that there were no doors through which they could put the machine into the factory. So they had to take off the roof to install the machine. And that's only one example. In chemistry, for example, you have a lot of switches at the machines, also for safety. A new machine was made, was put in the factory, and a few of the workers said that it will be impossible for us to work. We cannot reach the handles, the security handles. So those elements are very important. So involve workers in the early stages of developing technology. Involve worker representatives because they have also a broad view on how workers in the factory think, how workers in the factory feel about the introduction of new technology.
[16:40] That's absolutely a shift that we are also seeing in the industry: there used to be this concept of top-down shop floor operations where the management or the engineer said, "Okay, you have to execute it like this." And it completely shifted to more like a dialogue because the people on the shop floor, as you mentioned, have a lot of tacit knowledge. And you want also to absorb this tacit knowledge into your processes. Because then the whole organization can learn and become better, instead of just having this tacit knowledge live in people's individual heads.
[17:10] Absolutely, and not only for the introduction of new technology, but for example, also to foster, to stimulate innovation. And not only the big innovation, let's say we will make a new product, a totally new product, but also incremental innovation. And if you speak about incremental innovation, you do not speak necessarily of having a big R&D department, but you speak of how can workers on the work floor also add, improve production processes. And there again, it's not about technological innovation, it's also about social innovation. How do we organize labor at the work floor so people get enough space to innovate? Of course, technology can help: if you take away repetitive tasks by using technology, people have more space to think about certain things. So in that sense, you see that technological innovation and change can go hand in hand with social innovation, organizational innovation. I think we should emphasize, we should do both of those things. Because for me as a trade unionist, of course I'm interested in what people earn, the wage, which is important, but for me it's also very important that people get a job which is qualitative, which they like, which is interesting. So that, for me, is as important as what they receive in terms of a wage.
[18:35] Zooming out a little bit, what is the impact on the social dialogue? So the idea of fully autonomous factories, is it compatible with social dialogue? Will this really be a threat on the way our society functions right now?
[18:50] We are not at that stage yet. The dark factories and the images we sometimes see also of really dark factories in China, I don't think we're at that stage that it will be implemented very broadly in our economy. And even in automated factories, or where some parts of the factory is fully automated, you will still have some other functions like logistics, maintenance, IT services, HR, which are not automated, so you will still have people, still have human profiles, and also I think also in the foreseeable future. So in that sense, I guess there will still be some social dialogue also at the level of the organization.
[19:40] But imagine that, indeed, let's say in a few decades, everything is automated, maximize the automation. Of course, then you might say there will not be any social dialogue anymore at the level of the organization between capital and labor, to put it in those big terms. Of course, you will still need a dialogue between the factory, those who own the factory, and the surroundings, the environment, but also the neighbors. If I say the environment, I also mean the animals. They, of course, they cannot speak, but somebody will have to speak for them. The neighbors. So in that sense, there will be a dialogue between factory and things outside the factory, but within the factory it will be, of course, non-existent. Does it mean that we do not need social dialogue anymore at the sectoral level or at the intersectoral level, at the national level, for example? I guess we will still need that. At the intersectoral level, for me it will remain crucial, because without organized labor or without organized citizens, there will be less counterweight to capital, and this will have an influence on the incentive of redistribution of wealth, and the distribution of wealth.
[21:00] It is something we already see now in the world. So we see very much that capital concentrates. We see some very big enterprises, employers who are very powerful, so the capital concentrates a bit like in the early 1900s where we also had some big conglomerates in the United States. And to counterweight that, we will always need, let's say, a factor, and for me it's organized labor and by organized also by the trade unions, so we will not go to a society where wealth is very unevenly distributed. So for me, that will always be necessary at the intersectoral level.
[21:40] And don't you think that the free market will solve this and products will get cheaper and there will be a deflationary effect, or do you think the accumulation of wealth is perhaps a threat and we need to solve it, for example, with the robot tax? When the printers were booming, there was a printer tax. And companies that had a printer need to pay the printer tax. Is this feasible? Does it make sense? Or do you have another take at it?
[22:10] These are two different things. You say the free market will solve it. I don't think the free market will solve it, because if you look at the free market, how it operated, let's say, the last, the final decades. If you look to the United States and the influence very rich employers have on politics, for example, I don't think that the free market will solve this. A robot tax on robotization might be a possible solution, but I think it's an imperfect one. So I'm not in favor of a tax on machines, on robotization. As I said, I think robots are here to stay. Trying to delay them or even tax them, taxing them makes little sense. I guess it would also discourage firms, factories to invest in them, to make necessary investments, to make necessary innovations. They would simply leave. They would leave the country. They would leave the continent. So we would be left stranded with irrelevant industrial infrastructure if we do that. So we have to stimulate companies, factories to invest in automation and innovation. But very important, of course, that should not come at the expense of workers. Again, workers should be upgraded as well if we automate.
[23:32] And if I say workers should be upgraded, for me it's of course that they can have better jobs, more decent jobs, that they are trained to use the new machines, but that they can also participate in the benefits of, hopefully, the extra productivity the machines create, which is again a good job, a decent job, but also higher wages. In that sense, of course, automation also might lead to losing a lot of jobs, and then a part of the value which is being created in a factory will not be created anymore by labor, by workers, so that value will go to, let's say, to the employer, to the capital. And of course, at the societal level, we have to take care that the distribution of wealth is not that bad that we get problems. We already see it a bit in the world that has also an effect on democratic tendencies and so on. So for me, it's not a robot tax which is a solution, but rather taxing wealth so we can, at the societal level, make sure that the distribution of wealth is not that bad. And I guess that kind of wealth taxing will not discourage our economy from innovating, from investing in machines and automation.
[24:50] Because of the automation and because of AI advancements, I think there will be more and more people that don't really fit into the labor market anymore. Do you think this is true? And how can we make sure that we don't lose these people?
[25:05] I'm not that negative. First of all, we should invest in those people, of course. We should invest in training. Again, that's my data: invest in training from the beginning in education, but also during the career. That's one thing. Secondly, people might lose their jobs or the total amount of jobs in the industry might decrease because of automation, production processes which are automated. But we have a lot of work to do in our society. We have a lot of work to do in care, for example. We will be a country and a continent which will have more and more older people, so there will be a lot of work to do. And also in education, we will always need people who work there. And in those sectors, I really hope that people will always play a crucial role.
[26:08] Of course, if you look to care, you will have a combination of people and technology, helping other people. It would be perfect. But people will also always play a central role in those sectors. And today we have too little people working in those sectors. So it's also a question of how will we reorientate people who lose their job, or let's say people who earlier might go to the industry, but there are no jobs anymore. How can we orientate them towards the other jobs, other sectors in which technology might play a role but will never, to my view, replace human labor totally? And I think it's not acceptable that human labor would be replaced totally in those sectors, in those service sectors.
[26:50] That's a great answer, I think, to end the podcast with, because it's super optimistic. It means that there will be more room for humanity, more room for caring for each other as humans. It's a very nice way to end the podcast. Thank you, Stijn, for being here today.
[27:10] You're welcome.
