'I'm not joining the union' said So and So on Tuesday morning. 'It does nothing for us'.
There's murmuring in the warehouse this week. Fuelled by visions of the 'new era' as supervisors can be seen marching around the place holding the new warehouse gadgets. Gadgets to wire up to the workers to have better control over picking and packing and to increase efficiency. There's been notice that shift patterns will change to cover a 24 hour cycle; 6 am -2pm then 2pm- 10 pm and 10 pm - 6am ... 'er, no thanks'.
Application forms have been made available for a few full time jobs in the warehouse available on the 2-10 or the 10-6 shifts (the slightly less antisocial shift will be covered by existing full time staff), again, no thanks.
I arrived for my shift today - on time - feeling good and ready to give my labour, only to be told that the entire shift had been cancelled and hadn't I checked my messages before leaving home? Well I had actually, and it turned out that a message had been written but not sent, I was given an apology and told I'd be paid, great I answered; 'I can go home now and be paid for the shift?' No Rebecca, you'll be paid for the hour you've wasted getting here.
Ok I thought, holding on to the joyful prospect of the next 7 hours of my life that wouldn't need to be wasted in the warehouse; I'd been given some time.
But my head soon got cluttered up with other thoughts, the realisation of how little control I have over my time and that they determined how the days of life were spent. I tried to push these other thoughts aside, didn't want to have my mood altered by looking at the big picture; I didn't like seeing the big picture, my pitiful vulnerability. And then, thinking about the words of So and So on Monday, who'd said that the union does nothing for us, that we have no means for protection against the changes being implemented in this 'new era'; this technological invasion that threatens us; I get fired up and despondent in equal measures: fired up to fight back, to resist the changes ahead and at the same time I'm oppressed by the enormity of the task and resigned to the seeming inevitability of being subsumed in the wake of technological progress.
'Next week there'll be introduction sessions to the new head sets and wristbands' I was told this morning, 'there'll be training sessions beginning next week': my response was immediate; 'I probably won't be available on Monday', clearly resistant to change, to participate in the 'new era'. What's the purpose? To increase warehouse efficiency? And to what effect? Who benefits?? Not me, and not So and So; we are forced to comply, to participate in our own annihilation, so that we can be tracked and monitored and pitted against each other for efficiency; they will be able to make new sets of pie charts, graphs and infographics; to construct the demographic profile of the most productive type of warehouse operative. I think I might not measure up, how will I continue to function under those conditions? What of me can I put into the job? I'll be conditioned to communicate with an electronic device; I'll be directed by a voice through an ear piece; I guess that in theory, the automated system will prevent human error. It will eradicate human error, human fallibility, we will remain flesh, we'll wound and bleed but there'll be less error, we'll be directed by machines to function without error, without inter-human communication. I find myself looking at the material hardware hoping that it might not withstand a hard knock against a metal bookshelf, I want to see it as vulnerable, I'd like to see it easily fall apart, dysfunction, and then be abandoned to landfill. I imagine it leaving the space for a new order world to emerge, one in which people work together laterally, a world in which production and consumption activities are balanced, in which citizens of the planet work together for peace and life, all of life on the planet and beyond, and for sustainability. And then I think, I'm just an old fart that can't deal with change, a Luddite; so I give myself a talking to, 'get over it woman, it's progress, it's happening, work the transition, embrace the change'.
The future is clear says Janis Varoufakis;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgdtF3y0Ss
we are approaching a new technological era in which manual labour will surely be replaced by robots.
Where do we go and what will we do when the robots come??
My response to So and So was that WE ARE THE UNION. But we are tired and we're scared.
