- Conference
- 2018 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 15 September 2017
- Decision
- Carried
Women and Automation
Conference notes that automation and digitisation of jobs is changing the nature, quality, and distribution of employment, not just within sectors such as manufacturing and distribution, but in the sphere of public services too.
This means that there is a mistaken view that Automation affects jobs that are predominantly done by men.
It is predicted that between 25% and 40% of current UK jobs could be lost to automation and digitisation; and that a specific study by the Reform thank-tank predicts that 250,000 job losses will come from public service employers. The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, predicts 15 million jobs (40% of the UK workforce) could be automated in a generation.
This provides a significant challenge for not only the world of work but also the ways in which trade unions organise within these workplaces.
Technology has already made a significant impact to the jobs that women carry out. For example – the role of the secretary / personal assistant has become both deskilled / more highly skilled due to the ability of a manager to deal with their own emails. The challenge for trade unions is to ensure that technology works to enhance and enable the creation of higher skilled, better paid jobs and improve the lives and work of women.
Conference calls on the National Women’s Committee to work with appropriate bodies within UNISON to seek to ensure that a women’s perspective is integral to the trade union strategy on automation.