Offices where secretaries have been replaced by computerised work stations; factories where skilled workers have made way for numerically-controlled machines; hotels and shops where the human face of service has been replaced by micro-electronic efficiency ... is this to be the future of work?
This is the first of three programmes in which Michael Rodd , Judith Hann and Peter Williams examine the impact on jobs of new technologies. Should Britain resist the march of the microprocessor and preserve The Right to Work? Or should we welcome the silicon chip? Tonight's programme speculates on a future in which Britain has come to terms with this new Industrial Revolution. A small minority of highly-skilled people holding down the few worthwhile jobs; leisure centres in which others attempt to come to terms with increased unemployment; the danger of a society split by the shortage of work - or a country prospering on its ability to make and market the new goods and services?
As union leader BARRIE SHERMAN states, if we get the answers wrong ' we shall be running this nation at bayonet point'.
Film directors
SOPHY ROBINSON , CHARLES HUFF Studio director JOHN GORMAN Editor MICHAEL BLAKSTAU