 1991-2091 Into the Next Century
Next month’s official celebration of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Worker’s centennial year is more than just an opportunity to look back over the last century of the union’s accomplishments and struggles; it’s an opportunity to look ahead. Because looking at history doesn’t just tell us about where we’ve been, it helps us understand where we are, and it prepares us for where we’re going.
The world of the IBEW’s second century promises to bring many new challenges and changes. Technology is on the verge of a digital revolution, the nature of work in each IBEW’s branches is clearly moving in new directions, the makeup of the work force continues to change, and the very status of organized labor will be different in the next century.
Technological Revolution
The most dramatic changes to take place in the next century are likely to be in technological breakthroughs. Homes, workplaces, transportation, broadcasting and communication systems, even supermarkets, stand on the verge of truly revolutionary change. Much of this change centers on the technology of digital information processing.
Processing information digitally is not new. Since the 1940s machines have been built to translate information to numerical codes, move it through various circuits and translate it back. In time, a simple system called binary was developed, whereby all information (most often math equations) was translated into a long series of “zeros” and “ones.” These early computers handled vastly complex math problems in relatively short periods of time.
Over the following years systems-software and hardware- were developed to handle words as well as math digitally. And today, computers have the ability to translate words, images, numbers, even sounds, into binary codes and store them, call them up and change them around.
Digital technology is now being used in many more things than what we think of as computers in the traditional sense. Telephones now possess the ability to translate sounds into binary code and send it in digital pulses of light along hair-thin cables. Computer-like features, such as voice mail and Caller ID, are becoming commonplace in today’s phone systems. Compact-Disk technology also uses digital information storage. Laser light is used to decipher digitally coded information on the CD-whether it’s music or computer software-and pass it digitally to the CD player in a stereo system or to a computer terminal. The information is transmitted with virtually no loss of quality or the distortion inherent in the old analog 33-1/3 LPs and analog magnetic tapes.
It is really only a matter of time before our homes are transformed by this digital technology-where all electrical equipment will be wired together into one “smart” system. A phone call to your house from you (using a special code on a digital phone) could start the oven, the dishwasher and the washing machine. Sensors around the house could turn lights on and off as needed, and keep a close watch on heating and cooling throughout the house. And interactive television could allow an almost unlimited choice of viewing and business-related options. Digital television would also likely have the ability to store, replay and rearrange images displayed on its screen, opening up even more possibilities.
Offices and workplaces stand to change just as dramatically with the spread of digital technology. Today’s instantaneous transfer of information enables offices to spread out—really spread out. For example, a document on the computer screen in a firm’s Washington, D.C., office can now be called up almost instantly in the firm’s San Francisco office. A writer in Bangor, Maine, can have his latest work reviewed in New York and returned to him via computer hookup—with corrections—later that afternoon. Fax machines send hard copies of documents in an instant. And video conferencing now makes it possible to hold a meeting in four countries without anyone ever going out the door.
Industrial work is changing as well. Robotics and automation are now the norm in large-scale manufacturing. And it takes a far more skilled worker to run and maintain those industrial machines than was required 20 years ago.
IBEW, Branching Out
Work for each branch of the IBEW has been changing rapidly and is set to make some giant leaps in the near future. Utility Branch members have increases in job complexity to look forward to. At last year’s IBEW Utility Conference, Utility Department Director Robert Macdonald said,
“Utility workers, no matter what classification they are in today—and even more so in the future—will be required to make more independent decisions, to read more technical data.” Alternative energy-generation systems, long supported by the Brotherhood, will no doubt come into their own in the next century. Safe nuclear power-generated electricity produced by clean fusion reactors will be a reality. So too will cost-effect solar-, wind-, hydro- geothermal-generated power be producing high percentages of North America’s electricity.
Telecommunications Branch members were shaken up in 1982 when AT&T was forced by the U.S. government to give up control of its regional telephone carriers known as the “Baby Bells.” U.S. District Judge Harold Greene presided over a consent decree which stopped AT&T from competing in the local and regional phone market, but allowed them to design and manufacture telecommunications and computer equipment. In addition, the decree stopped the Baby Bells from designing and manufacturing equipment, but gave them the exclusive rights to provide local phone service. It now looks like that arrangement may change, and with it will change the nature of equipment manufacturing, and installation work.
But regardless who provides which services to the public, the digital evolution is poised to drastically change all aspects of telecommunication. Automation will continue to take its toll on the work force. Smaller, more portable telephones will likely be in people’s pockets, carried with the casualness with which we wear a watch today. With improved switching technology, each person could le assigned one phone number, at which he or she could be reached no matter which phone happens to be nearby. And clearly telephone-computer compatibility will improve to the point where picking Up a telephone will give you close to the full power of a personal computer.
The introduction of high technology into the factory has already changed the face of Manufacturing Branch work. Robotics, computer- regulated equipment and automation will continue to redefine the way Americans and Canadians manufacture goods. Additionally, an increase in the number of mergers and acquisitions of manufacturing companies has changes manufacturing –and such change is l | 
