International Labor Organization

The annual report of the Director-General (Morse) of the International Labor Organization (ILO) to the 39th session of the ILO Conference emphasized the effects of technological change on social patterns. The Director-General stated that in the economically under-developed countries where industrialization was proceeding at a rapid pace, vast numbers of persons had been uprooted from their traditional ways of life, and communal and family ties had weakened in the new industrial societies. In the industrially advanced countries, the Director General continued, the expansion of industry had constantly affected various aspects of the social life of the people, such as their consumption habits and their leisure time; he maintained that the progress of technology and economic organization had made industry an increasingly intricate mechanism, with the result that even the skilled worker comprehended less and less of the total process anddeveloped a feeling of helplessness in the face of industrial forces. According to the DirectorGeneral, if no means were found of giving a real social significance to industrial work in the industrialized countries, the danger of violence and turmoil would be increased rather than lessened by the growth of industry. The Director-General felt that the ILO had a special responsibility for dealing with the problems of social relationships and institutional growth. He asserted that ILO's regular program would help to fulfill this responsibility and he noted ILO's work on cooperative organization and the activities of the industrial committees as examples of the way the organization had approached these problems in the past. He suggested three main lines of development for ILO's future work in this field: i) to increase awareness throughout the world of the implications for social policy of new industrial processes, such as the application of automation in industry and the industrial uses of atomic energy; 2) to establish a workers' education program which would provide practical training for the workers in different countries in how to deal rationally and effectively with their own social problems; and 3) to promote better labor-management relations.