Downside Adjustments

Year Published:  1983
Resource Type:  Film/Video
Cx Number:  CX2868

Abstract: 
The introduction of micro-chip technology into the workplace is restructuring the world economic system. The computerizaiton of the workplace affects every productive sector of the economy, and affects especially those who can no longer fit it.

DOWNSIDE ADJUSTEMENTS is a new film that investigates the social costs of high technology in one city, Windsor, Ontario, the automotive capital of Canada. The city's unemployment rate of 20 percent ranhs among the highest in the country. Paralleling this bleak statistic is the loss of thousands of homes to mortgage-holders. Family breakups and personal bankruptcies are at an unprecedented level.

DOWNSIDE ADJUSTEMENTS traces these problems through the story of one family, and is so doing draw together the local, national, and international implications of technological change. It shows that what is happening in Windsor may well happen across the country, and its shows that the communities and working people affected by these changes will have to be informed and prepared to confront the issues of technological change.