A new hazard hovers over today's workplace -- high wages. The risk of high wages is due to globalization. Time was when workers only competed with other workers in the same industry in the same country. High pay had status and drove the drones to emulate the leaders. But 'times they are a-changin'."

Two similar scenes and situations share my screen. One scene is set in Bloomington, Indiana; the other takes place in three separate locations, all in British Columbia. One involves the manufacturing of television sets; the other concerns the pulp and paper industry.

The world's first television factory will be closed by RCA TV in Bloomington on April 1, 1998. It was the first factory in a chain of such factories located in countries around the world dedicated to the manufacture and production of the "set" that captivated the entire world. This first factory produced 65 million RCA television sets during its 57-year span. The factory's 1,100 workers, who rarely ever worried about employment, now know about stress.

Yet television sets are still being manufactured and are still in big demand. The Bloomington plant was still the largest television plant in the world. What went wrong? How could this closing happen? Perhaps it came about because the workers at this plant were the highest paid television-set producers in the United States and probably in the world.

The plant was acquired from General Electric in 1986 by its last owners, Thomson S.A. of France. Between 1986 and 1996, Thompson did not profit from their operations. Productivity did not increase but wages froze. The so-called success funnel did not develop. "Ten years of losses is enough," said management. "The entire plant moves to Juarez, Mexico, next April Fool's Day."

This is no joke. This is what happened.

With a wage differential of US$17 an hour between an American plant and the plant in Mexico, the choice of manufacturing location becomes an economic necessity. Thomson estimates savings of $350 million during the next decade.

About 4,000 km (2,500 miles) northwest of Indiana, in small towns in British Columbia, there are three pulp mills, owned and operated by New Zealand-headed Fletcher Challenge. Their Judgment Day is fast approaching. Some 2,400 forestry workers, already the highest paid on the planet, went on strike because they wanted a 12 percent wage hike and retention of the status quo. They demanded it because management wanted to introduce workplace efficiencies like allowing any worker to remove bolts from a machine instead of having three workers, one from each trade, stand around until the project is completed. The pulp and paper union says no to this "innovation." It is a strike over job security, the third such labour stoppage in five years.

The high salaries in British Columbia are protected by rigid rules against efficiencies that would allow the company to at least attempt to compete with forestry products from Russia and with the new competition in the Southern Hemisphere where producers can "manufacture a ton of pulp for less than we pay for the fibre." The old ways are no longer viable. Bloomingdale, Indiana, and these small towns in British Columbia have become "twinned cities," linked in economic disaster. They will not be the last. Self-created doom will result. Remember you read it here first.

A couple of years ago a slight continuing pain in my left hip area suggested I might need one of those neat new nylon hip replacements. After a physical examination, my doctor referred me for a MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imager) scan. But there was a three-month wait for an appointment. My heavy, travelling speaking schedule might not permit setting any specific appointment anyhow. I would have to decide between cancelling a three-month-old appointment and fulfilling a speaking contract. What to do?

This is a problem faced by many people who dutifully pay their medicare fees on time, but then have to wait several months for diagnostic tests or specialist consultations. Some people wait longer, depending on their particular problem. So I decided to research this apparent problem and perhaps write an article on it.

A country like Canada has a single-tiered medical health system. In the United States there is a two-tiered system; Americans have the choice of a restricted public system or private medical care. I decided to remain in Canada, so I went to the "invisible tier," a British Columbia-based, privately owned, government-approved MRI scanning clinic. I took the route open to any citizen: I phoned the company that supplied the MRI service and asked the secretary how busy it was. "Come now or tomorrow. No appointment is needed, but you may have to wait 30 minutes." I went. No waiting. I was out in 20 minutes. It cost me $700. But for me, that was a relatively inexpensive amount to pay for immediate service. I earn more than $700 when I deliver a seminar. I saved money. I avoided worry. The private MRI clinic allowed me to keep working.

Almost every citizen realizes that Canada's highly vaunted medicare system must evolve. Why not two tiers? If it is cheaper because of work schedules, legal

contracts, etc., we should all do what is best for us and our country. By going to a private MRI clinic, I took pressure off the public hospital system and personally earned more money, half of which went to Revenue Canada. Can that be bad?

The private clinic immediately provided four large MRI transparencies of my scans to take back to my GP for examination. (Try to arrange that in the public system.) Result: I was told not to carry heavy bags to my seminars. Use doorman, bellhops, porters, etc. I did what I was told. The pain vanished. The government system saved even more money.

Later, a severe cough threatened to abort a couple several speaking engagements. My GP prescribed an antibiotic that gave me some side effects. I stopped the medication and he prescribed another medication, one not covered under the new provincial rules for drug repayment. It cost me $60. But it let me work during a busy period. That made the cost minuscule, in my case. But many cannot afford to bypass such government controls. Bureaucrats and beancounters now control the medicare system.

Not good.

Labour has to look for a new union boss -- a type of boss so different from the type who did the job for unions past that even the title "union boss" will never be used again. Such bosses are available but have three strikes against them from the beginning. They would cost too much (no stock options available from the labour treasury); they are not part of the labour movement and they may not like the traditional militant attitude of present union members; and they would not be accepted by most union members because they resist the reality of the changing workplace.

A classic example of what technology has accomplished -- and the trend is just beginning -- is the retail motion picture industry. Time was when every cinema required two projectionists to handle the heavy complex machinery to turn cans of celluloid into an emotional experience. It was a time-consuming, intense, and a job that kept the projectionist on his toes at 20-minute intervals. Now one projectionist is more than ample and he or she has a lot of time on his or her hands. The upscale equipment used today is lighter and simpler. The press of a button starts the show and the projectionist waits two hours to press the button again. Movie owners think the union pay of $30,000 to $40,000, with benefits, plus present union demands for an increase, is too much for the workload.

In Ontario, the movie chain Cineplex-Odeon continues in a strike mode with former projectionists. The union resists layoffs, while the company wants to reduce projectionist staff 50 percent and drop projectionists salaries to $24,480 from $29,120. The union says that is a 66 percent pay drop. Some movie chain owners say technology has changed the picture. One owner claims a projectionist needs less skill than a hamburger flipper at McDonald's. This may be true, but it is a big blow for macho union types.

Future cinema technology is even more inviting. Cineplex-Odeon now controls 680 screens throughout North America. They plan to open up an additional 500 by 1998, 40 percent of them in Canada. Most all will be smaller room, multi-screen, several-choices-at-one-location emporiums.

This is but one instance of a business growing rapidly in sophistication but requiring fewer skills from union employees. For almost a year now, Cineplex Odeon has been using younger, non-union staff to press the button. They love their new jobs even at lower-than union wages. They are actually getting paid to watch movies. It is a screenager's dream job.

Reports say some film damage was caused by the inexperience of the new replacement workers when they first took over the catbird seats. But complaints dropped after a few weeks of experience at pressing buttons.

The final offer of the exhibitors included dropping about 45 projectionists and substantial pay cuts, included severance packages of one week's pay for each year on the job -- to a maximum of 26 weeks and a two-year retraining package valued at $6,000 per lay-off.

The strike was settled but the conflict continues. Meanwhile, upcoming cable modems have the capability of downloading a two-hour film in one minute in your own home. Held in your computer or additional black box, the film trickles out for the next 120 minutes. Excerpts or promotion clips of movies have started appearing "live" on the net. Within a year, the conversion of the home computer and the television set, enhanced by cable modem bringing in content from the World Wide Web, may offer free movies supported by movie ads just like old-fashioned TV used to provide.

Just the other day I read on the screen, "One hour quality VHS video has just been delivered, in a laboratory experiment over fibre-optic cable, in one hundredth (1/100th) of a second." Theoretically it is now possible for one projectionist to control or operate every theatre in America (over a centrally operated computerized system).

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change." Charles Darwin said it first.