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Introduction

In 1900, work for most people meant labouring in a field or a factory or inside the home. Pay had risen, but there was no national insurance, so if you got sick, you had to pay the doctor. The materials you worked with – typically, iron, cloth, leather and wood – had not changed for centuries. If you were lucky, you had some rights at work, but you risked getting shot by the police if you demonstrated for higher wages or safer working conditions.

In 2000, work had been drastically changed by new technology. Now even farmers had computers, and some people in rural villages in Asia could e-mail their relatives in other countries. Pay for many people had risen beyond the dreams of their grandparents, and quite a few countries had social security and welfare schemes. People worked with new materials such as plastics, used high-tech machines and had access to a brand-new source of information – the internet. However, if they demonstrated too hard against the globalised world economy, they were likely to get arrested.

The 20th century saw a massive shift in the experience of working people. It moved from a world in which the majority toiled by hand with traditional implements to a world where increasing numbers of people worked in front of computer screens or with other technological aids.

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