Several years since the introduction of Clockwork domestic labour the government has yet to come up with a convincing solution as to how it plans to manage what some now believe is a problem of epidemic proportions.
‘Clocks’ now roam the streets aimlessly, with many being illegally ‘jailbroken’ from their original safety programming, while irrepairable units piled high in junkyards across the country.
The emergence of a group called the Machine Liberation Front calling for Clock civil rights has pitched government on a collision with the Church, while industrialists who were once championing the benefits of Clockwork labour, now face the propsect negotiating working practices with sentient machines.
Lady Frobisher Pilbeam, Queen’s Emissary to Science, believes that new laws are needed to help regulate the use of clockwork automata.
In a statement released yesterday she mentioned that the government was drafting a new legislation to regulate the disposal of Clocks and ensure the survival of those that were repairable, while penalising owners who damage their clocks through illegal jailbreaking.
Lady Frobisher said she had met with representatives of the Machine Liberation Front, and that discussions to find a solution to the current impasse were continuing.