The past year-and-a-half the world was confronted with a pandemic that had great impact on our lives. Everything that we considered normal and took for granted was no longer possible. Social life was disrupted. Going to the workplace was not the obvious thing to do and was actually discouraged. So what will this mean for the future of work? For the organization and its culture? And what will the consequences be for the leadership?
Around 50 trade union leaders and experts debated the future of work during a two-day seminar in the city of Vienna. The seminar was organized by the World Organization of Workers (WOW) in cooperation with the European Centre for Workers’ Questions (EZA) and supported by the European Commission. The main question being “What will the world of work and the workplace look like after further digitalization and an increase in remote work?”.
“Concerns about the Future of Work are not new”, said Maria Mexi, Employment and Social Policy Specialist & Fellow at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy and Senior Consultant at the ILO (Greece). Before the pandemic there were many fears about the impact and disruption digitalization and digital advances would have on the labour-market. This conversation shifted after the outbreak of the pandemic. “It is clear now that he digital genie is not going back in the bottle, and we must plan for a future of work based on ‘decent digiwork’ rooted in self-respect and dignity, security and equal opportunity, representation and voice.” Maria Mexi stressed.
Michael Gogola, Legal Expert of the GPA (Austria) focused on the challenges of remote work. “There are many opportunities, but just as many risks”, he said. What is very important is to have solid legal arrangements. It will have to be completely clear who is responsible for what. The legal framework for ‘Homeoffice’ should be defined clearly.
Astrid Schöggl, Expert Digital Affairs at the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour (Austria) looked at digitalization from the perspective of the organization. She sees a lot of fields of conflict when it comes to digitalization and the organization. Particularly when looking at controlling and surveillance. At the workplace there are systems in place to see what employees are doing. This is less clear for employees working remotely. Causing a crisis of organization.
A very different approach came from Sr?an Senjanin who spoke on “How to use your mind in creating trade unions in the digital age”. Whereas in the past most people you knew saw and read more or less the same things we see that teenagers in the digital days read different books, play different games, like different movies. Finding common grounds for connecting seems impossible. For trade unions: “You can use technology of the digital age but it doesn’t mean that your communication is in the digital age! Communication is key, but it only works if you know your target group; know everything about your services; communicate in the language of your target group.
Irina Semjonova, Expert of the Project “Practical Implementation and Improving Supervision of Labor Protection Regulations” Free Trade Union Confederation of Latvia – LBAS (Latvia) focused on the perspective of employees and employers when it comes to remote work. Here too it was tressed that there is an important role for the employers to play. Whereas employees see quite a number of benefits, the employers are not fully convinced. Though they also see advantages, they also perceive things differently considering labour protection and home work environment the responsibility of the employees.
Ian DeWaard, CLAC Provincial Director Ontario and Mrs. Annette Taylor, CLAC Human Resources Director (Canada) presented “The Rise In Remote And Gig Work, and a Union’s Response”. The developments in Canada are not much different from Europe with a sharp increase in remote work (from 4% in 2016 to 32% in 2021). As was stated previously, the lines are getting blurred between work and private, with over 80% of workers reporting working longer hours. That people embrace remote work becomes clear when 43% of Canadians state that they would look for new job if mandated to work in office fulltime. For unions an important task to monitor the developments.
The final speaker was Gerfried Stocker, Managing and Artistic Director of Ars Electronica (Austria). He started his presentation with a statement: ‘If you think education is expensive, try ignorance’. He made a distinction between DIGITization, DIGITALization, DIGITAL Transformation. Each of these requiring a different type of skill. Stocker states that “The pandemic has brought a new „wave of immigration“ into the „digital space“”. The digital world is accessible to more and more people with all levels of education and interest. Artificial Intelligence is on the rise. But to whom belong the data and what if AI causes damage? Interesting questions for which there are no answers yet.
So has the pandemic opened a door of no return when it comes to digitalization, remote work and the workplace. Developments were already in place well before, but the pandemic did speed up things. In a short span of time much changed. Faster than normally would be the case. This is a true challenge to employers, employees and trade unions. All stakeholders are trying to find out what is best. This will be an ongoing process. When one looks at the technical progress made in the last thirty years it becomes clear that the challenge is not easy. Again, communication (and trust) are key. And that is what we as unions are quite good at.
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