In an environment of accelerating automation and digitalisation, will lifelong learning be the key to staying in our chosen job or profession? How should we address the challenge of informal work? What will happen to jobs impacted by the climate crisis? And what role will trade unions play in all of this?
A little over a decade and a half ago, a consulate official in Hong Kong told me: “I’m 50 years old, I’ve already studied what I had to study and I’m not going to get any more training. I’m 50, 50!” I don’t remember what I replied at that moment because, as someone who misses very little SNL, my mind had already gone to a memorable sketch where Sally O’Malley, played by comedian Molly Shannon, says: “I’m 50 and I like to kick, stretch and kick!”
Although the world of work was already changing 15 years ago, albeit at pace that we could still grasp, her attitude stuck with me, particularly for its uniqueness. Since then, I have yet to come across another professional who has refused to undertake new training, often a must for changing jobs, moving up in a company or even retaining a current position. This is the reality in which we find ourselves, one in which we can no longer simply rely on what we learned during our years of academic training.
But whether lifelong learning will be the key to remaining in our chosen job or profession remains unclear. Digitalisation and new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) present new challenges for workers, particularly – in this current phase – for those with higher salaries and more intellectual profiles, as well as for the trade unions that represent them. The use of AI, in order to improve productivity in a company (theoretically), should be done by having human beings in the loop, and then the question that follows is: at what wages, equal to those before the implementation of AI or lower? Who will pay for ongoing training? Will new jobs be created and will they have a certain future, or will they be ‘ephemeral’ or even ‘liquid’? If both governments and civil society ‘accept’ that big tech companies offer nothing but solutions and that the design of their products needn’t be subject to human rights imperatives, who will be responsible for (negative) disruptions in the world of work and in the environment?
As we face this complex and uncertain future (one that is closer than we might like to believe), we are confronted with another reality: that of an entire population working in the informal sector of the economy, which in many countries accounts for more than 90 per cent of the employed population, as well as an increasing number of workers becoming unemployed (in rural areas, for example) as a direct consequence of the climate crisis.
As a media outlet specialising in the world of work, we at Equal Times have been closely following these developments since our inception in 2012. For this summer special, we have put together a small selection of articles that outline the challenges facing workers and the specific solutions proposed by trade unions, experts, NGOs and specialised international organisations. These are recipes for further progress on decent work for all that ensures that our health and safety at work, as well as our digital rights, are respected. The selection also shows how trade unions are adapting to new realities, and covers the state of regulation of digitalisation and the new technologies that are disrupting the world of work. Last but not least, these articles put the focus on people, and put people at the centre of the present and future of work.
This is how our work will be shared with algorithms and robots
By María José Carmona
An image of a robot waiter, alongside a human waiter, at the Da Bruno Sul Mare restaurant in Marbella, Spain.
[…] Few jobs, they say, are fully automatable. What will be automated for sure are certain tasks, the most physical, the most repetitive. Around 60 per cent of jobs are estimated to have at least 30 per cent automatable tasks. Artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT, for example, is expected to be able to take on at least 10 per cent of certain language-related tasks.
“If it’s well managed, it could bring very positive changes. What springs to mind are all the workplace accidents that can be avoided, all that physical or mental workload that we can do away with,” anthropologist Bárbara Urban tells Equal Times.
“Ideally, the robots will take care of the heavy, dangerous, tedious work and the people with them will have more time for training, a better work-life balance, they will work less, work better.” In the case of waiters, thanks to Bellabot, they will be able to spend less time going back and forth and more time with the customers.
Seen from this perspective, we are moving towards a new division of labour in which humans that can compete with machines will not be sought after but humans that are able to contribute what machines cannot. […]
Read the full article on Equal Times
YouTubers of the world, unite! – what happens when a grassroots, international creators’ movement and a traditional trade union join forces?
By Jelena Prtorić
In 2018, YouTube content creator Jörg Sprave formed the YouTubers Union after changes in the algorithm negatively impacted the video rankings and incomes of YouTubers. Following a popular campaign, the union manage to negotiate more rights and better conditions for content creators.
[…] In July 2019, YTU and IG Metall launched the FairTube campaign which consisted of three main elements: a viral 14 minute video in which Sprave outlined the ways in which “it seems like YouTube doesn’t want independent YouTubers anymore”, a campaign website, and six demands for YouTube. The key pressure points included a prospect of a lawsuit against YouTube/Google on the grounds of false self-employment and violation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and “collaborative brand attacks” (which would involve YouTubers working en-masse to create videos discrediting YouTube). The campaign received a lot of attention – the size of YTU’s Facebook group almost doubled during the course of the campaign – and YouTube was ready to negotiate.
Thanks to the campaign, YouTube creators now have greater transparency (algorithms are now explained thoroughly), clearer rules, better communication with YouTube, arbitration power (access to senior YouTube managers to challenge decisions regarding cancellations and demonetisations), and greater participation (YouTube now asks its content creators for their feedback regarding innovations). […]
Read the full article on Equal Times
Faced with the difficulty of organising in the informal sector, trade unions in the Democratic Republic of Congo are taking a step-by-step approach
By Bernadette Vivuya
Women sell vegetables at the central market of Virunga, Goma, eastern DRC. These workers operate in the informal sector, which accounts for an overwhelming share of the Congolese economy (between 81.5 and 97.5 per cent).
Kettya Kamin Ket has a successful small business selling pagnes, traditional fabric, at the Liberté market in Kinshasa, located between the city centre and Ndjili International Airport. Today, she makes enough to provide for herself and can even afford to hire an employee. But this wasn’t always the case. A few years ago her business was faltering, not least because of tracasseries, the common practice of state agents extorting workers in the informal economy under the pretext of a new tax or imaginary offence. Municipal officials, for example, demanded that Ket pay twice the official amount for the licence she needed to operate. […]
Kettya Kamin Ket’s only option was to seek help. “I couldn’t manage on my own. Things changed when a trade union conducted an awareness-raising campaign in our neighbourhood,” she explains. Trade unionists from CSC were able to talk to some merchants at the Liberté market. Crammed together with buyers, sellers and goods in the muggy atmosphere of the giant covered market, it was an opportunity for the union activists to learn about the difficulties that these workers face. “Every time we visit we hear the same thing,” says Joséphine Shimbi Umba, head of the informal economy division of the CSC. […]
Read the full article on Equal Times
Why craftsmanship is the future of work – and what it means for organisations and individuals
By Laëtitia Vitaud
Craftsmanship is the exact opposite of the world of division of labour and subordination. There are several reasons to believe that craftsperson-like working conditions are set to dominate the future of work – and that we have everything to gain from it.
[…] more workers are questioning the division of labour and subordination. Why subject yourself to this alienation without the security that went with it? The ‘existential crisis’ and the rejection of ‘mindless jobs’ are a reflection of these doubts. In addition, while machines transform certain trades and allow the automation of repetitive and routine tasks, human work has further reasons to look to the values of craftsmanship.
I don’t define crafts primarily as a sector or a series of manual trades – baker, cheese maker, carpenter, or cabinetmaker – although these trades are often good examples of the craft model. No, craftsmanship is first of all a form of work organisation which is defined in opposition to the industrial model – this outdated model where workers must be interchangeable, products standardised for more reliability, and where there is a one-best-way that can be replicated on a large scale to mass produce goods or services. […]
Read the full article on Equal Times
Negotiating the two faces of digitalisation
By Christina Colclough
“Whilst the process of automation is nothing new, the extent and speed of it is. It has been estimated that over 300 million jobs worldwide will be severely affected by these systems.”
[…] Whilst the process of automation is nothing new, the extent and speed of it is. This is not least due to the launch this year of corporate-driven generative AI systems, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. It has been estimated that over 300 million jobs worldwide will be severely affected by these systems.
In time, this disruption will hit workers across all occupations. In education, teachers will be able to use these systems to prepare lesson plans or evaluate student exams. In the film and media world, scripts could be written, special effects designed, and actors replaced by automation. Journalism can be automated, fiction writing too. In the health sector, patient care plans, illness diagnosis and even care workers can be substituted by machines. Coders, accountants, game developers, could all be out of work. Customer call centres could be fully automated, research jobs as well.
Yet the impact of this disruption will not be equally felt across the world and across skill levels. A recent report from global consulting firm McKinsey finds that: “Adoption is also likely to be faster in developed countries, where wages are higher and thus the economic feasibility of adopting automation occurs earlier. Even if the potential for technology to automate a particular work activity is high, the costs required to do so have to be compared with the cost of human wages.” It further states that “generative AI has more impact on knowledge work associated with occupations that have higher wages and educational requirements than on other types of work”. […]
Read the full article on Equal Times
Aída Ponce del Castillo, researcher: “CEOs like Sam Altman of OpenAI can negotiate with a state as if they themselves were a state. What are the consequences for democratic governance?”
By Marta Checa
“The current industrial revolution is invisible, immaterial and is taking place at a much faster rate. The risks of certain software are not readily apparent. Trade unions and workers have to keep a critical eye on all emerging technologies. We need to know how to ask concrete and useful questions,” says Aída Ponce del Castillo, pictured here.
The disruptive potential of new technologies has been a constant throughout history. The main difference between the present moment and previous turning points is the speed with which changes are currently taking place (artificial intelligence, AI, specifically) and our inability to understand them (without study). This leads to a major imbalance between the developers of this new technology and the rest of the world. European Union lawmakers have begun the process of regulating AI. How do they plan to protect citizens, and more specifically workers, jobs and the environment?
We spoke with Aída Ponce del Castillo, a lawyer specialising in science and technology, and a PhD in Law and researcher at the European Trade Union Institute’s (ETUI) Foresight Unit, to find out how well equipped the current legislative proposal is to respond to the challenges of AI, let alone of the new technologies that will follow. […]
