Last week two FUTOURWORK researchers took part in the European Trade Union Institute’s sixth Future of Work conference in Brussels.
The two-day conference explored how digitalisation, AI and algorithmic management are reshaping work, and how regulation and industrial relations must evolve to keep pace.
Michela Trentin (University of Westminster) and Dora Fonseca (CoLABOR) delivered a presentation titled ‘Digital promises, precarious realities: Reassessing social dialogue under algorithmic management in tourism and hospitality’, developed together with Felicia Rosioru of Babeş-Bolyai University.
Considering the context of the recently enacted Platform Work Directive and AI Act, the presentation examined the role of social dialogue and collective bargaining to address legislative gaps. They argued that the role of unions is key to rebalancing the asymmetry of power that new technology exacerbates within already precarious working conditions.
Their conclusions were in keeping with those of many other researchers during the conference: that laws and regulations are important, but enforcement remains the challenge, and it cannot happen without social dialogue and collective bargaining.
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