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The transformation of work

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The future of work is an ever-present concern for workers in a globalised economy characterised by footloose finance, fickle supply chains and above all ‘flexible’ labour markets. Fewer and fewer workers enjoy regular labour contracts—with associated social entitlements—and risk is increasingly being displaced on to labour by the rise of short-term and zero-hours employment and notional self-employment at the behest of platform contractors.

These changes have been advanced as having a purely economic logic—replacing the ‘dead hand’ of the state with the ‘invisible hand’ of the market. Yet what has really been at stake is a decades-long shift in the balance of social and political power towards capital, reversing the gains for labour in western Europe and north America deriving from the postwar settlement.

 

post-work,populism ‘Post-work’ visions for 2030Maria Mexi
teleworking,public sector Teleworking in the public sectorGeorgios Nasios
gig workers Gig workers: guinea pigs of the new world of workPierre Bérastégui
labour platforms The infrastructural power of platform capitalismFunda Ustek-Spilda, Fabian Ferrari, Matt Cole, Pablo Aguera Reneses and Mark Graham
new forms of employment,non-standard work New forms of employment in Europe—how new is new?Irene Mandl
industry 4.0,digitalisation,automation The many worlds of work in the 4.0 eraWerner Eichhorst
right to disconnect,telework Telework and the ‘right to disconnect’Oscar Vargas Llave and Tina Weber
public services, EPSU Ensuring trade unions have a say in the transformation of workRichard Pond and Jan Willem Goudriaan
flexibility, flexible labour Gig-life balance?Agnieszka Piasna
digital labour platforms, cross-border social dialogue An international governance system for digital labour platformsThorben Albrecht, Kostas Papadakis and Maria Mexi
The platform economy—time for decent ‘digiwork’Maria Mexi
European Pillar of Social Rights,social pillar Shaping the future of democracy at workIsabelle Schömann
psychosocial risks,mental health at work,mental health and wellbeing The transformative impact of tech firms’ technologiesIvan Williams Jimenez
Marcinelle,mining disaster,Bois du Cazier The right to socially useful workKate Holman
digital labour platforms, cross-border social dialogue A human-centred approach to the future of work: time to walk the walkThorben Albrecht
mobile work Mind the gapOliver Suchy
Industry 4.0 Industry 4.0: the transformation of work?Hartmut Hirsch-Kreinsen
digital capitalism Enclosing the marketPhilipp Staab
restructuring Anticipating the Covid-19 restructuring tsunamiJudith Kirton-Darling and Isabelle Barthès
algorithmic systems Workers’ rights: negotiating and co-governing digital systems at workChristina Colclough

This steady erosion of worker security has been critically facilitated by the rise of digital technologies. These have allowed capital to reorganise labour on a scale never imagined by Frederick Taylor or Henry Ford—to make it merely another ‘just-in-time’ commodity to use up in the production process.

Yet this is a double-edged sword: ‘informational’ or ‘cognitive’ capitalism relies on the knowledge inside the heads of today’s ‘labour aristocracy’ of analysts, gleaned through public education rather than the tutelage of firm apprenticeships. Demands for greater control at work and even ownership are likely to rise accordingly. As is the right to do work that is socially useful—which is for the public good and at minimum does not generate ‘negative externalities’, such as contributing to climate breakdown or biodiversity collapse.

Were the pattern of recent decades to be sustained, a dystopia would hove into view of workers under ever-more tight monitoring and surveillance, with an intensified labour process, depressed incomes and no freedom from work demands even away from the workplace. Alternatively, however, the huge rise in productivity associated with digitalisation could be captured by empowered labour and used to seek shorter working time, greater flexibility from a worker’s point of view, more freedom to work from home, a better work-life balance, a genuine sharing of domestic labour and proper valuation of workers in socialised care.

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