Section: Work and Equal Opportunities

The UNI Europa project „Shaping Industrial Relations in a Digitalising Services Industry - Challenges and Opportunities for Social Partners“, in cooperation with “ZSI – Zentrum für Soziale Innovation” and promoted by the European Commission, aims to identify and analyse change factors and explore new approaches for social partners on the challenges of maintaining effective industrial relations systems in a digitalising services industry. The project strives to provide policy advice for trade unions, social partners and policymakers on necessary adaptations of institutional frameworks for industrial relations, collective bargaining, social dialogue and capacity building for social partners. Challenges and opportunities are identified and analysed in particular with regard to workers’ representation at company level and collective bargaining as well as the work and organisation of trade unions in general.

Across the project, we are dividing the investigation into three aspects of services that are clearly interrelated.

• Under the heading of “Service markets” we look at changes in service production and delivery through digitalisation (for example, online services and self-service) and also on the impact of these changes on customers and society at large. It is one of the dimensions where rapid changes, disruptive innovations (for example platforms) need to be addressed. Here, we also address the status of services in “industrial” or economic policy in the context of your respective sector and country.
• “Service labour markets” addresses the development of service jobs, their quality and quantity. We focus on jobs with intermediate skill levels, and will also address atypical and precarious employment (including self-employment) in your sector/country, the development of skills and re-skilling and policies of addressing them.
• “Company strategies and work organisation” looks at the company level and your union’s information and experience with companies in your sector/country: We will address transnationalisation of service companies at large, outsourcing and offshoring, working conditions and ways of influencing them, interest representation and participation

This report presents the research results for Continental Europe.

Authors: Holtgrewe, U., Haider, W., Šalamon, N., Monique Ramioul, Yennef Vereycken (HIVA KU Leuven)

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• Project: Shaping Industrial Relations in a Digitalising Services Industry

Tags: digitalisation, workplace innovation