Trade unions in transformation 4.0 : stories of unions confronting the new world of work

All across the world, technology transforms workplaces. In the industrial sectors, new manufacturing technologies such as internet of things and cyber-physical systems increase automation and further rationalisation. Service sectors are transformed by the use of apps, digital platforms, big data and artificial intelligence. New powerful transnational digital companies have emerged and begun to shape the global economy, with their “creative destruction” strategies often clawing away at established labour rights. The new world of digital work is restructuring the power relationship between capital and labour. It has a marked effect on workers’ pow er to negotiate decent working conditions and puts organised labour on the defensive as the trend towards informalised, precarious and delocalised work has been reinforced. This seems to suggest that labour power is shrinking. However, as with our previous project “Trade Unions in Transformation”, FES is interested in the strategic response of organised labour. We have thus examined how trade unions and new workers’ organisations build power to confront the new world of work. The articles we present in this booklet identify new approaches and strategies of unions and workers’ organisations