From 8 to 11 June 2017 took place in Ružomberok, Czech Republic, a seminar about “New skills – the great keys to opening the job market's door and helping people find their place in society”, organized by NKOS (Nezávislé krestanské odbory Slovenska), with the support of EZA and of the European Union. The seminar was part of the EZA project coordination about “Digital world of work – technological developments and changes at the workplace”.
The aims of project are to answer these questions:
- What means industry 4.0 for society?
- What impact will Industry 4.0 have in the workplace?
- What is the welfare state of the future?
- So what will the work of the future look like?
- What does it mean for workers and for trade unions?
- What new skills need to be developed?
- What are the consequences for education and training systems if they are to adapt to the development of new areas of growth and new digital technologies?
- What are new social infrastructures in the workplace?
The digital revolution promises intelligent factories, intelligent work organisation, intelligent management, as well as intelligent cities, intelligent shops, intelligent energy production systems, intelligent transport infrastructures, etc. But what about the manual worker, the office worker, the service provider? What will be the future of the European industrial production? ‘Will SMEs turn into slaves of digital platforms they can no longer control? A general overview of the various areas of impact of digitalisation would be as follows: a) job creation: new sectors, new products, new services; b) job change: digitalisation, human/intelligent machine interface, new forms of management; c) job destruction: automation, robotisation; d) job shift: digital platforms, crowd sourcing, ‘sharing’ economy. Computers are only going to get more powerful and capable in the future, and have an ever-bigger impact on jobs, skills, and the economy. With regard to the 4th Industrial Revolution, it is necessary to improve workers’ skills in order to enable them, as in the last century, to win the new race that has already begun.
These new forms of employment were defined as follows: employee sharing, job sharing, interim management, casual work, ICT-based mobile work, voucher-based work, portfolio work, crowd working, collaborative self-employment. Trends which look likely to be amplified by the digital economy include the emergence of a wide variety of flexible and non-standard forms of work, since digital technologies – and particularly the combination of big data modelling with human or object geolocation – will continue to facilitate and speed up the introduction of flexible working arrangements. The rebuilding of social links in increasingly unstructured work situations represents both a challenge and an urgent necessity. These are new challenges for the social partners mainly trade unions. Employers and unions have already identified several areas for action: for example, how digital changes affect occupational health and safety issues, working time and organisation, human resource development (employers and employees alike), co-determination and data protection rights as well as the survival prospects of business and state support for implementing change. National action plans on digital change have come into existence or are about to be released. However, there are only a few examples of the first attempts to deal with these issues in collective bargaining. In Germany, the former public railway company Deutsche Bahn and the Railway and Transport Union (EVG) announced the start of negotiations for a new collective agreement to be called Collective Agreement 4.0.
For example, car manufacturer BMW introduced new rules on non-availability of mobile workers and getting mobile working hours properly recognised. In addition, German social partners are involved in updating vocational training regulations or defining skills and profiles for newly developing occupations.
Recommendations
- The link between the labour market and education should be improved by regular analysis of hard market data, such as salaries of graduates and graduates´ unemployment rates by educational fields and schools.
- The selection of a suitable area of study has an important role to play even though there is an appropriate awareness of the labour market and increasing issues in the structure of unemployment.
- Study programs in schools and universities should be enriched with elements helping young people to shape their personal, and social competences; not only IT skills.
- It is necessary to connect formal and informal education, to better connect the educational system with practical knowledge and support practically oriented subjects and skills, to raise awareness of parents when it comes to responsible and practically-applicable selection of studies for their children, to realise career advice that would encompass both parents and children, and students.
- Various forms of non-scientific activities of students should be promoted and supported by educational institutions and NGOs. Students and pupils should be encouraged to gain and develop their competences and skills not only in formal education, but also by participating in voluntary work, internships, placement and international exchanges. Young people should be informed about benefits from these forms of activities.
- The increasing use of new technologies and means of electronic communication in the relation between employers and workers raises many questions concerning workers’ privacy and the risks lying in new possibilities of monitoring and surveillance. We are of the opinion that the use, processing and storage of data in the employment relationship needs principles which avoid infringements of workers’ fundamental rights, in particular the right to a private life.
- Many unions are currently focused on preparing workers for new forms of work by bringing about a skills revolution focused on new forms of education, continuous reskilling and lifelong learning, and believe this must be implemented hand in hand by governments, businesses and trade unions.