“Algorithms should advise and humans should decide”

“Algorithms should advise and humans should decide”

Ensuring a human first approach to technological change at work requires a strong and independent trade union say. Louisa Bull, Vice-President of UNI Europa, spoke on the issue at the ETUC Congress on Wednesday 24 June 2023. Here is an auto-generated transcription of her intervention at #ETUC50: Good morning, colleagues. Louisa Bull making this intervention on behalf of UNI Europa on 2.9. Like any technological change, the key to ensuring worker participation and protection within the process is to make it an integral part of our collective bargaining. In doing so, we ensure that we negotiate agreements about the introduction, application and governance of any technological change. And right now one of those is the algorithmic management tools in the workplace. Unions need to make sure that they are aware of what surveillance and performance monitoring tools are actually being used in our workplaces and how they are replacing human intervention. It is never acceptable to pass off responsibility for key decisions to non-human agents, and yet this is happening. Algorithms should advise and humans should decide. It is that simple. And yet we have much still to do in stopping this trend. As our sister Saka from the Women’s Committee explained to so very eloquently yesterday afternoon. UNI Europa, has recently produced a guide on algorithmic management, and this has helped to inform the work of our affiliates. My own federation, the TUC, has done great work on this as well in producing a strong manifesto for workplace bargaining and in producing e-learning tools for reps in the UK. The second area in which we need to be vigilant is in the services sector, where digital labour platform companies have grown, particularly since the pandemic, and often with a business model that is based on the exploitation of its workers. The use of bogus self-employment and the avoidance of employers responsibilities towards workers and the state is a dangerous trend that must be stopped. UNI Europe has been working with its affiliates to strengthen their capacity to organise and bargain collectively in the platform economy and has been engaged in the effort at the European Union level to have adequate legislation to protect workers. Finally, UNI Global and here at UNI Europa, we are a leading voice in the large coalition of actors, loudly telling Jeff Bezos and Amazon to end union busting practices. Amazon embodies in one company most of the risks that the trade union movement is facing. Algorithmic surveillance, platformization, bogus self-employment and union busting. Organising and delivering trade union collective rights to workers across the new digital and tech sectors is not an easy task, but we are having some success. UNI Global are seeing great work being done in Google, and in Europe, we have now secured a European Works Council where both UK and Switzerland are present. My own union, Unite and the CWU in the UK is now building for recognition and collective bargaining also in Google. We have lots to do colleagues, but we can do it.

Posted by UNI Europa on Wednesday, May 31, 2023