The nature of work is changing. We are currently undergoing a process of major economic transition and restructuring driven by the introduction of new technologies, and legislation requiring the whole economy to decarbonise in order to combat climate change. The need for a rapid post Covid recovery is only accelerating the process.

Unions need to act now through all available negotiating structures from the workplace level up to social partnership councils to ensure that workers have a strong voice throughout the transition, play an active role in re-defining the jobs of the future and shape the skills training needed to adapt to the shifting environment.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) summarises the four main processes of change already underway in the labour market. Union reps and officials will want to be up-to-speed with how they are unfolding within their sector so that they can intervene and negotiate the best outcomes for members.

• New job creation across many sectors of the economy

Automation and digitalisation are already creating the new ‘platform-based’ jobs such as those seen in the gig economy and are predicted to create new jobs in areas including data analysis, information security, digital transformation, software, applications, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The transition to net zero will create new jobs in renewable energy; in energy efficiency (in manufacturing, transportation, building construction and operations, etc.); in organic agriculture; in various employment-intensive adaptation measures intended to protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity, and in infrastructure and green (public) works intended to adapt to climate impacts and build resilience.

• Job substitution

Existing jobs are being substituted as a result of shifts in the economy. With automation replacing tasks from a range of jobs, from repetitive physical labour such as operating machinery on production lines to collecting and processing data for example paralegal work, accounting and back office work, these job roles are likely to be transformed but not necessarily eliminated as workers shift to perform other roles within organisations. This has implications for occupational profiles and skill needs.

Similarly the move from less to more efficient, from high-carbon to low-carbon, and from more to less polluting technologies, processes, and products will also substitute jobs. Examples include a shift from truck-based transportation to rail, from internal combustion engine manufacturing to electric vehicle production, or from landfilling to recycling and refurbishing.

• Job elimination

Certain jobs are being eliminated, either phased out or massively reduced in numbers, without direct replacement. This may happen where previously labour-intensive job processes are fully-automated; for example, fully-automated ports, the transition to online banking and retail. It will also occur in sectors of the economy where energy- and materials intensive economic activities are reduced or phased out entirely. Greater energy, materials, and water efficiency (along with boosts in recycling of materials and reuse of products) could lead to substantial job losses in the primary sector.

• Job transformation

Finally, many, and perhaps most, existing jobs will simply be transformed and redefined as day-to-day workplace practices, skill sets, work methods, and job profiles are automated, digitalised or greened. For instance, workers everywhere are increasingly interacting with new software, devices and machines that are altering the rhythm of their daily working lives. As the economy shifts towards low carbon working, plumbers, engineers and electricians will have to reorient themselves to carry out similar work in the new environment. Automotive workers will produce more fuel-efficient (or electric) cars. Farmers will apply more climate-appropriate growing method (ILO, 2016)

The scope of this project

This project that set out to find practical examples of what unions have already negotiated to prepare their members for the major changes to working life being brought about through increasing automation and rapid technological change and the transition to net zero economy.

The research involved:

• A review of secondary literature and extensive desk research
• A search of the Labour Research Department’s (LRD) collective agreements database
• A survey of LRD’s union contacts
• Follow up interviews with key contacts
• Attendance of union workshops on relevant issues

It is clear that collective bargaining on these current transition issues is still in its infancy with very few concrete examples of agreements. Nevertheless, the research uncovered a number of examples of union negotiations and activity from across the UK and abroad that will be of interest to reps and officials looking to take action on these issues.

These findings have been split into two separate guides. This guide focuses on examples and key areas for negotiators looking to achieve agreements around automation and new technology.

Negotiating automation and new technology

Automation is the process by which machines replace tasks previously done by humans. It has been a relatively a constant feature of work as technology has developed over the centuries. However, the current wave, which includes advanced digitalisation, artificial intelligence, semiautonomous interconnected machines, advanced robotics, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, and advanced biotechnology, are having such a transformative effect that they have collectively been described as a "fourth industrial revolution" or Industry 4.0.

New technology is already reshaping work in positive and negative ways

There are already many examples of how new technologies are already impacting work, making certain jobs obsolete and changing the daily activities of workers. These include: wearable technologies tracking the movements of Amazon workers in warehouses, the movement to online banking reducing the need for bank clerks, the automation of supermarket check-outs, computerised clinical diagnostics, remotely-operated machinery in ports and robots on production lines.

New technologies are being used to redesign occupations and change the content, character and context of jobs. This has implications for the ‘quality’ of work, how it is valued, how intense it is, the skills and tools required to do it, how safe it is for workers and the relative power it affords to employers versus workers.

It’s rapidly shifting terrain that can have both positive and negative consequences for workers. The Future of Work Commission, Sharing the Future: Workers and Technology in the 2020s (a collaboration between the Fabian Society and the Community Union) found many examples of how automation can improve processes in daily working life. However, there are also a growing number of warning signs that technology, especially when imposed without consultation or consent, can lead to less desirable outcomes such as replacing humans with machines, increased surveillance or deskilling.

A positive experience can be the introduction of labour saving technology which frees workers from demanding manual labour and lets them engage in more meaningful tasks. An example of a negative outcome comes from Barclays bank where a new computer monitoring system tracked the time employees spent at their desks, and registered how long users were offline. Following a backlash from staff and privacy campaigners, the system was scrapped shortly afterwards. (Commission on Workers and Technology, 2020).

It is an issue for all workers

The changing nature of job roles due to technology will impact all workers regardless of skill level. Automation, digitisation and AI will have an impact on both ‘routine’ and ‘high-skilled’ jobs. e.g. Increases in processing power, new software and the use of ‘big data’ is already having an impact on so-called professional occupations such as accountants, lawyers, doctors and teachers. The Wales 4.0 report calls for an urgent “national conversation with citizens on the future of work and the economy in Wales aimed at encouraging discussion of the challenges and opportunities presented by digital innovation (including the growing influence of AI).”

The pace of change is accelerating

Over the next decade, these new technologies are predicted to develop further and become more integrated into economies around the world. Advances in robotics and AI are increasingly encroaching upon functions previously though to require humans such as ‘emotional labour’; there are already humanoid robots that can read facial expressions and hold a conversation employed as carers, other robots and machines can carry out surgery, rapidly scan vast databases e.g. legal cases, control autonomous vehicles or run chatbots.

Although the exact nature and pace of technological change over the coming decades is hard to predict, and will vary across different sectors of the economy, the Covid 19 pandemic is accelerating the process. In a survey for the World Economic Forum, “94 per cent of UK companies said they were accelerating the digitalisation of tasks as a result of Covid-19, and 57 per cent said they were accelerating the automation of tasks”. Even industries that traditionally rely on pools of cheap labour, such as food manufacturing, are now investing in robots after the challenge of the pandemic.