C Explanatory memorandum
by Ms Selin Sayek Böke, rapporteur
1 Introduction
1. “The future of work” concept
projects how work, workers and the workplace will evolve in the
years ahead. With digitalisation, new technologies and the Covid-19
pandemic, the future of work already seems around the corner. Indeed,
some profound transformations across many sectors of the economy
have also affected the organisation of work. If the full impact
is yet to be determined, the shift towards teleworking during the
pandemic is likely to become a permanent feature of the future of
work through hybrid working arrangements (combining office presence
and telework) or fully remote work, mostly from home. More recently, reacting
to prospects of an energy crunch after Russia’s aggression against
Ukraine, the International Energy Agency (IEA) called on rich countries
to take bold measures – including “work from home up to three days
a week where possible” – to reduce global oil demand.
Note These speedy and multidimensional
changes suggest that the future of work is arriving faster than
foreseen.
2. This new reality leads to substantive changes in working conditions
and relations between employers and employees, with direct effects
on health, well-being, and social rights of people at work. It also
lays bare many situations of precarious employment, and some discriminatory
practices (such as with regard to women with care-giving responsibilities).
The changing world of work has bearing on the right to just conditions
of work, the protection of occupational health and security, the
right to disconnect and the right to data privacy and protection.
The changing nature of jobs also has a significant impact on the
rights to freedom of association and to collective bargaining, as
well as the institutional structure of trade unions. In short, these
changes have serious effects on economic and social rights.
3. As the lead signatory of the motion on “The future of work
is here: revisiting labour rights” (
Doc. 15226) and now the rapporteur on this matter, I believe it
is important to understand how the ongoing societal, economic and
technological changes are affecting workers’ social rights that
are set out in the European Social Charter (ETS No. 35) and national
policies, and how better use of legal instruments, regulatory tools
and policy orientations could help protect workers better, and thus
pave the way for a better future of work for all.
4. This report looks into shifting workplace realities against
the background of major societal transformations with a view to
formulating policy proposals and recommendations to member States.
To get a more comprehensive overview of the outlook for the future
of work and people at work, on 17 March 2022 this committee held
a hearing with representatives of the ILO (International Labour
Organisation), the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development) and Newcastle University Business School (United Kingdom).
Note I also held meetings with the Minister
of Labour and Social Policy
of Italy
on 7 April 2022, with representatives of Austrian labour unions
and the President of the European Committee of Social Rights in Vienna
(Austria) on 9-10 May 2022, and with representatives of the Committee
on the Labour Market of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm on 11
May 2022.
2 Key challenges in sight
5. According to Eurofound, within
a year of the pandemic, the share of employees working at least occasionally
from home increased from just 11% to around 48%. However, not all
jobs and tasks are suitable for remote work. The “teleworkability”
of jobs is strongly correlated with the type of occupations, the
education and/or socio-economic status of the employees. Most low-income,
low-skilled, female, and young workers are less likely to hold “teleworkable”
jobs allowing to work remotely. These trends bear the risk of further
deepening the existing labour market inequalities both within and
between countries.
Note According to
the OECD, the highest rates of teleworking are evident among the
highly digitalised industries, including information and communication
services, financial services, professional, scientific, and technical
services. Lower rates of digitalisation among smaller firms have
also meant that teleworking rates during the pandemic were much higher
among the employees of large firms.
Note
6. In the economic sectors dominated by female workers, many
essential workers are employed on precarious contractual terms and
are badly paid. Moreover, these workers oftentimes do not have the
choice to work remotely. At the same time, across Europe, women
are significantly less represented in the labour market than men,
which is partly explained by the fact that women in most countries
still do two-thirds of all unpaid care work, a trend further worsened
during the pandemic.
Note All
of these facts regarding the changing world of work, underline the
need to design new policies with a multidimensional equality focus.
7. With a trend of shrinking office spaces, it appears that many
workers will, at least partially, continue to work in their home
“office”. In the continuity of existing trends and beyond Covid-19,
many companies plan to adapt to flexible workspaces and work organisation,
which would allow bringing in fewer people into on-site offices.
Some surveys suggest that companies plan to reduce physical office
space by nearly 30%.
Note During
the pandemic, many workers have experienced extended periods of
staying at home with their families while continuing to work, often
from the kitchen table. In many households, mainly women were confronted
to a sizeable increase in unpaid care and housekeeping work during
the pandemic, which had to be juggled with paid work. While pre-pandemic
planned teleworking had its advantages, allowing for a better work-life
balance, in particular by cutting out the commute, pandemic unplanned
teleworking in many cases showcased the disadvantages.
8. Through “forced” teleworking during the pandemic, which also
“forced” the digitalisation of the labour market to speed up, many
workers experienced isolation, increasing stress levels and higher
exposure to mental health risks, as virtual offices cannot fully
replace the social interaction, dignity, and sense of belonging that
derives from work.
Note Some
workers in home offices also experienced close online surveillance
by employers (or their intermediaries), as these looked for breaches
of rules like “missing from the desk”.
Note Another problem for workers in
the home office was a poor state and/or a lack of capacity of digital infrastructure.
Despite all these problems, there were also some productivity gains.
Employers stood to gain significantly from a decrease in spending
on utilities, rent, industrial cleaning and other costs. It is thus necessary
to rebalance the relationship between employers and employees, so
as to ensure that benefits from productivity gains and cost-saving
are equally shared and workers’ rights are strengthened in the context
of teleworking.
9. Increasing stress levels have been an escalating issue of
the labour market for quite a while already, as our colleague Mr Stefaan
Vercamer (Belgium, EPP/CD) explained in his report on this phenomenon
Note in 2019, underscoring the
dramatic consequences of stress at work for both individuals and
society at large and calling it “our collective responsibility –
and challenge”. With the Covid-19 lockdowns, stress levels have
further increased as people teleworking had to simultaneously juggle
multiple job assignments, the limitations inherent in digital tools
and family responsibilities. We should, in particular, review any
recent developments in regulatory tools concerning the recognition
and prevention of occupational burnout (a state of extreme emotional
and physical exhaustion), as a follow-up to proposals set out in
the Assembly’s
Resolution
2267 (2019) “Stress at work”.
10. Furthermore, the sudden shift towards remote work meant that
occupational health and safety standards were put to the back burner
in many instances. However, most national laws and collective agreements
clearly define the responsibility of the employer for the protection
of the occupational health and safety of employees. Besides the
psychosocial risks, remote work also bears significant ergonomic
risks and several unforeseen safety issues given the remote nature
of work premises.
Note Moreover, while
the incidence of domestic violence has significantly increased,
there is also a rising trend of increased exposure to work-related
cyberbullying.
Note
11. The rising digital presence in the world of work following
the pandemic was already visible over the last decade. With a trend
of faster adoption of automation and while artificial intelligence
(AI) progresses further, a growing number of tasks traditionally
carried out by people can now be carried out by “intelligent machines”
or algorithms. As our colleague Mr Stefan Schennach (Austria, SOC)
pointed out in his report on artificial intelligence and labour
markets,
Note AI might bring new opportunities
and benefits, but also harm and disruption in our world of work
and thus needs to be regulated, with a special attention to workers’
rights and the values we want to protect. To manage this transition,
the advantages of new technologies could be highlighted and embraced
towards improving the organisation of human work as far as possible
and rethinking our education-training-research systems aiming to
better accompany the adaptation of both people and producing units
(such as enterprises, co-operatives, NGOs, among others) based on
shared responsibility.
12. As AI changes the way we work and takes over tasks formerly
accomplished by human workers, human skills in the workplace will
need to cultivate empathy, intuition, curiosity, ethics and the
comprehension of complex interactions among people,
Note with a clear preponderance of soft
skills for a vast majority of workers.
Note Clearly, the trends
of AI, digitalisation and remote work, all necessitate a well-defined
reskilling and upskilling policy framework to ensure an inclusive
future of labour markets and economic policy. The public sector
should also build capacity and capabilities to ensure that the pace
and content of their economic policy designs match the dynamism
of the changing nature of technology and the world of work.
Note
13. As digital barriers and divides continue to exist, they exacerbate
socio-economic inequalities and may lead to exclusion of those without
necessary skills, equipment, or access to quality internet service.
It is thus important for States to support a more inclusive digital
labour market for all. The ILO recommends measures to ensure a fair
access to digital skills, infrastructure, and employment for all.
Note The labour
market’s genuine inclusiveness is tested when it comes to workers
of older age, the youth entering the labour market and across genders.
14. While the digital transformation offers some valuable benefits
of new inclusion opportunities, for many including older, more experienced
workers, it also bears significant risks of deepening age and gender
related inequalities.
Note Many
countries raise the retirement age to balance pension budgets,
Note but the older workers tend to be
laid off much more easily by employers. The aging of European society
and its labour force has thus to be duly considered via new elements
of labour policies, so that this important cohort of workers is
not left behind in the context of digitalisation. Moreover, the
young have faced particularly severe aspects of the pandemic, with
disruptions in education, training and work-based learning, difficulties
in transition from education to employment and from unemployment
to employment, and a deterioration in quality of employment. All
of these issues call for revisiting the age-related nature of the
future of work, ensuring an inclusive labour market today and a
future one for the young. Similar attention should be paid to our
equality and non-discrimination principles. Digital labour platforms
offer additional job opportunities to women, persons with disabilities,
young people and those marginalised in traditional labour markets,
but can also result in underpaid and precarious work.
Note
15. Digitalisation of commerce has increased rapidly during the
pandemic, affecting workers in many ways: whilst workers in non-virtual
commerce fear losing their jobs, those in the fast-growing delivery
sector complain about precarious working conditions.
Note As our colleague Mr Luís
Leite Ramos (Portugal, EPP/CD) pointed out in his report on the
platform economy already in 2019,
Note the “platformisation” of work could
contribute to the spread of precarious forms of non-standard work.
As the job opportunities on those platforms are on the rise, the
conditions of work have to be better regulated and policed to tackle
bad working conditions of platform workers, such as irregular working
hours and income, a lack of access to social protection and collective bargaining
rights and to courts of the jurisdiction in which they are located,
as well as discrimination caused by the use of opaque algorithms.
16. Furthermore, in pandemic times, due to limits on the freedom
of movement and public gatherings, it has been more difficult to
enjoy one’s right to freedom of association and collective bargaining,
which affected especially those working in the informal economy
and the self-employed.
Note Fundamental
rights at work should benefit all workers, which requires a coherent
policy response and adaptation of legal frameworks where necessary.
Note Moreover,
the digital transformation of the world of work that is leading
to more dispersed production sites and greater isolation among workers,
has significant implications regarding the structure of labour organisations
and unions. Therefore, a revisiting of policies to ensure the freedom
of association is becoming more than necessary.
17. The digital divide is not only due to the uneven access to
infrastructure and digital resources, but also the greater extent
of “digital off-shoring” by corporations, creating also “digital
nomads”. The growing cross-border mobility whereby teleworking might
allow for the employer and employee to be based in different countries,
has implications on labour and tax laws across jurisdictions.
Note Moreover,
when developing policies for a better future for people at work,
we must not forget workers in global value chains in low wage countries with
little, if any, laws protecting them. A recent ILO report details
how the pandemic has not only boosted teleworking and home-based
digital platform working, but has also given rise to industrial
work at home.
Note The situation
of undocumented, seasonal and cross-border workers in Europe also
needs close attention as they often lack access to basic social
rights.
Note However, this matter is more specifically
addressed through separate reports under preparation by Ms Ada Marra
(Switzerland, SOC) and Mr Viorel Riceard Badea (Romania, EPP/CD)
on, respectively, “Health and social protection of undocumented
workers” and on “Precarious status of cross-border and seasonal
workers in Europe”.
18. There are some voices already imagining a new future of work:
drawing lessons from the pandemic, the ILO suggests that shorter
work weeks or work-sharing arrangements could allow flexibility,
save jobs, help achieve a better work-life balance and enhance well-being.
Note Companies and even some countries are experimenting
with more flexible working arrangements with the aim of empowering
workers, helping them reduce stress levels and reconcile work with
family responsibilities, diminishing the environmental footprint
of economic activities, and saving resources and time.
Note All
these changes affect a multitude of rights, including but not limited
to the right to just conditions of work, the right to disconnect,
the right to data privacy and protection, the right to freedom of
association, and the right to safe and healthy working conditions,
amongst others.
3 Hybrid
work: improving our digital workplace and personal well-being
19. As set out above, digitalisation,
new technologies and especially the Covid-19 pandemic have radically transformed
the way we live and work. The pandemic’s successive lockdowns in
2020-2021 forced many Europeans to experience full-time remote work
from home, often with little warning or preparation. As we learned
during the hearing held on 17 March 2022, teleworking concerned
about a third of workers in the EU countries on average but an even
higher share of workers in some countries: over 50% in Finland, Luxembourg,
Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, and over 40% in Ireland and Italy
(according to ILO data). Countries with an already existing regulatory
framework for teleworking were better equipped and more ready to
materialise the rewards of full-time remote work.
20. This experience of massive teleworking has taught us a number
of lessons. Researchers have studied feedback from both workers
and employers, drawing some important findings to inform future
regulatory adjustments. As the Working@Home project in the United
Kingdom has demonstrated, individual productivity grew by up to
35% based on a massive increase in the use of collaborative software
and the amount of time spent by workers online (for over a half
of workers this represented between three and ten hours per day).
This obviously stretched, and sometimes overstretched, teleworkers’
resilience. With about 40% of workers feeling that the collaborative
software forced them to work faster, about 30% of workers feeling
that they had to take greater amounts of work to do and over 40%
of workers experiencing work overload by engaging in work even during
their annual leave, the perceived levels of stress increased considerably.
This impacted workers’ well-being and private life, predominantly
for women with care-taking and other household responsibilities.
This raises questions about working hours, the duration of the work
week, what constitutes a reasonable workload and the right to disconnect.
21. Despite the pandemic-time inconveniences due to the lack of
dedicated office space at home, connectivity problems and sometimes
family-care responsibilities, surveys have shown that more than
70% of workers want to spend at least part of their work week at
home, with only 15% of workers preferring full-time office work
and about 15% wishing to work full-time from home. Other studies
also point out environmental and public health benefits of hybrid
work by helping reduce road traffic intensity, overcrowding of public
transport, the circulation of the Covid-19 virus and other pathogens,
and air pollution. Well-framed teleworking enables more women to
stay employed rather than taking a retreat from the labour market
for childcare or other family-care reasons. Thus, teleworking and
hybrid work bears the potential to empower workers and enable more people
to stay on the labour market, generating substantial benefits for
employers and society at large.
22. Our discussions in committee, empirical evidence and academic
research show that a standard 8-hours-a-day and 5-days-a-week formula
for organising work now belongs to the past. It was set up a long
time ago for a narrower range of tasks and no longer corresponds
to modern requirements. On the one hand, we have increased multitasking
at work and have more atypical forms of employment that require
greater flexibility of work hours and more job-sharing (either between
human workers or between human workers and intelligent machines).
On the other hand, using collaborative software has enabled high-intensity
work and adequate concentration but for shorter spans of time (about
4 to 6 hours a day), which appear to be best accommodated through
more flexible working hours and/or shorter work weeks (4-day-weeks).
Clearly, such flexibility has to be accompanied by the securing
of all economic and social rights.
23. In this context, we should recall recommendations formulated
in the Assembly’s
Resolution
2267 (2019) “Stress at work”, including as regards “a stress-reducing
organisation of work with shorter, four-day weeks (with 28 to 32
work hours per week), flexible work time options, greater autonomy,
teleworking possibilities and job-sharing schemes, notably for working
parents and carers” – also with the aim of preventing “stress-induced disorders,
including occupational burnout”. In this resolution, the Assembly
noted that “women and men respond to and manage stress at work in
different ways and that women at work are the worst affected, especially
when they carry a double burden of work and household responsibilities”.
It also encouraged “stakeholders to review the organisation of work
and distribution of workloads and tasks in a way that enables reduction
in stress levels and fosters job sharing”.
24. High connectivity is both the driving force of telework and
hybrid work, as well as being an essential condition for the quality
of such work and worker well-being. It therefore seems reasonable
to demand that employers would grant the right to teleworking together
with essential tools (hardware and software) and conditions (teleworking
framework) that empower workers, optimise the sharing of benefits
from “smart work” (contribution to the fees covering access to internet
and telephone at the workplace) and ensure an adequate health-and-safety
background (ergonomic equipment for the “home-office”, specific
provisions in insurance contracts), and that the State ensures equally
accessible high quality digital infrastructure for all as well as drafting
the legal and regulatory frameworks to properly define these responsibilities
of the employers. Moreover, a smart organisation of work – building
on new man-machine teamwork patterns – might require a constant
redistribution of tasks and a creative review of job descriptions,
where any redistribution implies social dialogue to ensure that
rights are well protected. Finally, in this regard, the States should
also innovate to build new institutions if necessary or to redistribute
tasks across existing institutions to get ahead of these fast changing
dynamics of the world of work and technology.
25. From the angle of socio-economic rights, ensuring a healthy
balance between work and private life and securing the effective
exercise of the right to equal opportunities are important considerations
with respect to teleworking and hybrid work. The right to disconnect
from the workplace during resting hours should be fully embraced.
While flexibility of teleworking is highly appreciated by women,
teleworking regulations should aim to provide a level-playing field
for all so as to avoid any bias inherent in “presenteeism”, any
tensions between employees and managers,
Note and any discrimination that would
lead to (gender) pay gaps or slowdowns in the progression of careers,
in particular for women.
Note
26. We should note that worldwide, there have been numerous developments
in legislation concerning teleworking (notably in Australia, New
Zealand, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Russia)
over the past few years; some countries prefer the term of remote
or “smart” working. The right to disconnect has also been gaining
ground, with EU countries leading the way (Belgium, Spain, Italy).
My recent fact-finding in Rome shows that the Italian Government
provides for a general legal framework on teleworking and the right to
disconnect (Law no. 81/2017), as well as a supplementary protocol
for smart work (launched in December 2021).
27. “Smart working” (“
lavoro agile”),
or hybrid work, in Italy is understood as a particular way of working
that consists of an employment service that takes place partly outside
the company's premises, based on flexibility of time and location,
and autonomy of choosing tools to use. It is distinct from fully
remote work by being more flexible, and the right to disconnect
applies only to smart work.
Note It is managed on the basis of social
dialogue (through collective bargaining) and the legal framework
which was negotiated with social partners.
28. A national observatory
Note has been established to monitor
the implementation of smart working arrangements throughout the
country so as to identify trends, any emerging risks, and regulatory
needs, to assess the structural transformation and to analyse the
impact in terms of environmental and social sustainability (including
gender, age, skills diversity, etc.) as well as professional evolution
(the quality of work). Following the pandemic, this hybrid format
seems to be set to dominate, with major public investment being allocated
to fund reskilling, upskilling and training of people at work.
29. A similar tendency in favour of hybrid work is also observed
in Sweden. The country is currently considering the need of changing
its social partnership structure to include not only employers and
employees but also self-employed workers, while correcting misdefinition
of self-employed workers and rebalancing the power structure in
the platform economy structures. In terms of working hours, Sweden’s
approach lays emphasis on full-time employment in order to protect
workers from imposed part-time work: this approach enables shorter
workdays or workweeks under a specific agreement with an employer,
for full-time employed persons and working parents in charge of
young children. The latter is also seen as an essential measure
to ensuring gender equality and adequate remuneration and pensions.
The new law is expected to provide for State financing for retraining
to workers who may lose their jobs after having worked eight years
or more.
30. Both in Italy and in Sweden, employers have the full responsibility
for occupational health and safety of workers, be they working in
the office or at other locations. However, it is understood that
workers must co-operate in the implementation of the safety/preventive
measures notified to them by the employer in order to manage the
risks associated with work outside the company premises.
31. In Austria, regulatory provisions on telework came into being
in March 2021. They laconically specify that work can be regularly
performed from the home office on the basis of a written agreement
between employer and employee; in practice this means hybrid work.
The employer has to provide the necessary equipment or offer a lump-sum
payment to cover certain costs linked to the use of “home office”
(about three euros per teleworking day) and has to ensure occupational
health and safety insurance coverage. Although the law provides
for the right to disconnect, its application in practice shows many
variations and can lead to psychological distress according to testimonies
of social partners; in rare cases, private companies cut off the IT
connection to the workplace during weekends. Moreover, there is
little formal flexibility of agreed work hours.
32. However, there are signs that the work culture may be changing
with a new generation of workers who value flexibility of work hours
and location more than their predecessors. Some voices are also
calling for an open public debate on the social value of work, reduction
of working time and a more just support for “unpaid work” of those
with family responsibilities. We should note that social dialogue
and unionisation are particularly strong in Austria: only about
2% of workers are not covered by collective agreements. Increased
online activities of labour unions during the pandemic have shown
the potential of digital tools to reach out to all workers in need
of legal advice to settle any disputes or more adequate social protection.
Increased connectivity is also seen as an opportunity for collective
action of dispersed workers involved in crowdsourcing labour through
platforms.
4 The
perils of fragmentation at work and through work
33. Hyperconnectivity, new business
models, rapidly evolving jobs, and atypical forms of employment (namely,
zero-hours contracts for “on call” work, more temporary and part-time
contracts – often forced upon workers), as well as a shift from
manufacturing to a services-based economy, have entailed disruptions
and fragmentation in the world of work. We thus see greater outsourcing
and, though at a slower pace, still ongoing offshoring of work worldwide,
growth in precarious work arrangements (that generate job insecurity,
income instability and/or unsafe working conditions), a decline
in the unionisation of workers and legislative protections for workers
across different jurisdictions, and widening inequalities.
Note Moreover, more engaged in full-time teleworking
and hybrid work, workers meet their colleagues less often to exchange
about any problems they face with a different organisation of work.
This means increased isolation, instability and vulnerability (for example,
through job displacement, skills gaps, health and safety risks,
shrinking revenue) for more and more workers.
34. Advanced digital technologies together with the hyperconnectivity
of workers, businesses, smart machines, and data enable greater
multitasking, efficiency, and productivity. Conversely, however,
this also adds pressure, disperses attention, and might undermine
quality of the end-result if “deep work” and the concentration of
workers are constantly interrupted. In this context, it would seem
appropriate to review the codes of communication at the workplace
so as to agree between employer and employees on the pace and schedules
for verbal and written contacts in order to avoid excessive demands
on either side and prevent constant stress.
35. As digital technologies increasingly allow greater flexibility
of working time and location, workers’ participation can be sourced
online from virtually anywhere in the world. This tendency is particularly
supported through the business model of platforms but it can also
take place with more traditional businesses (replacing physical
workers with virtual workers). In both ways, different jurisdictions
come into play depending on workers’ location. Moreover, employment
status in these work configurations determine to a large extent
the workers’ access to socio-economic rights (including as regards
freedom of association and unionisation) and social protection.
For a worker being considered as an independent worker or an auto-entrepreneur,
social coverage is rather patchy in many European countries as we
have seen from the report on “The societal impact of the platform
economy”, and positive developments in this area were rather limited
during the recent years of the Covid-19 pandemic. In terms of subsistence,
the ILO estimates that for location-based service providers platform
work remains the main source of income, while for web-based service
providers platform work represents only about a third of their income.
36. Given the limited reach and coverage of legal instruments
such as the European Social Charter and the ILO Conventions against
the background of transformative changes in the world of work, it
is essential to seek international dialogue and greater co-operation
so as to overcome the perils of fragmentation and ensure the protection
of basic rights at work for all. As the ILO representative pointed
out during the committee hearing on 17 March 2022, heterogeneous
regulatory frameworks across different jurisdictions implies the
need for improvements in what concerns employment status, social
protection and access to basic social rights, as well as working
time, pay, dispute resolution, data protection and privacy.
37. Although automation (including AI) is not yet omnipresent,
it will increasingly and more frequently change job profiles,
Note inducing
the fragmentation of careers, a constant need for skills upgrading
and, according to some observers, a potential for polarisation and
rampant inequalities. Algorithmic management which was first tested
in the platform economy is now spreading to other sectors. We should,
in this context, recall that by adopting
Resolution 2345 (2020) “Artificial intelligence and labour markets: friend
or foe?” our Assembly supported “the recommendations of the ILO’s
Global Commission on the Future of Work, which calls for human-centred
strategies to cushion the impact of AI, and urges investment in
people’s skills, lifelong learning (acquiring know-how, reskilling
and upskilling) and institutions for learning, as well as in decent
and sustainable work, in order to ensure work with freedom, dignity,
economic security and equality for all”.
38. In this context, we should also note the European Commission’s
proposal for a directive on improving working conditions in platform
work (COM(2021)762 final of 9 December 2021). The European Commission estimates
that there are currently more than 500 digital labour platforms
and about 28 million platform workers in EU countries alone; the
latter figure is set to reach 43 million by 2025. The proposed directive
contains a list of criteria aimed at determining whether the platform
is an employer and what the employment status is for workers attached
to it. If these criteria are applied, up to 4.1 million workers
could be re-classified as employees and others would become genuinely
self-employed; in both cases, workers’ access to social protection
would be clarified and the transparency of algorithmic management
increased. But the unionisation of platform workers to enable collective
bargaining remains problematic.
5 Fostering
decent and dignified work and life
39. Both in global and European
settings, work has been and is likely to remain central to human
life. It enables us to earn our living and dignity, have a role
in society and contribute towards shared prosperity, access autonomy
and enjoy various benefits. Work may also give meaning to one’s
life. But do we live to work, or do we work to live? The societal
debate that focuses solely on the notion of remunerated work fails
to grasp the complexity of human nature and life. It actually turns
a blind eye to the huge unpaid work that billions of women around
the globe offer to society by caring for children and other household
members (usually the elderly). It depreciates volunteer work. Most
of the time, it refocuses attention away from the ideals of public interest
to pursuing private interest where social value and public interest
is often kept unremunerated.
40. According to the ILO, across the globe “women carry out three-quarters
of unpaid care work”; they “dedicate on average 3.2 times more time
than men to unpaid care work” and are “constantly time poor, which constrains
their participation in the labour market”.
Note In the United States for example women
spend an average of four hours per day doing unpaid work (compared
to two and a half hours by men); if women got paid a minimum wage
for the unpaid work, they would have earned at least USD 1.5 trillion
a year!
Note Women’s participation
in labour force, remuneration levels and job quality are inevitably
affected.
41. Reconciling paid and unpaid work inevitably raises issues
such as giving a better recognition to unpaid work of great value
to society (family care work) and ensuring decent living for all,
including those who are excluded from paid work (the long-term unemployed,
certain categories of persons with disabilities and chronic illnesses,
housewives, persons ousted from the labour market by the automation
of jobs, the retired, etc.). Providing these categories of the population
with meagre benefits does not suffice for decent living. A better solution
in my view would be to consider policies in line with a universal
basic income and full access to healthcare services. Rather than
marginalising them, society should accept that caregiving, disability, retirement
or forced unemployment are just as normal ways to live as paid work.
Note
42. The pandemic has prompted many persons to take a critical
look at how they work and why they work. Preserving one’s good health
and that of one’s family, as well as enjoying a healthy balance
between work and private life, has come to the fore for many. Living
with the chaotic schedules of platform work or spending ten hours
or more per week commuting to work and running like a hamster in
the wheel to manage one’s unreasonable workload has led many workers
to reassess their priorities and to put family, health and personal well-being
first, contributing to the wave of resignations. Policy makers must
see this new reality emerging and accompany changes by supporting
decent living: work should not make us miserable; it should make
us prosper.
43. The ILO takes the view that a human focused approach to the
future of work is needed. Its Centenary Declaration, adopted by
consensus in 2019,
Note launched a global call for action
to governments and multilateral institutions to upgrade the social
contract, asking social partners to invest in people’s capabilities,
institutions, and the creation of decent and sustainable work. The
latter aspect reminds us that everyone should have access to employment
and fair remuneration, that rights at work and core labour standards
should be respected, that solidarity should drive social protection
for all, and that social dialogue should prevail. The declaration
advocates strongly for social and environmental justice considering
that labour policies should be given a more prominent role in managing
the economy and mitigating widening inequalities, based on better policy
coherence and support for fundamental rights – at national but also
international levels.
44. The Council of Europe is one of those multilateral institutions
that has a mission to uphold fundamental rights as the guardian
of two fundamental treaties: the European Convention on Human Rights
(ETS No. 5, “the Convention”) and its Protocols, and the European
Social Charter (ETS No. 35 and ETS No. 163 (revised)). While Articles
3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 14 of the Convention outlaw some practices
in employment (inhuman or degrading treatment, forced labour and
harm to personal security, freedom of conscience, expression and association,
abuse of privacy, and discrimination), the Charter spells out a
wide range of labour-related rights and links them with “legal and
social protection, employment conditions, vocational guidance, training
and free movement of persons”.
Note The Council
of Europe is duty-bound to promote the application of these treaties
both across its member States and to its own staff. It must ensure
that member States effectively implement the commitments they have
embraced through these legal instruments by strengthening economic,
social and fiscal policies.
6 Shaping
the future of work: towards societal progress through quality jobs,
flexible organisation of work with access to socio-economic rights
and inclusive, sustainable development
45. In view of the above considerations,
labour market developments compel politicians to review the current systems
of labour legislation, social protection, learning and training,
collective bargaining and possibly also taxation. We can see that
digitalisation and the pandemic period have accelerated trends of
smarter working which implies freely chosen flexibility of work
hours and location while technologies are facilitating or even taking
over some tasks for many jobs. Transition to the new era of work
requires adaptations by both employers and employees in order to
find a new healthy balance in the organisation of work.
46. In my view, it is necessary to have both a general national
framework for remote work and specific regulations that could be
tailored to the needs of particular employees and employers. While
telework and hybrid work could be considered as a new norm for teleworkable
jobs, they should never be imposed (except for exceptional circumstances
and entirely virtual enterprises); however, given multiple benefits
– including for environmental and public health reasons – they could
be facilitated and encouraged while ensuring solid protection of
socio-economic rights. Against the background of a looming climate
crisis, the public should be consulted on whether making remote
work mandatory at least one day per working week would be an acceptable
option.
47. To avoid precariousness at work, thought should be given as
regards the need to harmonise the protection of rights for different
categories of workers. The OECD advises to reduce differences in
tax treatment for different types of contracts so as to help diminish
gaps in social protection for self-employed workers (for example
by layering protections, guaranteeing universal minimum coverage
for all, and ensuring the portability of social coverage for those
moving between different employers) and the risk of misclassification
in terms of employment status. National employment and social protection
systems should be screened to detect gaps in access to rights for
workers in the “grey zone” of atypical employment or in casual work.
Certain unfair and abusive practices, such as unpaid employment
trials (mostly in the UK), should be reconsidered and banned: every
work deserves remuneration.
48. Given the overarching public interest in supporting the employability
of persons at different stages of their professional life, public
skills development programmes should extend access and improve participation of
all and in particular for those in new forms of work. As
Resolution 2345 (2020) “Artificial intelligence and labour markets: friend
or foe?” suggests, all Council of Europe member States could put
in place “the concept of personal training accounts for all workers,
entailing positive obligations for all employers to set up skills development
plans or training”; I would add that we need such accounts also
for potential workers such as the young NEETs (“not in education,
employment or training”), persons in unpaid work or in unemployment,
or the retired persons who wish to continue working but need to
upgrade their skills.
49. We should seek better recognition of unpaid work by making
it more visible, by providing more family-friendly policies (such
as working hours adaptation and affordable and accessible childcare
for working parents, with extra financial support for the vulnerable)
and by clarifying the monetary value of such work (measuring, estimating
monetary worth and better supporting it through substantial social
benefits or a basic income approach). The OECD considers that alleviating
this “double burden” of work on women should be a priority on the
policy agenda and an essential step towards achieving genuine equality
between women and men through work. Moreover, the OECD proposes
that unpaid work should be better measured through a Household Satellite
Account under the System of National Accounts.
Note
50. Non-standard or atypical employment contracts represent particular
cross-cutting challenges to policy making. They make it more difficult
to apply existing labour laws, regulations and controls, may challenge
the traditional norms for health and safety at work and render collective
bargaining ineffective or even inexistant. With regard to occupational
health and safety, national strategies should be updated to cover
new forms of work. Temporary and contractual workers, because they
move from one workplace to another, tend to be less familiar with
safety requirements and are at higher risk of occupational accidents.
The same is true for many platform workers who are exposed to fierce
competition. In this context, national labour inspectorates may
need extra powers, resources and training to better control occupational
safety in the new era of work by prioritising prevention and risk-based
approaches.
51. New forms of non-standard employment make self-employed workers
just as vulnerable to abuse as “standard” workers. The equality
of treatment thus requires equalising protections and guaranteeing
labour rights for all workers. Because the ILO Convention on the
right to organise and bargain collectively refers to workers in
general, new forms of work should be fairly covered and any obstacles
of anti-trust regulations should be considered as void towards such
workers. The biggest difficulty is of course to make this right
work in an international context. The only way forward in this respect
is international labour policy dialogue that could lead to enhanced
minimum protection of basic minimum rights for all workers everywhere.
52. With hybrid and fully remote work becoming increasingly mainstream,
both researchers and workers are calling for shorter workweeks and
shorter workdays, while maintaining the same pay: “a reduced-hours
working model can help address many current work negatives, making
employees more productive, healthier and happier”.
Note Human energy and concentration simply cannot
be sustained for eight hours straight or even longer, for more than
a few days at best. Shorter, more flexible working hours enable
to shift the focus from hours worked to results: higher productivity,
better prioritisation, greater engagement and a cut in inefficiencies. Moreover,
shorter and more flexible hours alleviate the complexity for those
juggling with care responsibilities, reduce stress, errors and sick
leave, and improve work-life balance. However, flexibility for management
and for the worker often mean different things: here, a fair balance
of preferences with the protection of all critical labour rights
should be sought. In short, if we seek genuine societal progress,
the future of work is all about greater focus on human needs, well-protected
socio-economic rights, free choices, flexibility and social justice.
