Digitalisation can and should be shaped for the benefit of all industrial workers

This report is the European Parliament’s official reaction to the Communication by the Commission on the same topic dated April 2016, and states the Parliament’s political priorities. Many of these priorities match those identified by industriAll Europe in its own Position Paper “Digitalisation for equality, participation and cooperation in industry”:

•    the high societal impact of digitalisation, specifically on “employment, working conditions, workers’ rights, education and skills” (§38), and the risk of “unstable and precarious employment”, which leads to a need for “protection of workers’ rights” and to uphold “existing labour and social legislation” (§11)
•    the need to safeguard the “privacy of workers” when “collecting and accessing industrial or production-related data" (§29), and their safety when interacting with autonomous robots (§26)
•    the need to ensure fair business relations in the digital world, regarding the transfer of data (§29) and the usage of standards (§35)
•    the potential of the circular economy to standardise communication along industrial value chains (§35).

Luc Triangle, General Secretary of industriAll Europe, stated, “We are happy to see that our views, namely that digitalisation can and should be shaped for the benefit of all industrial workers, are being taken seriously by the European Parliament. We now expect the Commission to come up with concrete proposals”.

Links:

industriAll European Trade Union: Position Paper “Digitalisation for equality, participation and cooperation in industry”, December 2015

European Commission: Communication “Digitising European Industry”, April 2016

European Parliament: Own initiative report “Digitising European industry”, 1 June 2017 (provisional version)