Wales TUC event - How can workers benefit from new technology?

thanks everyone for uh joining us today i'm shavana taj i'm the general secretary of the wales tuc um we're about to start the meeting of course i'm really uh big thanks to sarah murphy the member of the senator bridgend um and i'm for being the sponsor for this event today i'd also um like to ask sarah to come up and say a couple of words if that's okay chryso have printed our i'm sarah murphy the member of the sunday through bridgend and paul's call and i am absolutely delighted to welcome so many of you to the senate today and sponsor this tuc event how can workers benefit from new technologies during the recent elections many of you my fellow trade union members joined me on the streets to campaign and and it was where we got talking about study my studies and work and passion for data justice and your stories about workplace dismissals and disputes to do with tracking surveillance and workers rights came flowing out it was obvious that what many feared was taking place is that our workers and trade union reps are the coal face of new technology that monitors categorizes and demoralizes workers that the power balance and mutual respect between workers and employers that we as trade unions fight for is being undermined by datified systems algorithms and online surveillance whether that is intended or not i was very i was very fortunate that my professor lena denzik founder of the data justice lab and part of joe mack at cardiff university agreed to commission research into what workers and trade unions are experiencing which we'll hear more about later we interviewed 17 people from as many trade unions and many of you are here today and i want to thank you all for your trust and honesty and commitment to working together to do something about this our interviews mainly focused on what is happening in workplaces with examples including deaths at work due to ineffective surveillance technology union laptops and workers records being illegally seized during disputes workers fainting at work because an algorithm said that they could do the impossible trade union reps being excluded from workplaces and monitored by facial recognition surveillance cameras if they do get in workers being shamed and embarrassed in call centers with league tables projected onto the walls despite union reps getting an agreement that they would stop doing so all of this research very much built on the tuc reports i'll be watching you a report on workplace monitoring technology managing people the lead legal implications and the recent wales tuc worker surveillance on the rise in wales tuc has been incredibly helpful and supportive and always available to chat with me and i cannot thank you enough for having this event here today prospect union and andrew pakes have also done fantastic research and i think have led the way in emphasizing that as a movement we must discuss and share what is going on to strengthen us all as well as community union there was one of the first to blow the whistle when covert surveillance cameras in the workers changing rooms were used to dismiss 13 members of staff at tata steel in 2011. i think other themes we'll hear today are about categorization of workers and ableism in systems from miles luando at united tech and allied workers branch of cwu and it is not simply about what is happening but how technology is impacting organizing and collective bargaining workplace agreements and negotiations which mary williams from united wales would expand upon finally i am delighted to have our ministers here with vaughan gethin minister for the economy attending virtually and hannah blythen deputy minister for social partnership this shows our welsh government is committed to fair work and social partnership and let me end by saying i cannot stress enough how important this issue is my fear and frustration for workers being stripped of their freedom autonomy privacy and well-being keeps me awake at night the potential to prevent this and empower our society is what drove me to stand for election and brings us here to get together today we are at a crossroads we can either let this continue and see our workforce become more unhappy less fulfilled less valued exploited and divided or we can face it scrutinize it use the opportunity of social partnership and our trade union movement to fight to be a true fair work nation in an increasingly dangerfied surveillance-led economy [Music] you um sarah um just to add our thanks to the senate team today for for making sure that we can have this hybrid version um of an event uh so so this is a first time for us it's quite exciting um this event specifically we are going to be discussing how workers can actually benefit from new technologies we know that artificial intelligence is most definitely transforming the way that we work and actually offers opportunities to improve working lives as well but as sarah has said new technologies of course also pose many risks more inequality discrimination and safe work conditions and a real unhealthy blurring of the boundaries between home and work the tuc recently produced a report technology uh technology managing people that raises awareness of the experience of workers and trade unions when artificial intelligence is actually used by employers aspects of the employment relationship for example decisions on recruitment line management monitoring and training are easy increasingly becoming managed by ai when we ask workers about their experience of technologies making or informing decisions about them at work 22 said that they had had experience of these technologies being used to in relation to absence management 15 for ratings 14 for work allocation and 14 14 for timetabling shifts as well as the assessment of training needs and allocation the report also uncovered the alarming issue of bias and discrimination embedded within the ai systems given rise to discrimination and punitive outcomes where it was found yet for all of the dangers of ai many people don't even know what the new systems actually are how they operate what their impact is or even if they're actually present in their workplaces and indeed it's very likely that these technologies are far more widespread than our research suggests so today's event is actually very timely because of the unique hazards of the new technology that it brings to the workplace well cuc are going to be promoting two new documents which in the face of these problems seek to address the issue of how workers can actually benefit from technologies the first is a wales tv c report by the labor research department on new technology at work which will be published in the next fortnight it finds the workers can benefit from automation with the support of unions and the time to act is now to secure such advantages with that in mind i'm pleased that the workforce partnership council has agreed principles for digitalization to protect and enhance workers prospects when automation is introduced in the welsh public sector i think that's a real boost to the efforts of unions and government and employers working together to secure local agreements on this vitally important subject but make no mistake we are now at a crucial point in a technological workplace revolution new technologies are being rolled out at an incredible speed and ai is being used to make life-changing decisions about people at work so we now need to seize the moment and ensure the dignity of work fair reward and workers voices are at the heart of the agenda because if we fail to act these new technologies could very easily entrench many of the long-standing inequalities unfair treatment and safe work practices so without further ado i would like to introduce you to today's panel we have anna mowbry from community andrew pakes from prospect miles lomando some from cwu we have professor lena denzek from data justice lab who will be joining us joining us on zoom and we also have mary williams from unite we're going to be as has already been mentioned joined by vaughan gethin the economy minister and of course we have hannah blythen the deputy minister for social partnership here with us in person so as you can see we've got a really packed schedule and i'm hoping that we can actually take some questions um for those at least who are attending in person but now i'd like to introduce you to our first speaker anna mowbry from community to join me to on the stage for her presentation anna works for community research policy and politics team as a research and policy officer anna's work sees her covering topics related to the future of work worker consultation and wider employment issues and advice anna over to you so thank you so much for having me here today it's a real real pleasure um so yes i'm the research and policy officer at community um for anyone who doesn't know we're a general union with membership roots in steel but now across the economy justice third sector and all sorts of things um so back in 2020 community released the conclusions of our commission on workers and technology which is a research project we did with the fabian society and so my comments today are going to draw both on the conclusions of that and also the work that we've been doing since but i thought given the question we're here to ask today i thought i should open with some examples of ways that work can be made better through technology so we did a survey back in 2019 which found that 57 of the workers consulted said that new technology had had a positive impact on their work so that might be where technology has facilitated flexible working um it's a cliche to comment on this but you know today we've got hybrid solution technology has facilitated that and it wouldn't have been possible without that technology we can meet from different places and at different times technology can also improve health and safety so for example in the in the steel industry moving sharp and dangerous scrap metal in an automated way uh it can make work more interesting so zurich the insurance company has been automating some of the manual and repetitive processes which frees up staff to do the more customer-facing relationship building work that actually many people say that they prefer not only that but actually zurich has been recruiting from areas of the business-like claims which are vulnerable to automation to actually train up people from scratch so that they can build and deploy the robots that are kind of taking on those tasks so when i say robots kind of picture a computer screen with a flow shell on it that's executing a process random round but of course sadly as we've said not all of these examples are positive for workers so we are really really concerned about surveillance and monitoring employers are increasingly using really intrusive ai powered surveillance and we've had a case for example where an employer has proposed facial monitoring for drivers in the cars now fortunately we were able to negotiate a reconsideration in that case but it is happening across the country and we're also really concerned that work can become more precarious thanks to technology as you see in the gig economy and the tools and techniques of the gig economy have become increasingly mainstream so algorithmic management is expanding there's a case recently for example of amazon drivers who were being uh punished by an ai monitoring their driving and it was sort of punishing them for making mistakes when in fact they weren't weren't making those mistakes and of course as it's also been said discrimination is a real real issue for example recruitment algorithms favoring people who look like those who already work there so i think my message is that technology itself is neutral it can make work better or it can make work worse so what we've been focusing on uh since we did the commission is work a voice that key theme so with the institute for future of work community has developed a bargaining framework which we hope will help reps to feel empowered to negotiate around technology so we were really really pleased to see the tucs ai manifesto this year which called for statutory duty to consult with staff around the deployment of high-risk artificial intelligence and automated decision-making systems in the workplace but of course it's not just ai where worker voice is needed you know we also want reps to be equipped to negotiate around new technology new uses of old technology and even new uses of data that they already hold so our proposal is really for there to be technology reps trained to respond to developments like these we want to empower our reps to ensure that not only are they well-versed in the existing protections under legislation such as data protection law equality law health and safety or consultation law but also to be able to negotiate additional benefits you know where technology could bring higher pay better conditions or better working hours and we want to develop technology forums creating that kind of institutionalization a space for managers and workers to come together to discuss developments and to ensure that worker voice is really at the heart of all key decisions i think what we would say is change cannot simply happen to workers it must be with them and for them and workers are absolutely ready for these kind of technology changes and they will you know they will embrace technology change as long as their voices are heard and are at the center of decision making so thank you very much [Music] i think the message i got loud and clear is uh the infamous line that we always use as trade unionists nothing about us without us so i think that's that's one of the the key things there um i'd like to introduce our next speaker andrew pakes he is the director of communications and researcher prospect he leads on policy communications legal and outreach for prospects members andrew has also been interested in social inclusion unemployment rights and has had leading roles in a number of trade unions and the charity sector before taking up his role at prospect andrew is also the visiting fellow at the digital futures of work research at the university of sussex looking at the impact of technology on work as we recover from the coveted pandemic so andrew to you thank you very much chair that introduction is almost as long as my comments but firstly i'm delighted to be speaking at my first in-person and hybrid event since the the pandemic um and actually i think it's really timely we've seen already before the pandemic the collision of technology and digital technology in the ways we are managed and the way we have worked we have seen that rocket boosted during the last two years as technology has come closer to us but it's also started to creep into our lives and i'd really really genuinely like to start by paying tribute to sarah to the wales to uc and the tuc family for getting our act together you know nowhere is there change in the world of work that is greater than there is in the world of technology and how that is transforming not just automation and the jobs we do but particular concern to us the ways we are managed and the types of jobs we do through the power of technology and that's the big concern that comes when we speak to our members so it is a tribute to those people who are leading on that work digital technology is transforming the ways we work technology was key to keeping many of us safe connected and largely working during the pandemic and we should think about how we can use technology for inclusion to reduce working hours to include productivity to ensure that workers are in the driving seat when it comes to innovation in workspaces that we bridge the gap between freelancers and full-time employees in terms of creating a workspace where people feel valued and respected but we can't do that if we ignore the mission creep that technology is bringing in and actually i agree with anna when we talk about the perils of technology what we're not really talking about is technology itself we're talking about its application by business it's drive by the boardroom and the ability of it to drive out humanity rather than welcome in the humanity and human agency that we talk about it so we will always say data is the new front line of workers rights it is the battle line between how we are treated and how we're involved in building together our new thing technology as we've heard has the power to hire us to fire us to exclude or include us it has the power to promote us and ultimately it has the power to fire us often without human oversight or human decision making explained in any way our data can be monetized by employers and sold on aggregated and used to make money for employers from our inherent data we exists and this is the challenge that we as unions are getting wise to and getting organized around and i'm really excited to be here with utah with unite with colleagues from ucu and so many other parts of the tuc family which are rising together to ensure that human agency and dignity are part of the innovation we need in building the economy coming forward so four things we need to change quickly from us to add to this debate around it firstly if we want to build an inclusive economy which is based on fair work and social partnership that the welsh government champions so ably it has to be an economy based on worker voice and cooperation there needs to be a mutual interdependence of workers ourselves and employers in finding the balance about how technology is used so that those developing using and impacted by new technologies have a real say on the purpose the design and implementation of ai and other automated decisions we need ai ethics that go beyond the board rooms and go beyond toothless major principles and actually bring together fair work negotiation and collective bargaining and the type of worker voice that we know is the only way to deliver inclusion equity and involvement in our workspaces secondly we need a new focus on the social benefits of technology we need to challenge that technology is about the bottom line we need to take on employers that use digital technology as a cover for cuts rather than a story about improvement of our place in the world and the kind of economy we want to make because the narrow focus on bottom line gets it wrong but also sometimes the narrow focus on technology is something beyond most of us excludes us from this debate if this is about how we're managed if this is about productivity if this is about our future this needs to be a debate for all of us and it needs to be a debate that involves us and we need to end that divide that sees it as a technical debate and actually sees this as a real debate around the future of work and if we want people to engage with technological change then we need to show how it can make their lives better and how it can actually include more of us in it and make our jobs better and that's why i think social partnership and fair work is absolutely critical and wales has a real chance through the partnership with the wales tuc the involvement of unions for ministers like vaughan and hannah in actually defining for the uk as a whole the place technology can have in the fair work agenda thirdly we need to hear much much more about job transformation so that workers are essential to this debate about the transition to a new economy just like we talk about a just transition in energy and climate we need a new just transition in data and digital that is centered on people and places as well as the technology itself because if we don't talk about where place sits into this or people's lives fit into it we will see a transformation of global capital that uses technology to centralize our economy and centralize profits in fewer and fewer places which will ultimately be bad for the kind of interconnected wales and the united kingdom we're trying to build as a movement and finally we need a framework that all social partners can buy into it is stark when you work as i do often in westminster that the government's westminster government's ai strategy is silent on workers it is silent on worker voice and inclusion and the only way it talks about us is if we are factors in the mean of production who need to be skilled and as we have learned nothing about us without us in every form of industrial change this society has seen in every place we have got it right workers have been centered in that discussion and every place we have got this wrong workers have been included and the states could not be higher when we talk to members we're being micromanaged by digital technology when we talk to people who are having cameras monitoring them in their home and you know this is a mainstream debate for us one in five companies are now already using digital surveillance software or plan to do so off the back of this pandemic one in five young workers in our latest survey report their employers are now watching them in their homes through camera technology the boundaries between dignity and privacy and fair work and respect could not be under greater challenge and it will come down to progressive government like here in wales and progressive movements like the trade union movements to set out not just to stall for what good looks like but a campaigning agenda which ensures productivity people and respect at the heart of the future so i'm really really pleased to be here sharing with other sibling unions from our movement but also working together with wales tuc members of the senate and members of the government in ensuring wales is the leading administration and putting this at the heart of a future good work economy thank you [Applause] um absolutely andrew i totally agree we are in a very unique position i keep saying that in wales you know small is beautiful we've got a population of what just over three million we can genuinely do something very very different and it's actually quite an exciting place to be in right now and and having the social partnership procurement legislation coming up and making sure that fair work and voice you know worker voice is very much centered means that we can genuinely get ourselves into a position where workers can benefit from new technology so um thank you andrew um i'd now like to introduce our next speaker miles lorando from the united tech allied workers branch of the cwu miles is a front-end developer at helical levity he's interested in ethical technologies accessibility and mental health his union the utaw represents and fights for workers interest in the tech industry so miles over to you thank you so i think a lot of what i'm going to say is uh going to be repeating and underpinning a lot of what's already been said um so i've i've cropped um what i'm going to say from somewhat larger talk on tech mythology uh utopia dystopia and i don't think we've really got time to go into the details of that so i'm going to try and squeeze as much as i can into four minutes um so instead i want to point out that when we talk about these new technologies in workplaces we could be talking about anything from everyday office software to self-driving delivery vehicles and one of these seems pretty innocent and apparently required to do your job but the other is a billionaire's fantasy there's that mythology thing again that simply doesn't exist yet in a lot of places um what the two share though is that unchecked both can lead to ever diminishing dehumanizing working conditions constant surveillance and data gathering that erase the human workforce and try to turn them into smart workers and what is a smart worker um defining um smart or intelligent in humans is problematic and ableist in itself the same is true in machines perhaps not ableist we're surrounded by so-called smart technologies that minus for personal data all the time and selling it as uh exciting and beneficial usually to our health so trying to tap into this our new smart workplaces provide software to apparently empower employees to manage our workloads manage our calendars and our own health but behind the screen these tools are thinly veiled intrusive surveillance technologies they monitor your productivity they track how much time you spent looking at that cat playing a piano gif um how many emails you've sent which unapproved sites you visited and sometimes they even go as far as tracking your mouse movements and key logging this smartness implies human levels of intelligence but quite often these data analysis and pattern recognition algorithms are neither smart nor magical they're built by humans and have the same flaws that humans do they're political and biased just because they don't have faces these black boxes still show evidence of being discriminatory racist sexist ableist particularly when used in hr and management perpetuate bias and exacerbating inequality gdpr has been hailed as a big win that it protects consumers but there's no equivalent that protects workers from having their data used to exploit them we have little choice about what software we use or how our data is processed the obfuscated legalese of intrusive privacy policies are intertwined with our employment contracts so that the choice whether to press accept is now a matter for hr on the other side of automation our promises of driverless cars and fully automated warehouses presented as either already in place or only just out of reach this is quite often hype that uses the same slick advertising that makes you want the next smartphone the promise of a clean efficient futuristic utopia where everything is provided without the ugly friction of humanity to maintain this desirable image tech platforms design interfaces that tries to erase the human part of the process think of delivery apps for example we can order food without thinking about the worker entirely we're subtly induced to think uh to believe the work is automated that robots have understood our order they've cooked it and then suddenly uh yuck we open the door and there's a human we're rendered into a soulless barely visible workforce that apparently no longer needs autonomy or dignity it leaves us to be exploited at the hands of these discriminatory values that have been installed by developers managers ceos and uninformed politicians as jeff bezos shamelessly describes it this is artificial artificial intelligence there's little automation here it's still very much human powered but the hidden workforce driving these apparently automated technologies are usually distributed often worldwide to reduce costs reduce rights and exploit as much as possible it's a capitalist desire to replace the messy human part of their money losing operation technology can be used to improve our efficiency but we need to trust that it won't be used against us and trust is earned not given automated processes can be used to augment workers but not at the cost of working conditions or jobs we need visibility not just of the workers themselves but of the technologies being used like the luddites it's not the machines that we have an issue with it's how they can be used to exploit the workers but we're not here to break machines we have well-established organizing methods used by trade unions that don't need to be reinvented tech unions are growing worldwide and changes are happening whistleblowers and activists are appearing from amazon facebook apple highlighting harassment and discrimination that's been ignored for years in spain the rider law has not only legally given employment status to gig workers but has also opened up secretive algorithms to inspection to ensure fairness this is the sort of thing we want united tech and allied workers represents workers in the tech industry and this is such a broad category of work it's beginning to include everyone the power structures imposed by the next innocent piece of software you have to install or the next app you need to download for work must be controlled at ground level legislation needs to be put in place otherwise the technology will continue to follow tech billionaire cult leaders values and turn both us the workers and you the users into the soulless machines they pretend to be making thank you [Applause] thank you miles i did love the the futuristic utopia and i as a union event i was wondering at which point were we going to get a mention of jeff bezos but you managed to do it really nicely so thanks for that and as you say trust is you know is something that is earned and is not given so again what we're hearing continuously is the very clear need that if there is information that employers are going to be gathering that they're going to then financially benefit from then we would like to see some of those readies in our pay packets as well quite frankly and we would like to understand what the data is actually telling them and how they're benefiting too so so thank you for that our next speaker is going to be joining us over zoom i'd like to um invite professor lena denzek from the data justice lab at cardiff university lina is a professor in digital communication and society at cardiff school of journalism media and culture and the co-founder director of the data justice lab her research concerns the interplay between media developments and social and political change with a political particular focus on resistance governance and the politics of data she holds a phd from goldsmith university of london and has previously worked at the central european university in budapest where she is still a fellow with the center for media data and society lina over to you thank you very much and thanks very much for allowing me to participate um this way i'm very sorry not to be able to to be there in person travel is a bit uh tricky for me at the at the moment um so and thanks also by the way to to sarah of course i've worked with on on some of these issues and congratulations to her for all all the stuff that she's doing now around this area we're very proud at the data justice lab to work with her and for her to have been a previous student as well um so first of all just to say i mean obviously what we're doing at the data justice lab and the reason we're talking about data justice and how it feeds into the discussion today is first of all to try and shift our understanding of what is at stake with this development when we're increasing relying on data-driven technologies and the key kind of focus of ours is to as we've heard today is to shift the focus away from either discussion on on technology that these are technical questions we need to be engaging with but also to get away from this idea that this is simply a question of of data protection or individual privacy but actually that we need to think about these developments much more in a broader sense in terms of social justice and here it would be for example you know um the place of of data in questions of workers rights um and that's how we need to con to understand these developments very much the sort of social phenomena not technical phenomena and therefore have an impact on these different areas um i also just wanted to to say and i think miles touched on this that i think we should be careful about saying that technology is neutral technologies is not neutral technology is designed with certain values and certain interests in mind and also are optimized for certain outcomes and i think that's important because it shows that we need to have input and participation to happen from the beginning and we're talking about what we want technology to be and that needs to be from from the outset otherwise we will end up with technology designed for certain purposes embedded in certain values and interests and agendas that are therefore lend themselves to certain kinds of outcomes over others and they become much more difficult to challenge um and so we know for example that data-driven systems including things like artificial intelligence by introducing new ways of decision making and that's the way to think about this this is a new way of understanding people a new way of understanding society and that comes with a certain ideology as well so there's a shift in assessments going on here when we start relying on these technologies for for example hiring purposes or indeed for assessing uh people's productivity or other qualities uh within within the workplace so it's a shift in how assessments and evaluations are carried out and that's how we need to engage with these technologies and one major issue say in terms of how we um can advance or make sure that workers benefit from new technology one of the main problems we have to overcome is the obscurity that surrounds the implementation of these technologies in the workplace we are relying on this great work that colleagues that are present today and have carried out in terms of trying to understand the extent of the implementation of new technologies etc but what we lack is a systematic over a systematic oversight systematic transparency around what employers are actually doing what organizations are actually doing and we need this information in order to be able to grapple with also what's at stake with it so what we need to push for is is much more transparency in this area in terms of what's happening in workplaces and what organizations are doing and place much greater demands on organizations to to reveal this information the other thing that we and also i should say what hap what's happening as well is that often managers themselves aren't actually aware of how the technologies that they're implementing are working and so what we're seeing is a as a dependency on third-party actors that actually are not accountable to anyone and that no one really understands how they work or what their role precisely is so this is a real issue around transparency and the level of obscurity that surrounds these technologies the other area that i think has been touched already is the fact that policy and governance debates about data about ai about new technologies has excluded worker workers uh representation and worker voices and we see that also in the types of policies that are being created around these new technologies that what we found in our research systematically sidelines questions of social and economic rights and privileges much more individual sort of rights around privacy for example and data protection but does not contend with questions of how this will impact on on collective rights um and on social and economic rights and so therefore there needs to be much more work representation in governance debates in order for those perspectives to be included in how we think about this technology more broadly and what we wanted to do in society and then of course that requires and what we found in research is that obviously unions might um feel sometimes that it's difficult to engage with these debates because there's a level or lack of expertise around what you need to know etc and i think the people spoken today are probably the exception here in terms of what um how they are able to engage with these issues but it does mean that therefore that requires i think some collaboration within the trade union movement and sharing resources and using resources together but also to take advantage advantage of expertise from other social movements such as for example digital rights or other types of of actors that i think a collaboration would be needed in order for that to be much more fruitful engagement in terms of intervening in how these technologies are being developed and how they're being used and applied so i think those are just some of the areas that we've touched on in our research thank you thank you lena um i'd now like to um introduce mary williams from unite to talk about um this particular issue from her perspective mary williams is the head of political and policy for unite the union in wales united is the largest trade union in the uk and ireland represented workers across all industrial sectors mary is an experienced campaigner an activist and has worked in media and politics in wales for over 20 years so mary over to you great um well thanks shavana and i'd also like to thank the wales tc and sarah for having this very timely event however i'm going to start by going back in time a little bit so back in 2017 unite saw the technological changes which were taking place in workplaces across the uk and the impact it was having on our members their jobs and our future while acknowledging the potential opportunities of these new technological advances there was also a realization of potential risk to jobs the question of new technology replacing workers is not new this is something that's been happening for hundreds of years however what was and is new is the speed at which this new wave of technology is taking place advances in robotics digitization sensors artificial intelligence and cloud computing are driving the new wave unite instigated a deep dive analysis and this was pre-pandemic of how new technology was going to impact our industrial sectors and working with our members across our nations and regions it quickly emerged that there were particular areas of concern which we believe will be highly impacted the most effective sectors in which we have about 650 000 united members could according to our analysis lead to the loss of approximately 230 000 jobs for our members within those sectors so we believe the question should not be whether new technology will replace workers but rather how future technological developments can complement workers rather than replace them in the 21st century when new technologies are introduced into workplaces workers voices must be heard we understand that and from the work around our own analysis unite developed the new technology agreement and that agreement is now in several workplaces across the uk the objectives set out in the new technology agreement are as follows the employer and union recognize the introduction of new technology can present specific challenges as well as opportunities both the challenges and the opportunities presented by new technology require good coordinated industrial relations across the organization in order to be managed in the best way for all parties concerned and that the introduction of new technology should not be met unilaterally but by mutual agreement based on a comprehensive review of relevant information and monitored by union shop stewards and representatives with the time and resources to engage in issues arising from it unite reps have successfully negotiated these agreements with employers such as rolls-royce and the bmw group and these agreements and others are available to all reps to see on a central database which can be accessed when required we're all living in a changing world and workers today should be equipped with the necessary skills to face it but that also means looking to the next generation who will not only be the users of this advanced technology but they'll be the creators of it so we need to continue exploring the potential in research and development investment to make wales a leader in the manufacture of this new technology you know it's no coincidence that amazon is the world's biggest spender in research and development in this area it's also widely reported how amazon are using surveillance technology on their own workforce technologies such as navigation software item scanners wristbands thermal cameras security cameras and recorded footage to keep its store and warehouse workers under close watch a former employee at amazon wrote in time magazine that workers are being treated like robots unite has begun a major newspaper and digital advertising campaign to alert amazon workers about a confidential telephone hotline which we've opened so they can air their issues and concerns no workers should feel the stress and pressure which many of them have reported to us so the implementation of new technology in workplaces is happening now and with these developments we can ensure that society as a whole benefits do we put a tax on the introduction of new robotics do we look for the potential of a shorter working week without the reduction in pay certainly our work life balance could change dramatically could workers job share without loss of pay this could allow for phased retirement where an older worker could job share with a new entrant as part of a highly a high quality apprenticeship they're just some of the questions that we have to ask now questions about what kind of society that we want to live in i'm going to leave it there siobhan i i've really enjoyed the speaker so far and i'm looking forward to the questions later okay thanks everyone thank you mary i think what both lena and mary have um presented very clearly is the need for a negotiated agreement between employers and unions right from the offset so it's not something that just comes about or you know appears because there's a problem and we find out because there's a particular personal case um and i and also going back to what lena said about the dependency on third parties i mean that's re that's a real worry actually and that's something that we need to be very much aware of next i'd like to invite hannah blythem uh to to speak um hannah is the deputy minister of housing and local government from 2018 to 2021 and prior to being elected to the senate hannah worked for unite wales leading on political and policy work um hannah is currently the senate member for dellen and the deputy minister for social partnership so hannah over to you thanks chevron thank you to wales to uc for inviting me to participate today and thanks to sarah for hosting so i know so as a passionate advocate for for data justice and she's already been holding the welsh government's feet to the fire on this issue and which is as she should do um i think you know we've already heard um time and time again from the incredible speakers today how uh about the new technologies and the digital revolution and the how it brings many challenges with it and what should be a warning signal to us now to act and to to to act on that and you know sarah said at many of those challenges powerfully in your opening um but i think turning to the the themes dave how work how workers can benefit from new technology and i always say as a politician i try to go from the glass half full approach from the house half empty or otherwise i don't think i could continue for most of the time but it also brings with opportunities and that opportunity to take on that challenges needs to be do in a way that we do things differently and the way that brings those broader benefits for our communities our economy and our environment i think we've heard to today how you have these concerns and the debate and even protest of the impact of automation on workers and the modernization the workforce of nothing new from the industrial revolution to the marching machines been immortalizing in film and literature but what is new as you've heard is the speed of the change and how that is being implemented now and actually it's not about the technology itself but the way it's designed and the way it is implemented and i think it's absolutely right and this this event today is a huge significant starting painting that we address these as a movement and we address these contemporary challenges and take stock and collectively step up to address them and it's clear there can be no analog answers in this digital asian no acceptance however reluctance of that business of usual approach where you have the power balance going one where rather power imbalance and that trickle-down approach that actually means that those least able to bear the burden of change you hit the hardest and we're absolutely clear that today's discussion needs to be rooted in our collective ambition to be a fair work nation of decent and dignified work with workers voices front and center and taken forward by working together in real social partnership and you know whilst we might not have it within our gift in wales to have some of the legislative leaguers leave us to tackle and change workforce place practices we do actually have the political will and the track record of working innovatively to make a difference so it's important that we and we absolutely committed to building on this use all the levers we do have in males whether that be through procurement the power of the public force public purse the influence we have within the public sector and of course our social partnership approach to bring together government trade unions and employers and you know party says you've heard me say this over and over again it's almost as the deputy mr social partnership now i have a challenge to see how many times i can say social partnership with any speaking engagements but i'm going to keep going in that vein because you know social partnership has very much become a welsh way of working over the course of devolution born out of an economic crisis and and its value really brought into sharper focus during the coronavirus pandemic and this government is committed to putting our social partnership on a more formal footing through the social partnership and public procurement wales bill which will establish establish a statutory social partnership council with representatives from government employees and trade unions place a social partnership duty on certain public bodies a fair work duty and welsh ministers and strengthened socially responsible procurement and you know this social partnership model i think provides that way if you've heard of bringing employee representatives and trade unions together to have that strategic focus and and you know it's obviously not for not least through the social partnership council that we are establishing is and it's definitely not for government to suggest what the social partnership council when it is established should focus its work on and i suddenly wouldn't miss that with chav sat so close to me but you know we're talking about look at these things at a systemic level and i think you know that social partnership council could offer a forum to address some of those these issues we've heard today in that way and a potential to provide that platform to collectively work through how new technology can be introduced into workplaces in a progressive and non-exploitative way and i think we touch and always say that one of those social partnership forms we have in wales already and the workforce partnership council has revised its partnership and managing change agreement to include a set of principles and managing the transition to digital workplace to support the involvement participation and consultation of staff and trade unions when new digital and data methodologies and new technologies introduced and these these principles strictly promote a social partnership approach and include the character characteristics of fair work and cover that's not the fire alarm that isabel saying first ministers questions are about to start um i'll give it a second there we go so these principles specifically social partnership approach including the characteristic of fair work and cover employee voice and participation flexible and secure job change opportunity for question and growth health safety and well-being and respecting workers rights and this is by no means the end but is a positive starting point and in this and supporting the way forward in terms of the introduction of digitalization in the workplace because it really is through social partnership and work for worker participation through trade unions that we can enable and empower workers as part of a just transition in a way that you know that any economic and environmental benefits of employees that come from new technology are shared with the workforce whether that's increased wages reduce work intensity and through better working practices and impact on occupational health to improve well-being you know because there can absolutely be no climate justice without economic and social justice alongside it just in closing and you know many people i've heard like myself have been working from home during the pandemic i've been in a preferred position when i have a work and i'm able to do that and i have a room to work in with the only worry that i get disturbed by a very over excited two-year-old labrador and many continue to do this for at least some of the time in the future so we've actually seen you know how technology can offer more flexible working for some and can be good for people living say in rural communities particularly in a country like wales and no longer having to commute long distances to work but as we've heard today we have to be acutely aware that there are negative as well as positive consequences of the use of technology and also wary that some people may be excluded without access as well alongside working thinking through the impacts of artificial intelligence and jobs the future and data monitoring in the workplace and just in closing i'm going to say as a long-time trade unionist and now in my ministerial i'm keen to work together as and to explore and i have said to seize the moment to see how technology can be used to fairer and better work opportunities for us now and well into the future in wales diocoval [Applause] thank you hannah and if anyone didn't know what social partnership was before they definitely know what it is now i i think this is like like a bingo moment really in terms of how how many times you managed to get that in but as you say ultimately this is about us working together and finding a way forward and it is about us moving towards that collective ambition of becoming a fair work um wales nation so i'd now like to invite um vaughn gethin um our minister uh to to kind of respond really on to some of what he's heard uh today from a governmental perspective on some of these issues just to say a bit about warm uh before being elected to the senate vaughan was a solicitor and a former partner at thomson's he's a member of gmb unison and unite the unions he was also actually one of the youngest ever presidents of the wales tuc bourne has held the governmental roles of minister for health and social services deputy minister for health and deputy minister for tackling poverty before actually taking up his current role as the minister for economy in may 2021 so hopefully i can't see the screen but vaughn should be on the screen in a minute i don't know if you can hear me yet thank you vaughan i just just introduced you so i know i i heard the introduction i've been trying to to be good and not and actually that civil my scottish terror is being very good as well but i'm really pleased to have an opportunity to contribute at the end of the session i'm sorry that i couldn't see in here more of it i did catch uh the end of what my colleague hannah bloodthen was saying and i think there is a really clear message that i hope people not just understand my support and that's about the fact that all aspects of our work link back to people we sometimes find ourselves discussing programs process and productivity but this is all still about improving the quality of life for people people who see the benefits of income raised through taxes but people who recognize that actually work as a huge part of what goes into how you see yourself and can make a real difference uh to be in good work and not good work as my colleague hannah has just been talking about we have taken a social partnership approach to the challenges that we face and that joint approach has helped us not just during the pandemics but beyond that to both identify solutions and to try to chart the right way forward together so our view is clear that employees should always engage with workers and trade unions before new technologies are introduced we want to see progressive implementation and successful introduction both for employees and employers and our viewers that constructive engagement should ensure that new technology is introduced into workplaces in a sustainable and progressive way and i can say i've seen that in my own working life with technological change that has been handled well and other times where there are definite lessons to learn to improve in the future our economic mission says that digital technology and innovation we know will continue to drive change in both the structure and nature of the economy that will bring both challenges and things like automation but also opportunities for new businesses investment and lower work intensity and the potential for improved work-life balance and we already seen some parts of our economy move towards that that comes with challenges for businesses needing to change their model but a range of businesses are also finding that improved work-life balance also provides productivity gains as well there's been lots of evidence about that in the past but with the pandemic and the requirement to change i actually think there's a greater willingness from a range of businesses to do just that now in wales we're forced to have excellence in research and innovation that will contribute to developing new technology and that could help to accelerate economic recovery and success for the future there'll be opportunities to learn and work remotely to reduce the isolation of some welsh communities to remove the need to live or travel directly within economic hubs and opportunities for rural parts of wales to thrive our digital strategy for wells which we published in march sets a clear vision for a coordinated digital approach in wales now as i said automation and digital innovation are accelerating change in the world of work our strategy sets up the end to give people the opportunity to both develop and enhance digital skills so they can excel within a modern workplace we try to set out how we want to support businesses inwards to accelerate the adoption of digital to work smarter and drive innovation and to make sure they're in the position to take full advantage of the opportunities that do lie ahead we know the use of digital driven innovation to support automation and artificial intelligence can take away from repetitive task bearing and help people to focus on where they can add most value i think that our role in the government is not to stifle innovation but a supporting environment where innovative new technology can be introduced in a way that creates mutual benefits for employers and workers i'm very clear that this government will not support an exploitative agenda of which we've heard much about from concerns that i understand trade unions have raised and indeed one of my early questions from sarah murphy was exactly on this point but it all comes back again to people and whose side are we on those businesses that want to do the right thing and the way they adopt and introduce new technology those workers who are helping to create that new technology to make businesses more productive and ultimately all those working people who we know we want to have a fair day's pay for a fair day's work because our ambition really is to have a greener more prosperous and more equal nation and i believe that by working together we have the best prospects of doing just that many thanks for your time today and as you can probably hear i'm needed elsewhere to deal with household tasks but i really do look forward to working with you now and in the future in my relatively new role in the government many thanks chav and all those attending today i want to know what those tasks are i'm intrigued now um what i've heard from both of our ministers very clearly um is that in wales we are committed to doing things differently we are very much committed to um fair work and this is ultimately about having mutual benefits and the thing that stood out for me in terms of what vaughan said is is that not introducing technology in a way that's going to be exploitative towards workers and that that really goes to the heart of what many of the uh the speakers today have have spoken about so um i'm not sure what we're like for time do we want to take a couple of questions sarah yeah okay brilliant so um if we will take a few from here and then can we take questions from people who know okay so we're always unfortunately sorry it's only for those people who are here in person so jamie do you want to ask your question please hi um thank you that was a tremendous event stimulating but above all useful i'm so glad i came this afternoon um question very simple um can any of the panelists tell me about a uh i don't know positive global comparator uh maybe from europe germany or whatever else for social partnership that takes augmentation into account so any framework of which you're aware thank you thank you jamie um andrew you were not in the way so i'm hoping that andrew might be able to take the question um hopefully it's quite a short answer my answer is always we should be more swedish you know what's really interesting in conversations we have within the european trade union family with our sibling organizations federations is so much this conversation about the adversarial nature of business over here doesn't compute when you have that conversation you look at the swedish model which is exactly what hannah described which is businesses and unions working together because they see share prosperity is something they want and in close brackets and they want government to keep out of it because it's about business and unions negotiating that future we don't they don't talk about the right to disconnect they don't talk about surveillance in the way we do because it is hardwired into the national culture and economic culture that workers are in the driving seat of it so you know we've talked about social partnership here it works it demonstrates and what's really really fascinating is if you look at all of our competitor countries which are doing better for us on the adoption of new technology and are more productive than us what do all of those countries have in common they have a higher level of employee participation in their economy it works involving people on the shop floor and the digital shop floor in making decisions leads to more prosperity and that prosperity is shared better when workers are involved the evidence exists brilliant any other questions yep hi i'm going to jump in on the social partnership bingo game um and i think yeah it's i think it's a really like exciting opportunity for trade unions to kind of work in this area and it reminded me a lot of the fair work agreement in scotland also really exciting my question about it for everyone on the panel is about its implications for solidarity um in scott from andrew and i know from my own research that it's a very very different story across the border in england and my concern for all of this how do we go about building solidarity as a movement it's so fundamental to the trade union movement how do we go about building solidarity when there are such uneven kind of developments across the country can i um ask mary and then hannah please i think what today is proof that a lot of trade unions are looking at this and have been looking at it for a very long time and i think the coordinated work through the tuc in the wales dc is definitely going to help towards that solidarity but it's about getting that message out to workers you know that they don't have to accept it they can you know work through the trade union work collectively through that and across the wider movement to to make sure that their voices are heard and that things aren't done to them that they're they're proactive in it so thanks barry and hannah thanks left to try and make sure i answer this from a ministerial perspective rather than that of a trade unionist and yeah i think you know i think it's a really good question too that you know i before i was elected i campaigned on things like regional pay disparity and things like that so how do we make sure by the unintended consequence of trying to do the right thing here in wales by workers and workplaces we don't leave others behind elsewhere and you know it's something i'm acutely aware of as a member that represents a border constituency as well where many of my constituents will travel each day to work over the border so i think alongside the kind of the solidarity and the collective work and that mary's talking about across you know between three trade unions and across the different nations and it's a role that i have to play in my colleagues in government in talking to colleagues whether you know oh speaking very candid i think i'd get that very fair with some people in some governments and but also to build those and build those businesses and build those relationships with other parties as well about actually having an opposition actually how we can make the case for what we're doing in wales to make sure we see it elsewhere in the future as well great thank you hannah um i don't know whether sarah you wanted to add to that or even if you had a question yourself for the panel i suppose what i would just add to that is that it goes back to what i said today just going out and talking to people people will flood you with these stories the sad thing about it and that was the purpose i think of a lot of the tuc um research and everybody who's been doing research into this is to actually like once you start talking to workers about it the stuff that they'll tell you and some of it is you know horrendous and some of it's good but i think we're still at a point really where we just need to and that we can do this through our social media we're doing it today through this event as well um we're doing it by all of us coming together and actually in person meeting one another these are the relationships and bonds that we create in the movement but the fundamental thing here is to tell workers to come forward that they're not alone they think that this is happening in isolation even more so now because they're at home and they are isolated from their workers but we need to create more space and i think you know like mary was saying that amazon helplin

2021-12-09 13:39

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