What kind of transformation and novelty has the abrupt rise of the platform economy brought to national labour markets in the last five years? How has this business model shed light on the challenges emerging from the use of artificial intelligence in a workplace? What other fields has the platform economy irreversibly changed?
These and other questions will be at the core of the Future of Work 2022 – Five Years Later, which will address the change that took place since the first, 2018 conference. At the same time, the FOW 5 will lay the foundation to deliberations about the expanding impact of the platform economy on labour, employment relations, and the society, aiming to address the key question – who benefits from this change and who does not?
All these themes and topics will be explored in two discussion sessions with a great lineup of panelists representing the EU, national policymakers, academia and research community, trade unions and activists.
November
12:00-
15:00
Reflections on the new EU Platform Work Directive and its Impact on the EU and Beyond: Comparative View from Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro.
The EU Directive on improving working conditions in platform work, once adopted, will make an impact on EU member states, but it – is also expected to have a spillover effect on the countries in its neighborhood. This session will discuss the potential impact of the Directive on the EU as a whole, as well as its repercussions on Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia, three neighboring countries with a distinct approach to platform work. The debate will also look into the prospects of the platform work to impact youth brain drain. Can platform work reverse this trend and keep the workers in their home countries? What is needed to sustain these aspirations and choices of platform workers?
One of the main targets of the EU directive is resolving the status of platform workers. To date, many of them are classified as self-employed independent contractors, and thus denied significant employment rights. Under the Directive, there is a rebuttable legal presumption that a digital labor platform, which “controls the performance of work,” is the employer of platform worker’s. By identifying them as such, the platform workers will be entitled to the labor and social rights that accompany the status of a “worker,” which include the right to a minimum wage, collective bargaining, personal leave benefits, working time and health protection, and contributory old-age pensions.
According to the European Commission, revenues from the platform economy in the EU in 2020 were estimated to as high as €20 billion. In the EU alone, there are more than 500 digital labour platforms and more than 28 million platform workers.
As a result of the proposed directive, it is estimated that between 1.7 million and 4.1 million people could be re-classified as workers. Others may become genuinely self-employed as some platforms may adjust their business models. According to the CENTER’s estimates for Serbia and Montenegro, at least 50% of workforce on platforms is misclassified.
Algorithmic management, high-risk AI systems and the world of work
Digital labor platforms use automated algorithms which are at the heart oftheir business model. Automated or semi-automated decision-making systems (ADM) monitor, supervise, and evaluate the work performance of platform workers, and are used to make or support decisions, such as pay, ranking, etc., which significantly affects the working conditions of platform workers. Nonetheless, workers find these decisions difficult to understand and almost impossible to contest. This creates risks such as loss of autonomy, bias, discrimination, income unpredictability or surveillance.
This session will discuss how the EU Commission seeks to promote fairness, transparency, and accountability of algorithmic management, and how these high-risk AI systems are addressed by the EU Directive and the draft EU AI Act (2021). At the same time, the discussion will tackle ADMs gradual spreading into conventional work environments, in sectors such as banking and finance, education, healthcare, services, retail and in public services. Last but not least, the debate will examine how regulators and policymakers in Serbia approach this complex topic that brings together the world of work, privacy and data protection, and artificial intelligence.
Confederal Secretary at the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC)
Policy Officer, Future of work at Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion, European Commisison
Executive Director of the Public Policy Research Center
Co-founder and Programme Director of the Public Policy Research Center
Lecturer in the Work, Employment, Organisation and Public Policy Group, University of Bristol
Nives Radovic
SUPER Hub – Co-founder & Researcher
The Commissioner for Protection of Equality
Gruber-Risak
Associate Professor at the Department of Labour Law and Law of Social Security, University of Vienna
Kanjuo Mrcela
Professor at Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana
Secretary General of the New Trade Union, affiliate of UNI Global Union
Faculty of Law University of Novi Sad
Lecturer in the Work, Employment, Organisation and Public Policy Group, University of Bristol
SUPER Hub – Co-founder & Researcher
The Commissioner for Protection of Equality
Considering artist’s have a distinct way of viewing the future of the world around us, the Center invites an artist to exhibit annually as part of the FOW conference program.
The Public Policy Center proudly announces this year’s conference exhibition “Fallout” by Iva Kuzmanovic, at the gallery B2 (3rd-9th of Nov).
The exhibition takes inspiration from nuclear disasters, referenced through archival material filmed at test sites carried out by the Unites States of America, mainly the Marshall Islands throughout the 1940s and 1950s. After the defeat over Japan during WWII, directly succeeding the utilization of the first atomic bomb in military conflict on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United Nations vouchsafed the Marshall Islands to the USA as testing grounds for nuclear bombs. The following testing affected the local population of people and other biological life logistically, infrastructurally as well as in health, resulting in court action that to this day is underway for reparations of damage caused.
The exhibition is comprised of large and medium scale paintings in oil on canvas. Click the link below for more information and to view the virtual gallery.
Conference Director
Conference Coordinator
Conference Coordinator
For more information on the conference history, our team, our
projects and ambitions, visit the following links.
