etui.podcast

AI is now widely used to automate business processes and replace labour-intensive tasks while changing the skill demands for those that remain. How are AI-based tools deployed to monitor worker conduct and to automate HR management processes? Through the dual lens of comparative labour law and employment relations research, our guest investigate the role of collective bargaining and government policy in shaping strategies to deploy new digital and AI-based technologies at work.

More about the special issue: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/trsa/29/1

There are almost 2.6 million domestic workers in Europe working in private homes or others. Though representing a huge and vital workforce, their economic and social contribution has often been denied and they are longing for recognition. Although domestic workers are finally enjoying more social rights, trade unions have a key role to play to achieve improved working conditions for domestic workers within and across borders.

What are psychosocial risks? PSRs are increasingly impacting all industries in every Member State. The effects of psychosocial risks can be long-lasting and have both physical and psychological impacts on workers’ lives (such as depression, musculoskeletal disorders or burnout).

Find out more: https://www.etui.org/publications/psychosocial-risks-europe

https://www.etui.org/sites/default/files/2021-12/01-ETU%20BM2021-Chap5-Occupational%20health%20and%20safety%20inequalities%20in%20the%20EU_1.pdf

The ETUI Education department offers a wide range of high-quality training on key competencies and skills to European Trade Union members. The end goal? Strengthening and expanding the labour movement.

More info: www.etui.org/education

Inequality has been a growing concern in recent years. The internationalisation of production and markets, the rampant financialisation of the economy, the deregulation of labour markets, and the retrenchment of welfare systems are only some of the factors that have been feeding into increased inequality in terms of income, property, job security, and working and living conditions. The weakening of industrial relations institutions has also been regarded as part of this broad picture since trade unions and collective bargaining have usually been considered as vehicles of fairness and capable of reducing or at least containing inequality. This podcast episode revolves around Transfer's issue on Industrial relations and inequality and intends to contribute to this strand of research by investigating the analytical premises and the empirical evidence of such claims.

The issue can be viewed here: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/trsa/27/1

The Covid‑19 pandemic is still causing tremendous human suffering, with serious and long-term implications for people’s health, wellbeing and quality of life as well as for the economy, work and employment overall. In this episode, we will be exploring together with Valeria Pulignano how millions of workers especially in the creative industries have been vulnerable to layoffs and income loss. 

Valeria Pulignano et al.'s publication can be downloaded here: https://www.etui.org/publications/creative-labour-era-covid-19

International trade union organisations, like unions at national level, commonly affirm their commitment to internal democracy. But what does this mean? We will be discussing this with two academic giants, Richard Hyman and Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick.

Find out more in Rebecca's and Richard's latest article in Transfer: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1024258920938499

In this episode of etui.podcast we will explore the whys and the hows of the Alphabet workers and what this experience means for the wider trade union movement.

Show notes:

Trabsfer article by Stan De Spiegelaere on transnational trade unionism & the Ryanair case https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1024258920921106

De Tocqueville was right about trade unions: they are the schools of democracy

https://medium.com/@ETUI_org/trade-unions-the-schools-of-democracy-93caa690ef71

Despite a spectacular economic reaction to the pandemic crisis, which stands in stark contrast to the austerity-driven response to the 2008 financial and economic crisis, Bart Vanhercke and the co-authors of Bilan Social express concerns about the so-called ‘social affairs players’ being sidelined in the new Recovery and Resilience Facility,  the fuzzy EU commitment to gender issues, the EU response to rising in-work poverty and the setting a new social-ecological contract.

The pandemic's longer-term economic consequences are not clear at this stage. No one can exclude that a real social crisis will quickly follow the vaccination campaign in the headlines. For the time being, however, it’s the unprecedented –and unexpected coordinated response by the EU’s and its 27 Members States and the European Commission that stands out. The EU’s response indeed contributed to mitigate the impact on unemployment (compared to the rest of the world) and demonstrated that the EU can react quickly and forcefully.

The EU Commission has recently released a proposal for a directive on equal pay. Kalina Arabadjieva will unpack the flaws of such a proposal and spell out why women are still, on average, paid less than men.

In this episode, Romuald Jagodzinsk, points out the main takeaways of the 20th-anniversary issue of Benchmarking Working Europe. The Covid-19 pandemic, and the ensuing economic recession, has proved to be the harshest of ‘stress tests’ for the European Union, probing policymakers’ ability and willingness to emerge from this new crisis without repeating the mistakes of the past.

In this episode, Sotiria Theodoropoulou sheds light on the economic developments in Europe since the onset of possibly the deepest recession in European history.  The analysis will contextualize the economic and social challenges of member states and provide a preliminary analysis of the autumn package and the economic policy priorities of the EU.

In this episode, Paula Franklin, Senior Researcher at the ETUI will shed light on how the Covid-19 has heightened and amplified the pre-existing cracks in the healthcare sector, imposing difficult working conditions for (female) health workers.

In this episode, the ETUI's new Research Director, Nicola Countouris, sheds light on the importance of research for strengthening the trade union movement, the short term and long term goals for the Institute's research department, and provides insights on how the pandemic has hit the EU labour markets after decades of deregulation and austerity.

In this third episode we talk with Zane Rasnača, a senior researcher specializing in labour law at the ETUI and an affiliated member at the Institute for European Law (KU Leuven) about social protection for highly mobile workers in the EU. What are the rules which apply to them in normal times and now under COVID-19, what has changed. Then we move on and talk about Latvia. Zane will guide us through the measures put into place by the government in response to the Coronavirus and also what the trade unions are doing to protect workers and jobs, with some specific examples (i.e. AirBaltic). Finally, we talk about the attack on the rule of law and fundamental rights in Europe from different countries.