Social dialogue working group competitiveness and employment. 7 March Follow-up actions:

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1 Social dialogue working group competitiveness and employment 7 March 2017 Follow-up actions: Visit to a digital factory: Stefan Solle (Gesamtmetall) to find out a digital factory in Germany in order to organise a visit to it for the month of June/ July / September. At the occasion of the visit an informal working group will also be held. CEEMET/industriAll Secretariats to draft an official joint letter to explain the mission, time frame and aim of the visit. New forms of work linked to digitalisation: from the roundtable on national developments, it was concluded with the exception of the reference made by the Belgium trade union representative (see under item 4) that there are no new forms of work linked to digitalisation in the MET industries. It was agreed that the Chairs and the Secretariats will follow-up to this topic in order to present the conclusions to the SSD plenary meeting of 14 December Integration of migrants/refugees into the labour market: after the summer break the Secretariats will coordinate the organisation of a working group with those countries that are more interested in this issue in order to discuss the possible development of a joint statement. 1- Adoption of the agenda: The agenda was adopted with no further amendments. 2- Minutes of the last meeting: The minutes of the last meeting were formally approved. 3- The impact of digitalisation on the world of work Jarkko Ruohoniemi delivered a presentation focused on the impact of digitalisation on the world of work in order to present the scene and open the debate. He referred to the fact that technology/digitalisation has facilitated, the work for employees: for example, it makes physical work easier for employees and increases safety on the work place. He illustrated this fact on his presentation with a machine that helps employees on the cutting down of trees in the forest. Please see presentation here. Some questions were addressed to Mr. Ruohoniemi in relation to the machines used for cutting down the trees in the forest. Mr. Ruohoniemi explained that the machines are mainly used by SMEs, but the 1

2 market for these kind of machines is global: they are also exported to South America and North America. At a question on whether when you buy these machines you buy only the physical machine or also the software (as technology changes quickly and the software needs to be updated), Jarkko Ruohoniemi said that the software remains within the company so that the company is able to solve problems from the distance, if any. The machine has also the ability to collect data on how the operator works/uses the machine in order to facilitate and improve the work of the operator. This data collection is only for the benefit of the operator, when the operator leaves the machine the data is erased. This is another example on how digitalisation is benefiting employees. Roundtable of national developments on the impact of digitalisation on the world of work: The French trade unions referred to the Platforms teléphoniques. Mr. Touboul (CGT FTM Metallurgie, France) said that in the case of these employees, there is a machine that tells them when they have to and can do a pause. This is an example of dehumanisation du travail and how digitalisation is impacting negatively on employees. Bart de Wit (Belgium trade union) pointed the following issues in relation to the impact of digitalisation on the world of work: digitalisation might bring some new negative impacts on health and safety of employees; digitalisation might pose problems on the quantity of employment, as some tasks/jobs might disappear; other problems: the employer might through new digital tools know where the employee is all the time. New digital technologies might, therefore, be used by employers to control the employees. The representatives of the Spanish trade unions explained that in Spain the strategies to foresee the impact of digitalisation on the world of work are limited to very formal meetings with no direct implication of the social partners. The Spanish trade unions noted that the extension of technology/digitalisation can impact negatively on the quantity of employment. In addition, considering that 25% of the current hiring s in the Spanish labour market are precarious engagements, the quality of employment might also be endangered by the extension of digitalisation. Both employees and employers in Spain are interested in debating about the impact of digitalisation on the world of work in the MET sector. For this reason, they are calling on the government to be part of the debates on the development of strategies around digitalisation. They are also looking forward to discussing digitalisation within their social dialogue in order to find agreements that are not detrimental for the workers. For the Spanish representatives, it is important to foster the well-being of the worker at the workplace. A good example in this area is the collective bargaining in the automobile sector that has brought up good results for both employees and employers. Madalena Gonçalves (ANEME, Portugal) explained that in order to create conditions for the development of industry in the digital age, the Portuguese Ministry of Economy decided to launch a national initiative Portugal i4.0 to identify the needs of the industrial sector and guiding measures (public and private) in order to achieve three core goals: 2

3 Accelerate i4.0 adoption by Portuguese businesses; Promote Portuguese companies as international i4.0 players; Make Portugal an attractive location to invest in i4.0. Ms. Gonçalves pointed out that in Portugal they are not aware of new forms of work linked to digitalisation in the MET sector, but they are more visualizing an increase in new ways of working. Alberto Paolo Simoês (SIMA, Portugal) explained that digitalisation is used a lot in some companies like Siemens Portugal and that it has a big impact on the world of work. He also referred to the example of Nokia: there are 2000 persons working for Nokia Portugal but if you go to the plant, you will see practically no worker as most of them are working at home. These are the kind of new ways of working that they are visualizing. The impact of digitalisation is in this case linked to work organisation. According to Mr. Simoês, another challenge that may arise with digitalisation is the fact that it can make some workers to work all day as if there is a problem it must be solved by the core company. Delphine Rudelli (UIMM, France) said that the issue of the impact of digitalisation on the world of work is discussed but it is difficult to evaluate concretely nowadays what impact digitalisation will have on jobs, for example. An Alliance was created with industry sectors to analyse the impact of digitalisation on the world of work (this Alliance does not include trade unions). One of the main objectives of this Alliance is trying to make aware SMEs on how to best adapt digitalisation to their company strategies. Ola Asplund (IF Metall, Sweden) said that the government had initiated an ambitious programme to involve companies (both big companies and SMEs) on the issue of digitalisation. The social partners have also jointly initiated a programme to guide SMEs on digitalisation. In order to deploy this programme, they have gathered around 10 companies to understand the real challenges/problems of digitalisation and take action to tackle these concrete challenges. IF Metall is also organising employees in the MET sector to debate about digitalisation and its effects. They understand that digitalisation fosters competitiveness but it also raises other kind of challenges in relation to work organisation. Johan Wijk (Tekniforëtagen/ Sweden) said that they are actively involved in cooperation with IF Metall to debate and address the effects of digitalisation on work organisation. They are focusing on SMEs as big companies have the possibilities to embrace new digital developments by themselves. For companies digitalisation is also a business opportunity as technology can also bring solutions to the challenges that companies encounter Mr. Wijk said that it is important also to debate about the legal implications of digitalisation. Social partners should discuss about issues such as data protection, cybersecurity etc. The UK Trade Unions said that in the UK, the government had recently launched a consultation to discuss an industrial strategy and also the impacts of digitalisation. The trade unions are working together to comment on this consultation. Robert Sneddon (Community Union, UK) said that currently manufacturing is creating much more many service jobs. In his opinion, the new sector workers are much more precarious workers than they used to be. Health and safety of workers is also a problem for them. 3

4 Gábor Vadnai (MAGEOZ, Hungary) said that in Hungary they are only starting to discuss the issue of digitalisation and its impact on the world of work. In his opinion, digitalisation is a cultural revolution. He also pointed out that when workers work home it is difficult to control them. Andrea Pieracciani (Federmeccanica/Italy) said that the Italian government had recently launched a plan for the digitalisation of industry: industry 4.0 and that this plan is being implemented via fiscal incentives, amongst others. The plan also provides for the enhancement of digital hubs: these digital hubs are set-up at local and regional level and there are desk officers where entrepreneurs can gather information about digitalisation. Federmeccanica is very active on the issue of digitalisation and to this end, they have launched a survey to make a picture of SMEs and digitalisation. From the replies to the survey, Federmeccanica has concluded that SMEs would like to have more information about the impact of digitalisation. To address this issue, a website will be further developed to gather the information that the SMEs are requesting. Federica Perriccioli (Assolombarda/Italy) explained that Assolombarda had recently launched a research project on industry 4.0 to analyse the impact of digitalisation on the world of work, and on skills. The project was more oriented to large companies. They following results have been extracted: more autonomy will be asked to workers (remote bosses) time spent on the physical premises will not be so important they are also collecting information on the new skills and competences needed, the results on this will be shared. As an outcome of the project, Assolombarda will develop some policy recommendations, insisting amongst others on the need for a strong cooperation between the education sector, the employers and the employees. Stefan Solle (Gesamtmetall/Germany) explained the German dialogue process on Work 4.0, initiated by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in 2015 by a Green paper and followed by a white paper that was published end of Furthermore, he shortly presented the social partners agreement of the German MET industry titled Training and Qualification for industry 4.0 manage change successfully. The French trade unions said that from the Berlin Conference on digitalisation, of 14 February 2017, it was made clear that there is a common reflection between employers, employees and government on the issue of digitalisation but this is not the case for France. For them, another important topic is the impact that digitalisation might have on health and safety of workers. Jarkko Ruohoniemi wrapped up this point by stressing the fact that the main focus of this social dialogue is competitiveness and employment. Therefore, the Social Dialogue working group should concentrate on how digitalisation makes the work more productive/competitive and what impact it has on employment. Jarkko Ruohoniemi thinks that with the discussions of the group under item 4, the social partners will be able to conclude on how to best follow up on the issue of digitalisation and its impact on the world of work and what outcomes should be reached. Visit to a digital factor in Germany, Stefan Solle (Gesamtmetall, Germany) presented different options for the visit of a digital factory in Germany. He said that the Siemens digital factory might be difficult to visit and is, in addition, difficult to reach in terms of transport. (no airports around). 4

5 He proposed 2 other alternative factories which might be easier to reach by transport, and he also said that Gesamtmetall is open for other suggestions of the Social Dialogue Working group. Isabelle Barthes (industriall) said that she will involve IG Metall in the planning of the visit. The chairs explained that there is no possibility of reimbursement by the Commission for those members that participate to the visit. Isabelle Barthes also suggested to take the opportunity to organise an informal working meeting of employers and employees at the occasion of the visit. This point was agreed. 4- New forms of employment linked to digitalisation: Irene Mandl (EUROFOUND) delivered a presentation on new forms of employment based on the EUFOUND study new forms of employment of April Please download presentation of Ms. Mandl on the following link. After analysing the different forms of employment, EUFOUND has come up with 9 big trends on new forms of employment. Ms. Mandl explained those trends that could be somehow more linked to the MET industries such as: Crowd employment: a client wants something to be done, there are a series of workers within a cloud that are available to do the service or product that the client is looking for and the platform helps them to make the link. These kinds of understandings between client and worker are usually called agreement and not contracts. These types of platforms are more oriented to highly skilled professionals (for designers, lawyers etc.).the main reason for a client to engage workers/professionals through these platforms is to access labour in a quick way. For those professionals (workers) that commit to a job through these platforms it can result in a better work-lifebalance. On the negative side: the income might be low and it might be an insecure job with limited social protection. Other challenges that these platforms can cause are related to copyright issues: a client asks for the design of a logo, for example, and he gets proposals from several professionals, disregards all the proposals but with the proposals received builds up his own logo. ICT based mobile work: Using modern ICT allows an employee to work anyplace and anywhere. Compared to crowd employment this is a more secured type of work. This employment form is driven by the demand of employees to find more flexibility etc. ICT-work based mobile models is more used by those high-level positions that can work anyplace anytime. These kinds of new forms of work are not specific to a sector but more to certain types of job position across sectors. Ms. Mandl also referred to the use of digital technologies in the workplace. It might happen that lowered-skilled jobs are also done by machines. However, still as of today, 80% of employment contracts are standard ones. Jarkko Ruohoniemi asked Eurofound representative if there is any platform work specific to manufacturing. Ms. Mandl replied that most of these platforms are not oriented to a certain sector but more to specific job positions. In the case of manufacturing, these platforms might be used more in the case of services coming to manufacturing. For example, design products for manufacturing can be done through these platforms: it is not frequent but it exists. 5

6 Irene Mandl mentioned that many young people use these kinds of platforms to access the labour market in the first place. When it comes to regulations, Ms. Mandl said that they did not find any specific regulations on ICT based mobile work models. They only found some specific provisions on collective agreements. For crowd employment, there is no regulations neither and it is even more difficult to regulate them as you might have a platform set up in a country, a worker in another country, and a client in a 3rd country. A European directive could be a starting point for regulations but not if one of the actors is out of the EU. These kinds of new forms of work are starting to be regulated somehow through soft law (code of conduct etc.) Madalena Gonçalves said that in Portugal regulations are already in place and she referred to both employee sharing and casual work that are regulated in the Portuguese Labour Code. Roundtable of new forms of work linked to digitalisation: Jarkko R. said that he had been looking for examples on new forms of work linked to digitalisation before the meeting but did not find any. There is now new form of work linked to digitalisation in the manufacturing sector in Finland, at present. Robert Sneddon said that there is a significant increase of self-employed and part time work compared to some years before in the UK. Johan Wijk agreed to what Jarkko Ruohoniemi said. He explained that they did not find any new forms of work linked to digitalisation in the technological industry in Sweden. He said to recognise some of the elements of the list presented by Eurofound but no real new forms of work. They did not see neither any increase in self-employment in the Swedish technological industry. Delphine Rudelli said that they did not see the emergence of new forms of work linked to digitalisation in the MET industries in France. She pointed out that we should be careful about the concept and meaning of standard employment as standard in France refers to full- time open-end contracts. The French trade unions mentioned that they cannot speak about new forms of work neither. Stefan Solle said that they do not really see new forms of work linked to digitalisation in manufacturing in Germany. He also stressed the fact that they have a low level of tele-working in Germany compared to other countries. Federica Pierriccioli said that in Italy there is now new forms of work but smart working (ICT-mobile work) is growing and is situated around 7%. Madalena Gonçalves said that we should be careful not to mix up new forms of employment with new ways of doing work. She also agrees with Delphine Rudelli that we must be careful about the different meanings that standard employment can have in different countries. Alberto Paolo SImoês agrees with the Portuguese employers on this point. The representative of ACV-CSC said that In Belgium, work related platform is emerging for electricians. Jarkko Ruohoniemi concluded that there are very few examples of new forms of work linked to digitalisation in manufacturing. The SD C&E working group will continue to monitor how these new forms of work expand, if any. 6

7 Follow-up on this issue together with the visit to the factory visit: Jarkko Ruohoniemi proposed that the Co-Chairs and Secretariats follow-up on the issue of new forms of work linked to digitalisation. They will refer to the outcomes on this topic at the SSD plenary meeting of December First exchange of views about the integration of migrants/refugees into the labour market: Jarkko Ruohoniemi did a brief presentation on the topic. At the SSD plenary of December 2016, CEEMET and industriall agreed to possibly develop a joint position on the issue. The SD C&E meeting of 7 march serves as a starting point for an initial exchange of views. Isabelle Barthes said that at industriall they had a look into this issue from different angles, in the case of the social dialogue we should concentrate on the integration of refugees into the labour market. She suggested to set up a small working group to discuss this issue with those countries that are more interested in it or that have taken initiatives at national level. Delphine Rudelli agrees to the idea of having a working group. She said that this issue is not in the agenda of France as France has always been an integrating country. Ola Asplund said that only in 2015, Sweden had received up to refugees, of all kinds: less skilled, more skilled etc. IF Metall has an agreement with employers on how refugees enter into the labour through a fast track procedure. In Sweden, the employment of refugees grows fast. Stefan Solle said that Germany is a destination country and that they have a culture of accepting immigrants. The employers stick to an open culture towards immigrants through education and training. Madalena Gonçalves said that Portugal has a tradition of welcoming immigrants and refugees specially from African countries. She stressed the fact that there is no problem with social dumping as wages are already very low. In Portugal, there are special measures to hire migrants, amongst which, financial support for those employers that engage migrants. To conclude, it was agreed that the Secretariats will coordinate the setting up of a working group to discuss the possible development of a joint position. A first issue to be clarified at the Working Group is: the fact should we speak of immigrants, refuges, asylum seeker?. Secretariats will organise the working group, most probably after the summer break. * * * 7