The General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Esther Lynch, called on Tuesday at the Forum Europa in Brussels for a new European social contract that meets the needs of workers and the world of work in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
Speaking at the briefing organised by New Economy Forum in the EU capital, Lynch explained that the current social contract is failing to address the new landscape and warned that this situation could lead to a certain “fear of the future” amongst workers.
The ETUC General Secretary advocated moving forward with this new social contract through “social dialogue” and bringing AI closer to European workers. Lynch pointed out that this new contract should be structured around five key principles, open to negotiation with other stakeholders.
“There is no algorithm without negotiation", she said, citing this as the first pillar of that future contract. Lynch insisted that the role of algorithms must be addressed before their implementation, not afterwards, and argued that workers “must have the right to know how the system is assessing them”.
Europe already has a Directive on platform work, which regulates the use of algorithms, but Lynch emphasised that we must ensure companies are implementing it so that AI is safe in the workplace.
The second pillar of the social contract for AI must ensure, in the view of the ETUC General Secretary, that the profits from new production models are shared with workers. “When AI makes work more productive, that dividend belongs to wages", emphasised Lynch, adding that the ETUC is calling for new collective agreements between companies and trade unions to take this into account.
Thirdly, Lynch highlighted the transition that AI will bring about for certain jobs and recommended taking proactive steps to identify which jobs will be most affected and in which regions, so that measures can be taken. This will also provide workers with reassurance when dealing with AI.
Fourthly, she spoke of the right to learn as one of the key elements of the new social contract. “The skills that matter most in the world of AI will be those of humans: exercising judgement, seeing the bigger picture, and looking at things differently", she predicted. The ETUC General Secretary proposed funding skills development so that all workers can acquire the skills required by AI, and emphasised that this represents an opportunity for Europe.
Finally, this social contract for AI must include "democratic oversight" and an AI Transition Committee within the European Union, comprising trade unions and businesses. In this way, it will be possible to monitor the impact on employment and gradually respond to new needs.
The General Secretary of the European trade unions acknowledged the role of these organisations and also called on companies to rise to this challenge and commit to “the principle of human control and fair and humane work in the age of AI”.
“The social contract must adapt, and that is the responsibility of all of us; we must play our part in negotiating this social contract and then deliver it to the workers", she emphasised. She also called for lessons to be learnt from the mistakes of the previous social contract and for a better one to be drawn up for this century.
For his part, the director of Indra’s Brussels office, David Luengo, noted at the end of the briefing that he agrees with Lynch that institutions must continue to prioritise “dialogue and negotiation” in the 21st century, and assured that the company is committed to continuing to work along these lines.
Luengo also backed Lynch’s view that “there can be no algorithm without negotiation” and added that this must be “the essence” and “the foundation” of the discussion and of an ethical agreement. Furthermore, Luengo emphasised that Indra maintains an “entrepreneurial” industrial outlook, with its commitment to investing in new areas, including technology and AI, and called for this to be accompanied by “quality jobs”.
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