Some call him the global warrior for workers’ rights. And indeed, Philip J. Jennings gets emotional when talking about the well-being of workers. “I call on the students to take up the spirit of 1968!” he said during a debate with a representative of employer groups on the St. Gallen Symposium’s main stage. “There is a revolution in the world of work, and this generation should push for people to be put in its centre.“

This revolutionary roar would be familiar to the founders of the International Students’ Committee, which established the symposium as a reaction to the leftwing, student-led protest movements that swept Europe in 1968. Jennings has led the UNI Global Union, an organisation representing 900 unions, since its creation in 2001. He is the face of a trade union movement looking to recover lost ground, at a time when robots are poised to take over millions of jobs.
The numbers are daunting. According to the OECD, 14% of jobs in developed countries are at risk of being automated, and a further 32% are likely to go through significant changes. The trade union movement is not new to such levels of disruption: They originated during the first industrial revolution at the end of the 18th century. Can today’s technological change bring unions back to life?

On the ground, the reality is quite grim. In many European countries, the number of union members is decreasing. According to data from the European Social Survey covering the period from 2002 to 2014, union membership in Germany went from 19% to 15%. In Denmark, a country with traditionally high trade union coverage, it fell from from 77% to 69%. Jennings blames the declining membership on the “fluidity” of the labour market and shorter job tenures.

One answer to this fall in support, he says, is to rethink outreach. “Unions should be much more innovative and aggressive in trying to attract young people,” Jennings says. “We should go out into schools and places of higher education.” Jennings draws inspiration from the biggest German union, IG Metall, which has opened offices in universities. On the opposite side of the debate, Roberto Suárez Santos, acting Secretary General of the International Organisation of Employers, which represents 150 national employer organisations, thinks unions need to modernise: “Their way of working is very conservative.” Indeed, the labour market has become much less homogenous than it used to be. Automation has done away with the typical nine-tofive office routine. Alternative forms of work, such as freelancing, are on the rise. In the US, for instance, 36% of the workforce is freelance, according to 2017 data from the Freelancers Union. The instability inherent to such jobs complicates the negotiation of collective agreements.  Jennings, however, seems optimistic. “Freelancers and unions belong together,” he says. “It is a relationship that works.”

As an example, Jennings cites a sector-wide framework negotiated for workers of the film industry in the US. “There are a number of people saying that we are not going to fix this enterprise by enterprise. We really do need to have a more sectoral approach to establishing labour standards in the sector.”

A response to automation

There is one issue on which both employers and trade unions seem to agree: The need to retrain workers. “We have to anticipate the upcoming scenario and develop
new skills,” says Suárez Santos. In that regard, Jennings demands more concrete action. “We have a lot of conversation about how everyone needs to adapt and get new skills,” Jennings says. “This  requires investment in human capital, otherwise where will people go?” he asks.

Besides, Jennings argues, there are neither enough policies helping workers to retrain, nor are existing programmes sufficiently funded. “Adult education is a massive growth area both for public institutions and the private sector. This requires a new degree of financing.” Two hundred years ago in England, where unions were still illegal, workers took a radical road in response to the introduction of machinery. The so-called Luddites burned and destroyed factories and mills across the country. Rather than destroying machines, workers’ dissatisfaction with the status quo is being felt at the polls: Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States are widely seen as expressions of this discontent. “It is not just the transformation of work, but the insecurity people feel, and the sense that no one is looking out for them,” Jennings says.

During the debate in St. Gallen, the audience was asked if they thought employers were doing enough to protect their employees from the negative consequences of automation. Two-thirds said no. Jennings takes hope from this result: “I think we are winning the argument that we cannot leave people behind, he says. Businesses and  unions should work together.”