António Moniz

The European Metal sector is at a critical juncture, navigating through the complex landscape of the twin transition towards digitalization and sustainability. This transformative journey, though essential, is fraught with challenges that if not addressed, could undermine the sector's resilience, competitiveness and social equity. The Metallica project emerges as a pivotal initiative in this context, aiming to mitigate these challenges by fostering enhanced worker engagement, participation and conflict resolution.

The European Metal sector is at a critical juncture, navigating through the complex landscape of the twin transition towards digitalization and sustainability. This transformative journey, though essential, is fraught with challenges that if not addressed, could undermine the sector's resilience, competitiveness and social equity. The Metallica project emerges as a pivotal initiative in this context, aiming to mitigate these challenges by fostering enhanced worker engagement, participation and conflict resolution.

Este relatório pretende descrever e analisar o trabalho de campo realizado no âmbito do projeto CERP. O projeto pretende compreender o estado da arte em Portugal da negociação coletiva portuguesa com referências à transição sustentável e justa no setor dos transportes e no setor público.

Este relatório pretende fazer uma revisão da literatura sobre a negociação coletiva portuguesa com referências à transição sustentável e justa no setor dos transportes e no setor público.
Portugal tem sido dos países que iniciou já o seu caminho de transição e encerrou as centrais a carvão. Mas em países do Leste europeu, por exemplo, existe muita indústria associada à produção de electricidade a partir do carvão, e onde o encerramento levanta sérias questões sociais. Nestes casos, em particular, é necessário um processo gradual que inclua medidas de apoio à formação e reconversão dos trabalhadores envolvidos.

Em Portugal, existe uma ausência de formalização da ciência para assuntos políticos em que a procura de aconselhamento é, em grande medida, informal.

"This book reflects the diversity of platform workers and their strategies to improve their work and organize collectively. It offers an insight on the cultural and institutional frameworks of the gig economy and the varieties of platform work in different sectors, locals, skills and complexity level. At the same time, it provides a range of policy options to ensure labour rights and social protections for these workers. Although a common European policy is still missing, critical debates have been raised to foster socially acceptable platform work. It presents new pathways for exploiting the potential positive effects of platform economy and platform-based work." (from the Introduction)

“It is therefore not surprising that new initiatives are arising both among traditional trade unions and in new types of organisation and, in the process, innovative new demands are being raised and placed on the negotiating agenda. These are documented in this timely publication, which adds indispensably to our knowledge about labour responses to platformisation in Europe.” (from the Preface by Ursula Huws)

The emergence of the platform economy is the most recent model of outsourcing practices and the flexibilization of the organisation of production supported by the development of information and communication technologies. The spread of this business model has led to the expansion of different precarious forms of employment, the most common being the bogus self-employed. The business model based on digital platforms also has the effect of limiting the capacity of trade unions to represent and defend workers, preventing or limiting, for example, resource to collective bargaining. This article compares the trade union revitalisation strategies deployed in Spain and Portugal in the rider sector by traditional trade unions and associations of delivery workers and precarious workers. The article shows how, in both countries, unions have combined organising and mobilisation strategies with actions aimed at influencing political and regulatory expectations. However, there is evidence of a greater experimentation of practices in the Spanish case, as well as a greater impact and influence of their strategies in political terms. The article also reveals important differences between the two countries regarding the relationship between traditional trade unions and delivery workers' associations.

Este capítulo pretende contribuir para a análise das principais fontes de ansiedade social causada pela crescente automação em Portugal. O capítulo foi baseado na revisão de literatura internacional e nacional, bem como na análise secundária de dados. Para além disso, durante o projeto DEEP VIEW foram realizadas duas entrevistas não estruturadas a especialistas em relações laborais e 13 entrevistas semiestruturadas a representantes do mundo sindical e de entidades patronais (federações e confederações), em setores particularmente relevantes para as questões associadas ao risco tecnológico.

Recent developments in automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are leading to a wave of innovation in organizational design and changes in the workplace. Techno-optimists even named it the ‘second machine age’, arguing that it now involves the substitution of the human brain. Other authors see this as just a continuation of previous ICT developments. Potentially, automation and AI can have significant technical, economic, and social implications in firms. The paper will answer the question: what are the implications on industrial productivity and employment in the automotive sector with the recent automation trends, including AI, in Portugal? Our approach used mixed methods to conduct statistical analyses of relevant databases and interviews with experts on R&D projects related to automation and AI implementation. Results suggest that automation can have widespread adoption in the short term in the automotive sector, but AI technologies will take more time to be adopted. Findings show that adoption of automation and AI increases productivity in firms and is dephased in time with employment implications. Investments in automation are not substituting operators but rather changing work organization. Thus, negative effects about technology and unemployment were not substantiated by our results

https://ideas.repec.org/p/mde/wpaper/0165.html

New technologies, sustainability policies, protectionism and consumers preferences are pushing for the reorganisation of the automotive cluster. The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to create disruptive effects in the employment systems across the world. The future deployment of broad-spectrum algorithms capable of being used in wide areas of application (e.g., industrial robotics, software and data communication) can lead to considerable changes in current work patterns, swiftly render many unemployed across the globe and profoundly destabilise labour relations. In this paper, we identify the probable penetration of AI in the automotive sector and to study its effects on work organisation, employment, and industrial relations systems, in Portugal. These changes are put in place to enhance the product quality, control costs, and improve productivity. We study these implications on productivity and industrial relations collecting new data and obtain results based on secondary statistical analyses and case studies in the automotive industry. Finally, changes in the productivity and labour market will be discussed considering the employment and skills changes in the automotive sector when investment on automation becomes a clear trend in the automotive sector.

The managerial strategies towards Industry 4.0 were coupled with the emergent normativity on incentive policies to enable automation improvements and industry realignment for new automotive value chains. In other words, the national framework to support company incentives for the concept of Industry 4.0 initiatives has pushed automotive industry managers to establish strategies of new investment on automation and repositioning in the global value chain.
Similarly, the scarcity of available qualifications for Industry 4.0, makes the share of "high road" jobs stable. The qualification process in the automotive industry has increased in parallel with the investment on automation.
An important contribution to this increase on job skills is significantly based on existing vocational training policies, which enable the incoming of higher skilled young job seekers, and a lifelong training and requalification of workers in the automotive sector. We have studied the training offer on “mechatronics” for the automotive sector, including both the manufacturing and repair activities. Data indicates a trend of increase of demand for mechatronic trained technicians with higher skills and preparedness for tasks related to automation, programming, maintenance and production control.
How about compensation? short- and long-term job stability? The young professionals that are seeking for a job in an OEM of the automotive sector, or even in a component provider in this sector, have higher probability and expectations of have better wage income and longer-term job stability due to his specialized skills. We have confirmed these results in our preliminary interviews with vocational training centres and company managers.
The managerial jobs are still privileged in the process realignment of industry, even in those case where the electrification technology tends to replace the ICE one. However, these cases are very limited in Portugal. Only Caetanobus and Mitsubishi-Daimler Fuso are producing electrical vehicles. The other OEMs are in a slower process of technological modernization. The choices over the application of principles of Industry 4.0 concept in their premises implied the recruitment of more jobs with the qualification on mechatronics, and managerial jobs to coordinate and control this technological transformation. In this sense, results do not support the conclusion that these managerial jobs are being eroded.
In parallel, there is an evolution of skills for specialized work clusters (automation, robotics, engine electrification). In our research we verified that the mechatronic trained young professionals are occupying jobs related to automation and robotics. But the skills related to the propulsion technologies based on electrification have a different requirement. Although, mechatronics is mostly related to Industry 4.0 strategy, it is expected that the energy transition will induce changes in the training contents of mechatronic. Some interviews also confirmed this trend. Thus, we can expect the emergence of two work clusters around a) Industry 4.0 competences and b) powertrain electrification.

O trabalho em plataformas digitais é uma nova forma de trabalho que, em Portugal, não tem ainda definido um modelo regulado de relações de trabalho. Este artigo analisa os perfis de trabalhadores de várias plataformas digitais de trabalho e a sua representação coletiva em Portugal. A diversidade encontrada nos estudos de caso dos perfis dos trabalhadores de cada plataforma explica, em parte, a falta de interesse de movimentos laborais em os representar. O tipo de tarefas e o local de trabalho contribuem para o desinteresse na procura de representantes coletivos, e demonstra os (des)alinhamentos que ocorreram entre trabalhadores e possíveis representantes. Observa-se ainda potencial para outros alinhamentos entre os interesses de diferentes trabalhadores, movimentos sindicais e associações de representação alternativa.

The research report presents the key findings from the INVOLVE project (VS/2020/0145). It contributes to the debates on the participation of social partners in dual VET governance under countries generally classified as state-centred, skills-formation regimes (Spain, Greece, Portugal and Poland). The research report analysed the actual role played by social partners in the dual VET systems in the selected countries at different governance levels and the extent to which trade unions and employer organisations are involved on an equal footing. It also formulates policy recommendations supporting collective responses to dual VET systems in the selected countries. Findings are based on desk research, fieldwork consisting of semi-structured interviews and mini-case studies and national scenarios developed by INVOLVE partners, on the basis of a scenario workshop methodology

The so called “crowd work” is an employment form that uses a digital platform to enable organisations or individuals to access other organisations or individuals to solve specific problems or to provide specific services in exchange for payment (Valenduc and Vendramin, 2016). There are many alternative terms for crowd work used in European member states, such as crowd sourcing, crowd employment, sharing economy, platform economy, gig economy, on-demand economy, collaborative economy, Peer-to-peer economy, among others (Eurofound 2018). Recently, the term “digital platform work” has developed recently to be dominant in the literature to refer to sectors where this technology has arrived. Accordingly, this report will proceed using the latter term. These forms of online intermediation have expanded from creative and high-skilled professional activities that became virtualised as a result of digitalisation to a variety of other services and activities, traditionally delivered by self-employed, that involve the maintenance or repair of material commodities or the delivery of services in person, such as cleaning, gardening, household maintenance and transport (Huws, 2017). As a result of this, workers profiles vary from highly skilled IT and creative professionals to very unskilled workers. It has been also noted that many digital platform workers are young people looking for extra income such as students, unemployed or carers (Valenduc and Vendramin, 2016). The main Portuguese reference about work in digital platforms is fused with the Uber app. Its controversial arrival in 2014 triggered fierce responses from several groups. The main legislative reference on digital platform work is the ‘Uber law’. The symbolism of the app expressed as ‘Uberization’ became synonymous of the ‘new’ precariat, seen as a hassle of technology and an attack to organized labour in the country. There are also regulations for Airbnb at state, regional and municipal level intended to limit the number of lodgings in certain areas where touristic activities are very intense. In general, the other platforms are not covered by specific regulations.