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MINISTÉRIO DO TRABALHO, SOLIDARIEDADE E SEGURANÇA SOCIALGABINETE DE ESTRATÉGIA E PLANEAMENTO

Cadernos Sociedade e Trabalho • XIX

Centenário do Ministério do Trabalho, Solidariedade e Segurança Social:Conferência O Futuro do Trabalho

TRABALHO, SOLIDARIEDADE E SEGURANÇA SOCIAL

REPÚBLICA PORTUGUESA MINISTÉRIO DO TRABALHO, SOLIDARIEDADE E SEGURANÇA SOCIAL

GABINETE DE ESTRATÉGIA E PLANEAMENTO

Sociedade e Trabalho booklets • XIX

TRABALHO, SOLIDARIEDADE E SEGURANÇA SOCIAL

REPÚBLICA PORTUGUESA

Centenary of the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security: Conference The Future of Labour

CENTENARY OF THE MINISTRY OF LABOUR, SOLIDARITY AND SOCIAL SECURITY:

CONFERENCE THE FUTURE OF WORK

Ministério do Trabalho, Solidariedade e Segurança SocialGabinete de Estratégia e Planeamento (GEP)/MTSSS

Sociedade e Trabalho booklets

1. Trabalho e Relações Laborais2. Imigração e Mercado de Trabalho3. Dimensão Social e Imigração4. Formação Pro�ssional5. Competitividade, Inovação e Emprego6. Confrontar a Transformação Demográ�ca: Uma Nova Solidariedade entre Gerações7. Proteção Social8. Integração das Pessoas com De�ciência9. Quadros de Pessoal e Investigação em Economia10. Aprendizagem ao Longo da Vida11. Responsabilidade Social das Organizações12. Inovação Social13. Competências14. Criatividade e Inovação15. Análise Económica com Dados Empregador-Empresa/Economic Analysis Using Linked

Employer and Employee Data16. ILO and Gender Equality in the World of Work17. Empreendedorismo, Coesão Social e Dinâmicas Empresariais18. 100 Anos da Organização Internacional do Trabalho - O Centenário do Ministério do

Trabalho: A Institucionalização da Regulação Laboral19. Centenary of the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security: Conference �e Future

of Work

CENTENÁRIO DO MINISTÉRIO DO TRABALHO, SOLIDARIEDADE E SEGURANÇA SOCIAL:CONFERÊNCIA O FUTURO DO TRABALHO,Cadernos Sociedade e Trabalho, n.º 19, 2017, p.1

CONFERÊNCIAS III

SOCIEDADE E TRABALHO BOOKLETS N.º 19

CENTENARY OF THE MINISTRY OF LABOUR, SOLIDARITY AND SOCIAL SECURITY: CONFERENCE THE FUTURE OF WORK

MTSSS / GEPLISBOA / 2017

Gabinete de Estratégia e Planeamento (GEP),Ministério do Trabalho, Solidariedade e Segurança Social (MTSSS), 2017

Sociedade e Trabalho booklets: Centenary of the Ministry of Labour: Conference �e Future of Work, 19

First edition: March 2017Tiragem: 300 copiesISBN: 978-972-704-406-1Depósito legal: 423260/17Cover: Marisa Alegria VinhaDesign and pagination: Empresa Diário do Porto, L.da

Graphical Execution: Empresa Diário do Porto, L.da

Gabinete de Estratégia e Planeamento (GEP)Praça de Londres, 2, 5.º1049-056 LisboaTel.: (+351) 211 155 100E-mail: [email protected]: www.gep.msess.gov.pt

All rights reserved for the portuguese language in accordance with the legislation in force for MTSSS/GEP


CONFERÊNCIAS V

Index

1 Preface José António Vieira da Silva .................................................................................. 1

2 Opening Intervention António Costa ......................................................................................................... 5

3 Summary of the Panel I – Introductory Session ............................................... 11

3.1 Intervention by the Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Guy Ryder ............................................................................................................... 17

3.2 Intervention by the Director for Emplyment, Labour and Social A�airs of the OECD Stefano Scarpetta ................................................................................................... 23

3.3 Intervention by the Responsible for Youth Employment of the Board of the European Youth Forum Lora Lyubenova ...................................................................................................... 29

4 Summary of the Panel II – �e Future of Work and the European Social Model .......................................................................................................... 33

4.1 Intervention by the Permanent State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social A�airs, Germany �orben Albrecht ................................................................................................... 39

4.2 Comments Manuel Carvalho da Silva .................................................................................... 47


Indexvi

4.3 Comments José da Silva Peneda .............................................................................................. 53

5 Summary of the Panel III – Is Legislation and are Public Policies and Collective Bargaining Following the Rapid Pace of Labour Market Change?.................................................................................................... 59

6 Summary of the Panel IV – �e Technological Revolution is Redesigning the Labour Market and Labour Relations - Risks and Challenges ................. 69

7 Conclusions José António Vieira da Silva .................................................................................. 79

Conference�e Future of Work

CENTENARY OF THE MINISTRY OF LABOUR, SOLIDARITY AND SOCIAL SECURITY: CONFERENCE THE FUTURE OF WORK,Sociedade e Trabalho Booklets, n.º 19, 2017, pp. 1-2

�e conference that this publication evokes has a very singular nature: it was born from the will to celebrate the centenary of the Ministry of Labour, but ended up focusing on a prospective re�ection on the future of work itself.

It was also organized as an answer to the challenge made by the Internatio-nal Labour Organization to its Member States, regarding the celebration of its own centenary, in 2019.

�e future of work and the work of the future are topics for an exercise of re�ection of enormous interest, complexity and actuality.

�is re�ection has already been a reality in so many places, but has not yet deserved the proper attention in Portugal.

We wanted this conference to give a new momentum for a crucial debate for Portugal. And crucial for many reasons: because we live in a global world and have an open economy, because we live in a time of diverse structural changes, and also in a society that is particularly willing to incorporate behavioural and technological innovations.

With this one-day event, we have attempted to reconcile the international and the national dimensions, the political vision with the perspective of scienti-�c re�ection, the angle of the social partners with the one of the entrepreneurs.

We were very successful in our ambition, given the richness of the interven-tions and the liveliness of the debate.

�e most important conclusion from this debate is the recognition of the need to deepen and enrich this debate even further. Discussing the future of work, its organization and its connection to social protection, is mixed with the debate about our future. About possible futures. About the choices of the present and of the future.

Preface

José António Vieira da SilvaMinister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security of Portugal


José António Vieira da Silva2

�e sustainability and the richness of the democratic nature of these choices are intrinsic components of the re�ection on the future of work. �at is also why we are facing such an inescapable urgency.

To all of those who have contributed to this conference, at the most diverse levels, my sincere gratitude.

José António Vieira da SilvaMinister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security

António CostaPrime Minister of Portugal


Mr. Director-General of the International Labour Organization,

Mr. Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security,

Members of the Government,

Mr. Secretary of State of the Federal Ministry for Labour and Social A�airs of Germany,

Mr. Director for Employment, Labour and Social A�airs of the OECD,

Madam Representative of the European Youth Forum,

Ladies and gentlemen, representatives of the trade unions and employers’ organizations,

Members of the Parliament,

First of all, I would like to thank for the invitation to attend this conference, organized by the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, joining the initiative launched by the International Labour Organization on the “Future of Work”.

�inking about the changes that are occurring in the economy and antici-pating their impact on the world of work is critical to de�ne the political action that we must follow with the purpose of ensuring that those changes are always accompanied by the valorisation of decent and quality work. It is precisely for this reason that, today, we unreservedly support the Decent Work Agenda, lau-nched by the ILO, and we are keen to participate in this global re�ection on the theme “�e Future of Work”.

Opening Intervention

António CostaPrime Minister of Portugal


António Costa6

Portugal has a strong commitment to the International Labour Organiza-tion for more than 40 years, because the country deeply values the work done by the Organization in the study of labour market problems and the need to ensure employment with rights.

During the most di�cult years of the economic and �nancial crisis that hited us, the ILO, the OECD and other international organizations were deci-sive for bringing data and studies into the public debate, which allowed for the expansion of our knowledge on the Portuguese labour market. For example, the idea that Portugal continued to have an excessively rigid labour market and, therefore, an increase in productivity would have to necessarily go through the relaxation of labour laws, was one of the notions that we were able to deny on the basis of these international comparative studies.

Over the last few years, austerity policies and the persistence on a model of competitiveness based on labour deregulation and low wages, had a very nega-tive impact on the economy and employment. Between June 2011 and Decem-ber 2015 more than 200,000 jobs were destroyed and unemployment has rea-ched levels never before seen in Portugal, reaching a rate of 17.5% in early 2013.

At the same time, the country has seen, in recent years, a wave of emigration that only �nds parallel in the ones that occurred during the sixties of the last century, generating losses in what is the most valuable asset that a country can have: its people, their work, their talent and their quali�cations.

�at is why the Government is, since the �rst moment, committed to the need of abandoning the project of “competitive impoverishment” to which the country was subjected in recent years, betting on a strategy for the economy and for the employment that values the modernization and innovation of produc-tive structures and digni�es work, restoring income and rights.

�at is why we are committed to the restitution of restore income and with a phased increase of the minimum wage. �at is why we are studying ways to �ght precariousness. �at is why we are reviewing active employment policies. �at is why we relaunched the social dialogue, extending to social concertation the debate on a strategy for the decade that enable us to overcome the structural blockages of the Portuguese economy.

A strategy for sustainable growth cannot go through the devaluation of work. Rather, it should promote the ability to create added value, which implies a great commitment in �xing our structural lack of quali�cations.

In fact, defending a model of “competitive development” is the sole way to allow a revival of the Portuguese economy and employment in a truly sus-tainable manner, creating conditions for the e�ective generation of wealth and well-being and for increasing the external a�rmation of our country.

�at is why we are implementing the Program “Quali�ca”, aimed at increa-sing the skills of young people and adults with greater di�culty in �nding work,


Opening Intervention 7

strengthening and diversifying vocational training opportunities, adult educa-tion and lifelong learning.

And it’s also why we are focused in technological innovation and in streng-thening the linkages between education and training systems and the produc-tive sectors, in the context of local and regional development strategies to meet the challenges of employment, modernization, and competitiveness.

If there’s one thing we all know about the work of the future, is that it requi-res more skills, and not less. More innovation, and not less. More quality, and not less.

Because if it is indeed true that currently economies face global challenges of an enormous complexity, in a context of fast technological transformation that generates profound changes, with impacts of structural nature, it is also true that innovation and skills are the main assets to overcome these challenges, enhancing the opportunities for job creation, as it happened – in fact – in all the great moments of economic paradigm transition.

�e technological and digital revolution of the past decades is redesigning labour markets: the nature of work, the form of work, the workplace, the orga-nization of working time, causing a change on the vocational skills of workers and, namely, requiring a new ability to innovate.

With the Industry Program 4.0, which we launched in March, we want to ensure that Portuguese companies will be prepared to take advantage of busi-ness opportunities that will arise from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, pre-cisely the one that concerns the digitalisation of the industry, the introduction of a set of digital technologies in the production processes. In this process, we are meeting with a group of experts, institutions and social partners, to de�ne priorities and guidelines that will set modernization and transition mechanisms for the new digital production paradigms.

We know, from the beginning, that the de�nition of this new public policy requires a concerted strategy with the social partners, in order to address the risks and meet the new emerging labour needs. �e strengthening of social dia-logue is, therefore, essential to ensure that the changes in the world of work, resulting from technological advances, promote a positive adjustment of labour relations and the economy.

And it is also why the conclusions of the Industry Program 4.0 - like other programs of modernization of the economy that we are developing - will be discussed within the social concertation, in the context of an Agenda for Eco-nomic and Social Development on the medium term.

�is is a good example of the path we want to follow: incorporate changes in the ways of organizing production processes and boosting the increase of the competitiveness of companies through the investment in technological infras-tructures, new management processes, in science and in the quali�cation of


António Costa8

human resources. But without losing sight of the defence of the dignity of work, the enhancement of social dialogue and collective bargaining, or the framework of rights and duties of the Welfare State.

Basically, ensuring that, in the future, work will always be work with rights. �ese are fundamental principles of an economy that is both innovative and creative, which generates wealth and creates employment, but also of a decent and inclusive society that democratizes work and welfare and that leaves no one behind. Now and in the future.

José António Vieira da Silva Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security of Portugal

Guy Ryder Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO)

Stefano Scarpetta Director for Employment, Labour and Social A�airs of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and

Development (OECD)

Lora Lyubenova Board Member of the European Youth Forum, responsible for youth employment


Summary of the Panel I – Introductory Session

Guiding lines for a debate over work across generations

�e International Conference on the Future of Work invited for its �rst panel Guy Ryder, Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), Stefano Scarpetta, Director for Employment, Labour and Social A�airs of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Lora Lyubenova, Board Member of the European Youth Forum, responsible for youth employment.

�e debate was conducted by the Portuguese Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, Vieira da Silva, who underlined the importance of ILO’s role, not only for being “the only organization within the United Nations with a tripartite structure”, but also for its “knowledge and experience in producing regulations”.

Portugal, apart from being a member of the ILO family since its creation, has been continuously strengthening its partnership with this Organization, which has recently opened a new o�ce in Lisbon. In this context, Guy Ryder highlighted the collaborative work with the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security in the areas of youth employment and unemployment, as well as its relevant role in the dialogue with the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries.

�ree years from celebrating its �rst centenary, ILO wanted to mark this milestone by challenging its member countries to re�ect on the future of work. Guy Ryder considered that this re�ection should be based on three ideas. �e �rst one relates to the period of transformation that the labour market is experiencing today, as a consequence of the speed, the global scale and the unprecedented depth of these changes. “We are feeling the e�ects of the fourth


Sociedade e Trabalho Booklets, n.º 1912

industrial revolution (that we will still be hearing about for a long time), the worldwide e�ects of demographic changes, the need to �ght climate changes and the uncertainty before globalization”. �e second idea is that the future of work is not prede�ned, that is, it cannot be imposed on us. “It is up to insti-tutions and social partners to de�ne the kind of future we want”, argued the Director-General of ILO, rejecting the idea that technology will be the driver of this process. “We must ensure that this thought will not lead us to a kind of political inaction, we must manage these processes”. Lastly, Guy Ryder referred to the third idea, the one he considered to be the most “controversial”: “Societies are becoming increasingly unequal and unfair, and this is causing the world of work to set apart from social justice ideals, which are the basis on which ILO was grounded”. If the dream of all generations is to live and work better than their predecessors, ILO’s Director-General notes that “most of today’s youth only dream of being able to live like their parents”. �erefore, “we cannot allow social justice to take a step back”, he said.

Recalling that both ILO and the European Union were built as peace pro-jects, Guy Ryder stressed the importance of the European Social Model in the future of work. “ILO’s premise is that social justice is the most important factor in long-lasting peace”, he said, observing that this premise, up to now successful in Europe, is now more than ever being challenged. “When the European model is questioned, so is the ILO”, he stated.

From a global point of view, Guy Ryder pointed out that the world has been incapable of putting an end to a cycle initiated in 2008 with the collapse of the economy and the resulting increase in social injustice and in feelings of social discontent, given that it has been fuelling, at the political level, the growth of radical and xenophobic movements, to which we must resist to.

Strengthening the social protection of all workers

Addressing the conference’s host country, ILO’s Director-General congratulated Portugal for “being immune to these political temptations”, giving as an example its actions in the context of the current refugee crisis. “An admirable example in the way it assumed its international responsibility and remained true to the principles that should guide us”.

Quoting the newly elected Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antó-nio Guterres, Guy Ryder argued that we will be in a moment of “great peril to the international system”, if people believe they only have two choices — to carry on with the globalization experience of the last decades, with all its known consequences, or to move towards nationalism and isolationism.

In this regard, ILO’s representative defended that it is essential for Europe to turn the page of austerity, while continuing to pursue a realistic e�ort of �scal


Summary of the Panel I – Introductory Session 13

consolidation. “�is is a choice Europe has to respect and replicate”, he said. Guy Ryder also stressed that Portugal’s path, following the economic and �nancial assistance programme, must be driven towards growth, job creation, increase in living standards, policies targeted at young people and, in particular, towards stability. “It is in the best interest of the European Union to facilitate and encou-rage progress in this direction”. Along with these challenges, Guy Ryder praised the policies that have been carried out in Portugal towards strengthening social protection, increasing the minimum wage as well as the commitment with social dialogue.

In 2015, almost 80.000 Portuguese young people were looking for their �rst job. According to ILO, more than 70 million young men and women are cur-rently unemployed, of a total of 200 million. For the United Nations to achieve its goal of full employment by 2030, six thousand million jobs will need to be created. Having present the ongoing fourth industrial revolution, Guy Ryder reminded that technology has always had the ability to create and destroy jobs, adding that: “We are still to learn what will be this process’s balance.”

Considering future trends, like shared economy, and the example of the technological platform Uber, ILO’s Director-General also questioned whe-ther the “uberization” of the economy is an episodic reality or something that will become more widespread. “We are facing a real revolution, where work no longer exists on a permanent basis and becomes a commercial transaction between those providing and those seeking a good or service, episodic and commercial”. We are therefore forced to rethink our policy instruments, such as legislation, collective bargaining and tripartite dialogue, he concluded.

�e OECD has been evolving towards becoming a key partner regarding the debates on the global economy and on the issues relating to the future of labour. Vieira da Silva enhanced the Organization’s approach towards these matters, saying that although “controversial”, it is also “ground-breaking, open and inclu-sive”.

Stefano Scarpetta, Director for Employment, Labour and Social A�airs of the OECD, recognized the relevance of this discussion on the future of work, at a time when countries are still “trying to reintegrate the unemployed people that have resulted from the crisis”. In his view, the challenge is to ensure that it will be possible to take advantage of the opportunities created by technology and all ongoing changes, without deepening social inequalities.

Stefano Scarpetta talked about the major trends in the labour market, such as the economy of digitalisation, automation, arti�cial intelligence and the internet of things – some already a reality, others only possible to glimpse – arguing that it is important to assess their impact on the number of jobs, and on how, when and where we work. �ese transformations are coupled with the signi�cant changes occurring in the demography of several OECD countries,



where an ageing population is placing pressure on productivity and social pro-tection systems, while creating, at the same time, demand for new products and services.

Globalization 2.0 and the impact on labour market

“We are moving towards a new kind of international relations, that some of us call Globalization 2.0. It is a developing phenomenon that will change the nature of jobs, the content of work and the skills involved in labour force”, noted Stefano Scarpetta. For this representative of the OECD, it doesn’t take much speculation to guess the signi�cant changes that will occur in the labour market within 10 to 20 years. It is because of what we are capable of, already anticipating that we must re�ect on the role of political institutions so they can “adapt, deli-ver better support to workers and manage future changes, while taking advan-tage of the opportunities created by them.”

According to OECD data, employment rates have been increasing in most countries, contrary to common public perceptions. More women are entering the labour market and older people working longer. We “desperately” need to absorb the unemployed and, more importantly, we need to create more oppor-tunities for young people – in OECD countries, youth unemployment is two to three times higher. At the same time, we are witnessing a polarization in job searches, that is, companies are seeking both highly quali�ed workers but also those with low and intermediate skills to perform non-routine tasks that cannot be automated or performed by computers.

For Stefano Scarpetta, the scenario will not be as catastrophic as has been projected, but skills will be required to adapt in accordance with the new tasks that will be demanded to workers. For each set of jobs replaced by a new tech-nology, there are many others that will arise around that same innovation. “�e problem will be, once again, the pressure on job quality, compensation and career development”, he added, stating that it is in these areas that labour minis-ters should focus their attention on.

If lack of work is not the issue, but rather the profound change of its nature, the key question is if young people still in training, or already entering the labour market, are equipped with the necessary skills to perform these new tasks. �at is why it is in Education that should reside the “big agenda on building the right skills for the labour market of today and tomorrow”, as well as the adaptation of skills of the workers who are already in the labour market.

Another trend on the horizon is related to the creation of self-employment. Although a still recent and small phenomenon, Stefano Scarpetta has no doubt that it will grow signi�cantly in the upcoming years.

It is therefore necessary to review the protection of self-employed workers,


Summary of the Panel I – Introductory Session 15

who are le� out of social protection in most OECD countries: 18 countries do not ensure unemployment bene�ts to self-employed workers; in 10 of the Orga-nization’s member countries, self-employed workers are not protected in case of workplace injury. In other cases, the protection is more limited or simply volun-tary. It is in this regard that the representative of the OECD considers the need to ensure minimum levels of social protection to all workers without exception.

Convinced that it is essential to bring the youth to this debate – “it is the new generations that introduce the dynamics of change, which combine inno-vation and knowledge, and carry with them the future” – the Minister of Labour gave the �oor to Lora Lyubenova.

As responsible for Youth Employment in the European Youth Forum, she began by stating that young people are in need of more social protection. She also revealed that the Organization has been working on a report on social inclusion. �ose conclusions will be presented to the European Youth Forum’s board in April.

Arguing that the social exclusion of the young is “a threat to our society and not to a generation in particular”, Lora Lyubenova said it is common to speak of the future when it comes to young people “but, in this case, the question must be placed in the present”. “If we don’t support today’s youth, my parents will not have their pensions guaranteed, when the time comes for them to receive their retribution for contributing to society.”

Fighting for the rights of young workers

In the past years, the European Youth Forum has been engaged in promoting work quality policies for the young. O�en confronted with the question “what are quality jobs?”, the answer is simple: “We are �ghting for decent jobs, against precarious work”.

Lora Lyubenova recalled that the �rst work experience of young people is o�en dealing with unpaid internships, “internships a�er internships, jobs without contracts, etc.” As a result, she designated, as the Organization’s greatest challenge, to let young people know their own rights. With that purpose, when celebrating its 20th anniversary, the European Youth Forum decided to launch the campaign “Fight for youth rights”, which concerns human rights for all, res-pected by all.

Using Uber once again as an example, the representative of the Forum said that young people see the platform as something modern. However, most of them do not understand its implications, what prevents them from �nding a job, achieving an independent life, because they are unable to become autono-mous. “�ey just know that it is cheaper for those who don’t have the money to pay for a taxi. My mother and my father know little about Uber, but they will


be the most a�ected by the fact that Uber doesn’t pay taxes. But for the young it will be more di�cult to explain why they have to pay taxes”, she acknowledged.

Closing the panel, José António Vieira da Silva recalled that technological innovation and the consequent risk of job destruction have been the theme for a debate that has lasted hundreds of years. But, in the end, progress has always managed to create more jobs than those that it destroyed. However, the Minis-ter of Labour says there is no way of ensuring that the jobs destroyed and those created are located in the same territory. “It is very likely that a job destroyed in a country or continent results in a job created in another country or another continent, and this will of course have huge implications in our collective life.”

Even if we cannot sti�e innovation, we should acknowledge that it is not necessarily a synonym for progress. It wasn’t the steam engine that brought the progress of the industrial revolution, but rather the steam engine together with the prohibition of child labour, the steam engine together with the limitation of working hours, the industrial revolution combined with the construction of social protection. Without these combinations, innovation does not automati-cally translate into progress or well-being”, concluded Vieira da Silva, closing the debate.



I want to begin by thanking the Prime Minister, and the Minister for their wel-come and by saying how pleased I am to be participating with you in this impor-tant Conference to mark the 100 years of the Portuguese Ministry of Labour, and to look forward to the Future of Work, which ILO has made a focus on its own centenary in three years.

�e shared history of Portugal and the ILO has been rich and eventful and today I want simply to say that our partnership has never been stronger. We are working together to tackle the extraordinary challenges of youth employment in this country. Portugal is playing a key role in developing ILO cooperation with the Community of Lusophone States, and yesterday, I had the pleasure of inaugurating with the Minister the new premises of the ILO o�ce here in Lisbon. I am particularly encouraged by the commitment to social dialogue here at a time when Portugal faces major labour market decisions and want to particularly salute the presence of workers’ and employers’ leaders in the hall.

Portugal is an important country to be friend today. Won the European Football Championship and on top of this, I have the opportunity to celebrate with you the election of António Guterres as Secretary General of the United Nations. He is many things and will be the inspirational leader the international community needs. Above all, from an ILO perspective, he is a deeply committed advocate of social justice.

�e world needs to create 600 million new jobs in the next 15 years to meet the goal No. 8 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda the UN adopted last September- full employment and decent work for all. I look forward to working with the new Secretary General to make that happen.

Intervention by the Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO)

Guy RyderDirector-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO)


Guy Ryder18

Ladies and Gentleman,When the ILO decided to mark its centenary in 2019 with an initiative to

examine the future of work it did so, I think, with three thoughts in mind:Firstly, the observation that the world of work is undergoing transformative

change, of a pace, scale, and profundity without precedent. Driven by a “fourth technological revolution”, divergent demographic trends in di�erent regions of the world, by new imperatives connected with the struggle against climate change, and the continuing uncertain march of globalization, we need to better understand this transformation and all of its implications. �at’s our �rst idea – change.

Secondly, the future of work is not pre-determined, it is not already decided for us. It is for the actors and the institutions of the World of Work, including the social partners, acting together, to forge the kind of future we want. �is sounds obvious but it is very important, because one reads so much about how technology will determine what we do in the future and how. And because I sense that, all so frequently, that social actors feel disempowered – unable to intervene e�ectively in decision-making which is remote from their daily reali-ties and conditioned by impersonal forces over which they have little control.

And thirdly, that our world and societies are becoming increasingly unfair, unequal and unjust – �at is to say moving away from the world of work and the ideals of social justice that the ILO was created to defend and that this is, largely, the result of what is happening in working life. To put it bluntly, the dream of each generation (and it is not just an American dream) that it can live and work better than its parents’ generation has been thrown into reverse-not for all, but for too many; for how many young people today does having the same life pros-pects as the last generation look like a dream?

So, our future of work initiative brings together these three thoughts: How can we manage change and engage action to re-start the engines of social jus-tice? And what is the ILO’s role in all of this?

I am pleased that our Conference will shortly consider the place of the Euro-pean Social Model in this endeavour. Both the ILO and the European Union were built as peace projects, and they have functions as such. �e ILO’s foun-ding proposition that social justice is the only sure guarantee of lasting peace has been acted on in Europe more than anywhere else in the world. And yet the European project is questioned today as never before. As a citizen of the United Kingdom you will understand I feel this acutely. And when the European Model is questioned I cannot help thinking that the ILO is questioned too.

And seen from a global perspective, we run a risk of being unable to break a cycle in which the economic collapse of 2008 resulted in major social depriva-tion and injustice which in turn has generated the type of anger and resentment which is feeding the rise of authoritarian populist and xenophobic politics.


Intervention by the Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) 19

To its great credit Portugal seems largely immune to such dangers. Perhaps because of your history. Your reaction to the current refugee crisis is an admi-rable example of shared responsibility and staying loyal to the principles which we must act upon. But if people believe that they are confronted with a “binary” choice between a continuation of the globalisation experience of the last deca-des – with all of its known consequences, and a retreat into isolationist political and economic nationalisms. �en we truly do live, as Antonio Guterres has said, a moment of real danger of the international system.

And this is why the Portuguese perspective of Europe is so vitally important. Turning the page on austerity, while continuing to pursue a realistic and sober commitment to needed �scal consolidation is a choice which Europe should respect and reciprocate. Portugal’s post bailout trajectory needs to be one of growth, job creation, improved living standards, and targeted policies for the young in particular, and stability and it can only be in Europe’s interest to facili-tate progress along that path.

So, along with the continuing challenges of accelerating investment and growth, and employment and bank recapitalization, it is encouraging to see, in Portugal, a pickup in collective bargaining, the strengthening of social pro-tection and the development of minimum wages and a commitment to social dialogue. We congratulate our Portuguese friends for this.

Ladies and Gentleman,As Portugal tackles the di�cult debates and thus builds its future, let me say

a little about how the ILO is managing its own future of work initiative.It has three stages. �e national dialogues – like this one – which are now

taking place in over 130 of all Member States are the �rst. �eir outcomes will feed into a High Level Global Commission on the Future of Work which will be established next year. And this Commission will present a report to the ILO Centenary Conference in June 2019 which will be the third and culminating stage with the possibility of the adoption of a Centenary Declaration.

Focussing on the national dialogues we are encouraging four key conversa-tions. �e �rst is about “Work and Society”. It is truly a mistake of “economic reductionism” if we believe that the signi�cance of work is limited to its capacity for material provision. Yes, work should allow us a decent standard of material living. But it goes beyond that. Work is equally a mean of “self-realization”, and of contributing to a broader common good. Sigmund Freud said work is the individual’s link to reality. Along with family, school, and faith, it is the key to our process of socialization. I was interested to see the results of a survey last year of young Portuguese who were asked what having good work meant for them; unsurprisingly “stability and opportunity” came top with 47%, but then came “opportunities to �nd ful�lment”, 39%. “Making a lot of money” was well behind – 13%.


Guy Ryder20

Too frequently the social meaning of work is absent from our debates and that is a mistake. Not least because there is reason to ask whether the changing nature of work organisation is creating levels of individual isolation and atomi-sation with implications going far beyond the workplace.

�e second conversation is the one most frequently heard of; if we are serious about full, decent employment, where are the jobs of tomorrow coming from? Last year over 80,000 young Portuguese were looking for their �rst job. In the world over 70 million young people and 200 million adults overall were unemployed. If the UN is to meet its target of full employment at 2030 we have to create no fewer than 600 million jobs.

At the same time, the global economy is growing much more slowly than it was before 2008 and Europe seems trapped in the slow growth trap, with the major emerging economies, so long the world’s economic locomotive also slowing now. �e messages coming out of the IMF/World Bank meetings this month were not optimistic.

Simultaneously, it is widely recognised that the world is entering a 4th industrial revolution with very widely divergent views expressed about the likely consequences for growth, productivity, equity and jobs. �ere is a danger that technological changes will dominate the debate on the future of work to the exclusion of all other factors. Indeed productions about its e�orts are made with a totally unwarranted degree of precision. We know it will create some jobs and destroy others. But the balance sheet of this process of creative destruction remain in dispute. Optimists point out that, each previous revolution has been positive while pessimists insist that “this time it will be di�erent”.

I have two re�ections on this – un�nished – debate.Let’s look at these issues objectively but let’s not fall into a type of policy

paralysis from the belief that technology will determine everything. Our task is to manage technological innovation to the best social advantage.

And let us not ignore the qualitative impact of technology on jobs by focus-sing only on quantitative aspects.

�at leads me to the third conversation which has to do with the organisa-tion of work and production.

�e newest technologies bring with them not only the remarkable produc-tive potential of robotics, 3D printing, self-driving cars, arti�cial intelligence, bio-technologies, and nanotechnology but also a capacity to fundamentally transform the way work is undertaken.

We are in a world where the so-called standard work situation – a full time, permanent contract with an identi�ed employer represents just one job in four. Put aside, for now, the high levels of informality still prevailing in the developing world and we are still witnessing an erosion of this employment relationship. Some see in this a generalisation of precarity at work, others a necessary adapta-


Intervention by the Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) 21

tion to modern competitive conditions. At the same time production processes here became fragmented and geographically dislocated with the appearance of ever more complex and pervasive global supply chains.

But in addition we have the advent of the platform economy, or gig-eco-nomy, the shared economy. It is attracting enormous attention. I haven’t yet tried taking a taxi in Lisbon on this visit but, like many other places, I unders-tand you are having quite a debate about Uber. �e big question is whether the uberization of the economy is simply anecdotal, a niche model for produc-tion, or rather the precursor of a much broader transformation which could, if allowed to, make the contractual basis for work a commercial and episodic rather than an employment and more lasting one. Opinion is divided. But if we think this platform economy modality is going to become more generali-zed there are those who believe work will no longer be organized in terms of an employment relationship on a permanent basis, but become a transactional commercial relationship, between the ones who supply a good and those who demand it. We are facing a truly revolution in the way we think about work. As one observer has noted work would then become separated from the concept of a job and the organisation of production separated from the enterprise as we generally understood it.

All of which leads to the fourth and �nal conversation on the Governance of Work. For the 100 years that the Ministry of Labour nationally, and the ILO internationally, have developed the rules, the laws, the institutions, and the pro-cesses to make work economically productive and socially advantageous, tripar-tite cooperation has been a crucial part of this. It is through these e�orts that we have, from the latter part of the 19th, throughout the 20th, and in the early part of the 21st centuries, built the fundamentals of modern, democratic, socially cohesive and just societies. �e achievement has been imperfect but considera-ble in de�ning who we are and how we decide to live together as citizens.

�e question is now whether the policies, practices and institutions that we have built are adequate to the task of conducting a socially just future of work. Does transformative change at work, and the evidence of the declining e�ecti-veness of traditional policy instruments call for us to rethink fundamentally our approaches to governance?

What does it mean for the international labour standards and tripartism by which the ILO is itself de�ned?

Ladies and Gentleman,You can, with justi�cation, reproach me for providing more questions than

answers. But that is the nature of our Future of Work Initiative, and I am con-�dent that the debates we will have today are going to progress our thinking.

I would simply ask you to keep in your minds that the ILO is a strongly value-based organisation in which Governments, employers, and workers have

Guy Ryder22

come together in a common commitment to the single objective of promoting social justice.

�at is no small challenge but it is one worth uniting our e�orts to achieve.


�ank you very much Minister Vieira da Silva, distinguished participants, members of the Government, representatives of the social partners, Director-General of the ILO and my good friend Guy Rider, the representative of the European Youth Forum, Lora Lyubenova, ladies and gentleman.

Let me start by congratulating the Prime-Minister António Costa, and you, Mister Minister, for organising this very important conference to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security. It is a great pleasure for me to participate in this event.

But let me also, Mister Minister, congratulate you for having chosen the topic of “�e Future of Work”. In many countries, we are still struggling to rea-bsorb the increase in unemployment that was generated by the global �nancial and economic crisis. But, I think it is very important, as also Guy Ryder said, to assess whether our policies and institutions are apt to face some of the key challenges that we are observing in our economies and in our labour markets. For sure, many opportunities will be brought about by technological changes and others major changes across the workforce. But we have to make sure these new changes will not generate future or further, if you like, social cleavage and further inequalities.

What I’d like to do is to build on the points that Guy Ryder has mentioned, and share with you some of the insides of the work we have been doing at OECD on the future of work. �ere is much more that we actually do not know but some of the changes we are already observing and some of the changes that we can foresee imply that our labour markets will have to undergo fundamental adaptations.

So, what are some of the mega trends?

Intervention by the Director for Employment, Labour and Social A�airs of the OECD

Stefano ScarpettaDirector for Employment, Labour and Social A�airs of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

3.2.


Stefano Scarpetta24

Most of the discussion in the media, and elsewhere, focus on the e�ect of the digitalization of our economies, the automation, the arti�cial intelligence, the internet of things, and so on. All of these changes will certainly e�ect the way in which we work, how many jobs there will be, where we work, when we work and how we work. But at the same time, and very interrelated with the changes brought about by the digitalisation, there are the demographic changes.

Portugal and many of the other European and OECD countries are facing signi�cant demographic changes. �e aging of the populations will certainly put pressure on productivity, will certainly create new demand for goods and services, and will also potentially put pressure on social protection. At the same time, we are moving into a new generation of international relationships. Some people call it the Globalization 2.0. Globalisation has been a phenomenon going on for a long period of time, but the interaction between the new technologies and the closer interaction across countries and across �rms, are actually chan-ging the nature of the jobs in di�erent countries as well as the work content and the skills required by the workforce.

So, I think there are at least three of these mega trends that are a�ecting and, to some extent reshaping, the world of work in an important and signi�cant way. I don’t think we necessarily have to speculate into the future – 10 to 20 years – to see signi�cant changes in the labour market in a way that certainly calls for a close re�ection on how policy and institutions should be adapted to provide better support to workers, to manage these changes, but also take bene-�t from the opportunities o�ered by these changes.

So, the �rst question we may ask, as John Maynard Keynes did in the early 30s: are we facing the risk of massive “technological unemployment”. Many countries are still struggling to reabsorb the signi�cant increase in unemploy-ment generated by the crisis, but there are no signs of declining levels of structu-ral employment. If you look at the data and then take into account the increase of unemployment related to the crisis we see that most of the countries have experienced an increase in the level of employment. More women are partici-pating in the labour market and more older workers are staying longer in the labour market. So, we don’t really observe a decline on the overall number of jobs, although we desperately need more of these jobs to reabsorb the unem-ployment, and especially give more job opportunities to young people. We know that in most of the OECD countries the youth unemployment is two, three times the adult unemployment.

But, at the same time – and, again, we don’t have to look much into the future – we observe clear signs of what economists call the polarization of the labour demand. In other words, the labour demand is already evolving signi-�cantly into high skilled and, to some extent, also low or intermediate skilled in non-routine jobs. On both sides of the skill spectrum, these are jobs that


Intervention by the Director for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs of the OECD 25

cannot be easily automated and where the tasks performed today by the workers cannot be performed by computers or eventually, one day, by robots. So the point is that, despite the fact that the overall demand of labour is not necessarily declining, despite the fact that more underrepresented groups are indeed par-ticipating in the labour market, we see this polarization of the labour demand. �is is associated with growing wage dispersion, more wage inequalities. Some jobs are extremely good, have signi�cant career potential, while others, which are actually in some cases increasing, o�er relatively lower wages, more preca-rious conditions and sometimes lower potential for career progression. Again we don’t have to go much into the future. We see this phenomenon already taking place.

Now, let us speculate for a second into the future. �ere is a burgeoning increase in the number of papers assessing the number of jobs that will be disap--pearing because of automation, robots and computers. One famous study sug-gested that about 47% of the jobs in the United States, in the next 15/20 years, might simply disappear because the tasks performed in these occupations, could potentially be done by robots and machines. �is is an important study because the authors actually asked a group of computer scientists to look closely at what people do in the di�erent occupations and assess what machines, in their view, could possibly do one day. Its main problem is that it assumed that all workers in a given occupation do the same thing. So, the same tasks are performed within each occupation, which certainly is not the case.

Our data from the Adult Skills Survey allows us to look at what workers do within each occupation across countries and indeed clearly suggests a high degree of heterogeneity. We have thus replicated the calculation focusing not on occupations but on individual jobs. In our calculations, the share of jobs at risk of automation in the United States is not 47%, but rather around 10%. �ese are jobs in which 70% or more of the tasks currently done by workers may potentially be done by machines in a not too distant future. Yet, there is another 25 to 30% of the jobs in which 50 to 70% of the tasks could potentially be done by machines, by robots. �ese jobs will not disappear, but certainly will change dramatically in terms of the tasks that the workers will be required to perform.

So, the scenario is, perhaps, not as catastrophic as some studies have highli-ghted, but certainly points to dramatic changes in the skill requirements, in the tasks performed in the di�erent jobs.

But let me emphasise an important point that Guy Ryder made in his speech. We should avoid the technological determinism, whereby any technology that will become available will eventually be implemented in the economy and in our labour market. It has never happened like that, there are regulations, there are policies, and there are also incentives, all of which a�ect the pace and depth of the adoption of new technologies. Also, for some of the new jobs created by


Stefano Scarpetta26

the new technologies, there will be a number of other jobs associated with these new activities and tasks.

All in all, the problem again is not perhaps the one of technology unem-ployment but rather growing pressure to a further increase in inequality – both in terms of the quality of the jobs, the pay and the career progression. And that, in my view, is the main concern Ministers of labour and social a�airs amongst others will have to focus.

Now, if the point is actually not really the lack of jobs, but actually signi�-cant changes in the nature of the jobs themselves, we should ask the question as to whether our young people, who are still in the education phase, or those who are already in the labour market, are equipped with the right skills to perform the new tasks that many jobs will require. In this context, certainly there is a big agenda to invest in formal education and to make sure that the education system actually speaks with the world of work, with the production sector, so that it identi�es and trains students for the new tasks, the new skills, the new competencies that will be required. In other words, there is a big agenda on building the right skills for the labour market of today and tomorrow. But the point I would like to underline is that there is also another important and fun-damental agenda: to adapt the skills of the workers already in the labour market. Workers in our economies have, all the time, adopted new skills for new techno-logy, new activities that they have been required to perform. So, there is a con-tinuous process of almost endogenous adaptation of workers. But here we are talking, perhaps, about a larger more discontinuous change, that would require enabling workers to acquire new skills and competencies that the new jobs – the jobs of tomorrow – will require them to perform.

Now, again, when we look at our Adult Skills Survey, we �nd some worrying evidence. Across the OECD countries, people of working age with only minimal or no ICT skills account for 45/50%, sometimes even more. �ese basic ICT skills are needed today and certainly in the near future. �e partial good news is that young people are certainly already much more equipped to these new types of skills – the information and communications skills –, than prime age and older workers.

But, you see, the point here is to really think about engineering a system of lifelong learning which can really give opportunities to a large share of the workforce to adapt the skills, to acquire some of the new skills and competen-cies that will be required in the current and the future world of work.

Now, policies are crucial here. Much can and should be done by employers themselves, by companies. But when we look at the evidence again from our Adult Skills Survey, we see that, across all the OECD countries, those who receive more on-the-job training, are not necessarily those who need it the most. �ere is a clear bias across all countries, regardless of their institutional settings,


Intervention by the Director for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs of the OECD 27

against the low skilled. So, on-the-job training, whether publicly-supported or actually provided by the companies themselves tend to go to younger people, more skilled workers and much much less to the low skilled, those who poten-tially need it the most. �e gap sometimes is between 20% of the workers with low levels of skills involved in on-the-job learning , and 70/80% among those with high levels of skills.

We should foster a public-private partnership to provide a more widespread access to on-the-job learning, to let workers adapt their skills and competen-cies to the new needs; this of course should involve public policies, but also employers and trade unions, in designing new e�ective programmes.

My last point is that we also need to adapt our labour market and social policies. We have been, at the ILO, at the OECD, reviewing and analysing the trend increase in atypical forms of employment. Fixed-term, temporary con-tracts, contracts based on projects, and so on. In my own country there are 40 labour contracts that an employer and employee can sign. One is a full time, open-ended contract, the others are di�erent forms of atypical employment. In fact, the government put in place an important reform on that.

At the same time, however, we observe – albeit still at the beginning – some new forms of independent, self-employment jobs linked to the development of the platform economies, and also through some changes in the demand for labour in a number of countries. �is is still a small phenomenon, but the trend and the evolution over a small number of years has been quite impressive. We don’t have the real number of workers involved, because we don’t know how many of those providing services to these platform economies are doing that as a main job, or as a second or even as a third job. We do not even know exactly what is the nature of many of these jobs, how many hours are worked, and to what extent workers are also engaged in a more regular, more stable job. But, certainly, this evolution will continue, both in terms of the increase in atypi-cal types of employment, but also, and in particular, through the development of the self-employment, independent work. And this is challenging many of the fundamental institutional policies in our labour market – minimum wage, working time regulations, collecting bargaining and social protection.

I give you just one example. Across the OECD countries, there are 19 in which independent workers, self-employed, are not covered against the risk of unemployment. In 10 OECD countries, if you have an accident at work, and you are an independent worker, you are not automatically covered. In other coun-tries, the coverage is more limited than it is for the employees or it is voluntary. So, really we have to start to rethink our policies and institutions in a way we could guarantee a minimum social protection to all workers, independently of the type of activity they perform, whether they are working as employees or whether they are working as a self-employed or independent worker. But more


Stefano Scarpetta28

generally, the recent trends observed in our labour markets suggest some of the risks associated with our working life – losing a job, having an accident, also building our pension system, and so on – are gradually being transferred onto the individual worker. And the question is whether workers are actually equi-pped to face these increased number of risks, while of course at the same time be able to acquire the opportunities that the labour market will certainly generate and make available to them. �ese are some of the points I want to share with you.


�ank you very much to Minister José António Vieira da Silva for inviting European Youth Forum to share the youth perspective on the future of work. On behalf of the European Youth Forum I would like to express our gratitude for approaching the celebration of 100 years of the Ministry of Labour, Soli-darity and Social Security with opening the debate for future challenges and possible solutions in the labour market development. �ank you very much for inviting young people to discuss the future of work together with you.

�e framework of the future of work can be discussed without taking into account the new technologies and digitalization of labour force. Nevertheless the new technical and digital conditions of work, the �ght against new forms of precarious jobs and new inequalities are remaining the same as it was decades ago. Our claims and demands for decent work, social protection also stay the same. �e new conditions of work have to drive up the standards of quality jobs instead of creating new forms of precarious work. �e new opportunities of dig-italization of work have to be used to overcome inequalities, which particularly a�ected young people in more vulnerable situations, such as young migrants, young women and girls, young people with disabilities, ethnic minorities and young people from a lower socioeconomic background. We should think about all these excluded groups from the traditional labour market when we negotiate new regulations for the new forms of work. We have to negotiate the equal ac-cess for all groups in the future working conditions at the beginning instead of negotiating conditions which �x only certain groups and later taking the nego-

Intervention by the Responsible for Youth Employment of the Board of the European Youth Forum

Lora LyubenovaBoard member of the European Youth Forum, responsible for youth employment

3.3.


Lora Lyubenova30

tiation for traditionally excluded groups. �e working conditions are changing, but all the time we should reinsure the social rights for all.

�e current social protection systems in Europe are based on contributions, which individuals have made, but this excludes by default the young people who have to pass the transition from education to the labour market. Reform of contributory unemployment bene�ts are necessary to ensure bene�ts are acces-sible to young people. �e system needs to be adapted to job-starters’ reality and to the proliferation of non-standard forms of employment through: decreasing the minimum period of contributions needed to access unemployment bene�ts; internship and apprenticeship contracts that give the opportunity to the young person to start contributing to the unemployment bene�t system.

At the same time young people who are staying outside the work occupa-tion have di�culties to contribute to the social system in general. OECD Chief Economist Catherine Mann concluded: “Income losses su�ered by young peo-ple in the �rst 10 years a�er their graduation will never be made up during their lifetimes compared to peers that did earn in these 10 years1.”

Young people are experiencing a longer and more complex period of tran-sition, with longer periods before �nding a job, non-standard forms of employ-ment, and lack of social protection in between jobs. Young people are also ex-pected to be more �exible in terms of mobility and new forms of work such as the platform economy. But this increase in �exibility has not been accompanied by any new guarantees in terms of security and protection of young people.

Non-standard employment has an impact on young people’s access to so-cial protection. �e contributory nature of our social protection systems is no longer compatible with the reality young people face when accessing the labour market. Across most EU countries, to receive unemployment bene�ts workers have to have contributed via employment for a minimum period of 12 months. �is one-year period is extremely di�cult to achieve for young people – who are likely to be either unemployed, or, employed in a non-standard work. On top of this, Minimum Income Schemes tend to be inaccessible for those under a certain age.

�e European Youth Forum calls for equal pay for work of equal value and to end age-based discrimination in access to minimum wages by abolish-ing “youth minimum wages” which are in place in several Member States (eg: �e Netherlands, the UK). A European policy based on Recommendations on Adequate Minimum Wages could ensure the respect of the principle of non-dis-crimination here.

1 http://video.oecd.org/2776/en/Economic-Outlook-Press-Briefing-with-Catherine-L--Mann-OECD-Chief-Economist.html


Intervention by the Responsible for Youth Employment of the Board of the European Youth Forum 31

In May 2016 European Youth Forum launched a report about the cost of so-cial exclusion of young people for the whole society2. �e report shows thay the European welfare systems are currently not able to guarantee the social rights of young people with clear gaps in our systems in protecting youth. Young people need to be better supported when the “traditional” route to autonomy – �nish-ing education, �nding a job, moving out – is not achievable. �is means better coverage and quality of both services and income support, including education, employment support, healthcare, care services and housing.

2 http://www.youthforum.org/assets/2016/05/Excluding-youth-a-threat-to-our-future.pdf

�orben AlbrechtPermanent Secretary of State at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social A�airs, Germany

Manuel Carvalho da SilvaProfessor and Researcher; former Secretary-General of the General Confederation of the Portuguese

Workers – (CGTP-IN)José da Silva Peneda

President of the General Council of the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, former Minister of Employment and Social Security

Paulo BárciaAdvisor of the International Labour Organization (ILO), former ILO Director and former Head of Cabinet

of the ILO’s Director-General


Summary of the Panel II – �e Future of Work and the European Social Model

To Qualify: the best way to leverage technology

“In the digital age, skills are the best safeguard against unemployment”. �e phrase from �orben Albrecht, Secretary of State at the Federal Ministry of La-bour and Social A�airs of Germany, and it sets the tone for the theme of the second panel, “�e Future of Work and the European Social Model”.

�orben Albrecht wanted to show to the audience in Lisbon what is, cur-rently, being done in Germany to take advantage of the “opportunities” created by digital transformation in the world of work. It is necessary for Europe to �nd a way of in�uencing the future of this work environment, so marked by this new digital world. In the opinion of �orben Albrecht, what matters is that “the human being continues to be the focus and remain so, even if an increasing number of tasks is performed by computers and intelligent machines”.

An idea supported by José da Silva Peneda, former Portuguese Minister of Employment and Social Security and current President of the General Council of the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, for whom “the European ideals are already strongly threatened, in order to accept that the future of peo-ple will be de�ned by computers or by machines, with regard to their ways of living or their working conditions. No matter how smart they may be.”

�is is where the question about European Social Model is posed . �e same Model that �orben Albrecht, Silva Peneda and Manuel Carvalho da Silva, Pro-fessor, researcher and former leader of the CGTP-IN, tried to defend in their interventions. Because this European Social Model, which protects workers and guarantees solidarity is in the opinion of the three specialists, an example of good practice. “In recent years, this Model has been the target of some criti-cism, and there is a feeling that it has been weakening through the responses to the economic and �nancial crisis”, recalled the German Secretary of State, who



heard Carvalho da Silva criticise the Troika’s adjustment program for Portugal, that “did not look at the European Social Model”.

What jobs will technology destroy?

“How do we want to work in the future?” �is is the current big question, stated the German Secretary of State. And, one of the �rst challenges coming from this new digital world, is to realize how many jobs will be destroyed by developing computer and robotic technology. �orben Albrecht assured that the existing idea that these developments will lead to the loss of half the current jobs is “clearly exaggerated”, since “it is based on projections that do not consid-er the current reality of labour market’s transformation”. And what computers or robots do, or can do, does not always eliminate the employment of each indi-vidual, “because we are talking about tasks and not automated professions. �is means that workers are not automatically deleted, but o�en given more complex tasks”, sustained the German Secretary of State.

Silva Peneda agreed that the numbers that are being advanced from job loss-es are exaggerated. But he is a little bit more pessimistic: “the tendency will be this one [about half of the jobs will become partly computerized]”. �erefore, the President of the General Council of the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, believes that the most sought skills in the future will be of two types: those “related to coordinating functions or requiring interpersonal or in-terdisciplinary skills” and “non-routine” functions.

Carvalho da Silva does not put the burden of future unemployment on tech-nology and believes that this new wave of technology will not be responsible for a new wave of unemployment. “In the origin of the current high unemployment rate and loss of rights was there any technologival wave? I really don’t believe so, said the Professor.

Now, it seems clear that “technological transformation will be linked to the changes in industries and occupations”, as stated by �orben Albrecht. And it is possible that routine tasks such as administrative work “cease to exist” in a near future, said the Secretary of State of Labour of Germany.

�e good news may be that, although having less “routine functions”, what distinguishes us as intelligent beings will be strengthened: “intensive knowl-edge, cognitive and interactive features will become more important”, he added.

Silva Peneda follows the same line of thought: “Digital economy will in-creasingly be the basis for the chain of values and the creation of competitive advantages, because speed and scale will be the core stones of the economy of this century.”


Summary of the Panel II – The Future of Work and the European Social Model 35

To qualify, to qualify, to qualify

�e biggest challenge of the future will be related to “quali�cation”, something that was on the top of the Agenda of this Conference about “�e Future of Work”. “Upskilling”, as it was called, will be even more necessary, including for workers “who are already quali�ed”, said the German Secretary of State.

�e better quali�cations the population has, the more prepared it will be to face crisis and to overcome unemployment. �e members of this Panel had no doubt to take this as the major priority for the European future. With one curi-osity: States should not only think about qualifying those who are not quali�ed yet, or go in a kind of race against damage trying to �x things when people are already unemployed. As �orben Albrecht said, actions must be taken when “we already know that people, despite having a job, don’t have enough skills for the future”. �e German Secretary of State argued that the actions taken by the States and the companies, at quali�cations level, should take a preventive char-acter, anticipating inevitable unemployment situations for those who cannot keep up with the developments that the economy will su�er.

�e idea that �exibility is needed to be taken into consideration to de�ne on the how and where we will work in the future, was another theme discussed by the members of this panel. One can already perform many of the tasks from home, from a cafe or from the beach, as long as we have a tablet or a smart-phone. �e question is to understand how far can we go with this �exibility and how to avoid invading the worker’s private time, said the German Secretary of State.

Examples of “collaborative” economy, being Uber the supreme example, were mentioned by all the speakers. It is also a major concern for Carvalho da Silva, who believes that employment is increasingly being treated as an “out-dated concept”, in which “those who provide work assume to be relieved from their responsibilities as employers”. Something that for the former leader of the CGTP-IN, is not admissible. “It is always possible to identify and regulate new working relationships labour relations, in all their aspects, regardless of tech-nology”.

Silva Peneda was less optimistic, believing that it will be “increasingly more di�cult to distinguish concepts such as worker, self-employed worker and en-trepreneur”.

For the German Secretary of State, the challenge is to give “workers a cata-logue of options”. �ere is also the problem of adapting �exibility to the various stages of life – either taking care of sick relatives or enjoying the childrens’ �rst childhood.

All these issues must go hand in hand with workers’ rights and social protec-tion. And the Secretary of State has no doubt that “an European project without an European Social Model cannot be a solution”. �orben Albrecht le� a warn-



ing: we should not promote the new jobs that come with the new platforms, if they stand for lower quality standards and lower social protection. �orben Al-brecht even considered that “If new, digital business models emerge in Europe, then they should not be le� out of European Social Model. And that means that whoever assigns work must take on the responsibilities of an employer”.

Public authorities should avoid being “dazzled” by these new business models

Making good use of both the “old and the new economy” constitutes a challenge for Carvalho da Silva. �e former leader of the CGTP-IN recalled that “the State cannot embark on the individualization of public policies and fail to have a sys-temic intervention in the economy”. Having said that, he spoke about the need to be “cautious”, to prevent public authorities from being dazzled by these new activities and new working platforms. For the simple reason that “technological innovation is only positive when there are political decisions that put it at peo-ple’s service”. �e future of work faces several challenges that may “endanger the ILO’s founding principles” of “decent work”, warned Carvalho da Silva. “Either the future of work is decent or we will not have peace”, said the former Union leader.

Silva Peneda also concluded his intervention by stating that “without com-pleting the construction of Economic and Monetary Union, it will be very dif-�cult to face the challenges that the future of work presents”, and wished that “political short-sightedness does not blind European policy makers”.

Conclusions by the moderator Paulo Bárcia, advisor of the International Labour Organization, former Director of the ILO and former Head of Cabinet of the ILO’s Director-General:

Based in this extremely rich re�ection (which carries natural di�erences of opinion), I dare to sum up this second panel around three conclusions:

• A changing world of work . Although contradicting some of the catastroph-ic projections on the impact of digital economy on future job destruction amount that is about to come, the panel acknowledged that the world of work is changing rapidly. Some indicators: less routine functions and more cognitive and interactive functions; expansion of atypical forms of work; new business models (collaborative economy ...). But, as referred by one of the participants: European ideals are already heavily threatened, for us to accept a future de�ned by machines. Hence, this second conclusion:


Summary of the Panel II – The Future of Work and the European Social Model 37

• Managing the transition from an “old” to a “new” economy, while preserving the European Social Model. We should started by saying that a European project without a European Social Model is not possible and that, facing the on going current changes, we must avoid passivity or to be “dazzled” by new business models. Instead, we must in�uence the future of this work environment in such a way that human beings continue to be the focus. �e new business models should not be le� outside the European Social Model. It is always possible to regulate new working relationships, respecting workers’ rights and social protection, regardless of technology.

• In the digital age, skills are the best safeguard against unemployment. �at is why the greatest future challenge is to qualify people, including the “up-skilling” of those who are already quali�ed workers. In other words, we mustn´t try to �x things when people are already unemployed, but act pre-ventively inside companies, anticipating changes and developments that will happen in the economy.


SÍNTESE DO PAINEL II O FUTURO DO TRABALHO E O MODELO SOCIAL EUROPEU38


Ladies and gentlemen,Colleagues,

�e structural transformation by digital technology is happening across all over our countries. It’s happening across Europe and it’s happening across the world. And it’s turning business models upside done, and changing values. Production and work processes have to be rethought. All this also has social implications. �erefore, I think this Conference on the Future of Work to celebrate the cente-nary of the Ministry of Labour of Portugal is very well chosen in time, and I’m very honoured to be here today to speak and to discuss with you about what I think is one of the most important subjects when we talk about labour these days.

In Berlin, hardly a day passes now without an event on the digital transfor-mation of our society. �is transformation is o�en equated with innovation, with progress. And yes, it is true, that the digital transformation of our life and work is linked to many opportunities – for example, for more self-determined lives, for more varied work, for more exchange of ideas with other people.

But o�en, this transformation is seen as a primarily technical and economical project, driven by so�ware engineers and the designers of smart-factories. We tend to let a relatively small group of technical experts and their investors decide what shape and form the transformation takes. But that is the wrong approach, because from the outset the digital transfor-mation has been driven forward �rst and foremost by the people, by the many

Intervention by the Permanent State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social A�airs, Germany

�orben AlbrechtPermanent State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social A�airs, Germany


Thorben Albrecht40

millions of internet users – there are over 3 billion now – and their many ideas, developments and innovative ideas for using the medium.

We must also continue this forward movement with the people and for the people. �e use of the internet and many other digital devices and media has become closely intertwined with a variety of social processes especially in the world of work. Only if people and their creativity are in the centre, we will un-fold the complete potential of digitalization.

I hope that we �nd a European way to in�uence the future of our living and working environment. Human beings are the focus and remain so, even if an in-creasing number of tasks is performed by computers and intelligent machines. But I think we really should not only talk about Industry 4.0.

To formulate the right questions at an early stage, we at Germany’s Labour Ministry launched the dialogue “Work 4.0”.

Dialogue process “Work 4.0”

As a basis for discussion, we published a Green Paper Work 4.0, outlining the challenges of the future of our work and posing the question: How do we want to work in future? And: how can we manage to work that way?

�rough mid-2016, there was a dialogue on the issues in expert workshops, I chaired. Topics included, for example, the transformation of employment, �exibility in terms of working time and location, a new culture of continuing professional development, quali�cation and the social security net for new forms of employment.

In addition, we conducted a dialogue with citizens through various chan-nels. With interesting insights: Sometimes a worker wants to stop his job at 5 o’clock and go home to his family. But as a consumer, that same person, wants to book a hotel room through the internet at midnight. So we have to take all this into consideration. And that is why we promoted a citizens dialogue where we debated all these issues and how the world could look in the future.

Of course we also discussed these issues in our policy dialogue with the social partners from business and labour. In that context, some 50 organisations – including numerous trade unions and all major employers’ associations – sub-mitted written comments on the Green Paper.

We also discussed the phenomenon of new platform-based business models (e.g. Uber, Airbnb or other platform-based services like delivery, nursing, child-care services and so forth) with the Unions, with representatives of the “old” and “new” economy, and with consumers organisations.

Our dialogue process will come to an end soon. On 29 November we will present a White Paper that outlines what options we have for in�uencing the future of work. Here I would like to highlight a few points that we have come to consider crucial.


Intervention by the Permanent State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Germany 41

�e �rst point is: How do we deal with predictions that computer technol-ogy and developments in robotics will destroy millions of jobs in the coming years?

�e digital transformation’s impact on employment, quali�cation

“Computers, robots and automation will destroy half of all jobs in the next 15 years”, such statements have been popping up in the international media (Econ-omist etc.) for the past two or three years. And at �rst sight there seems to be some evidence to that. If you look at the assembling lines in the Volkswagen car factories in Germany this year, the number of robots working in the assembling lines will be, for the �rst time, higher than the number of people working there. But at the same time Volkswagen is creating jobs e.g. in research and develop-ment, sales etc. So, we really have to look at what is happening in detail. On the other side we have to take it seriously.

�ere are widespread fears that robots and algorithms are taking away our jobs. We have to be aware of such reservations and fears, and we have to ad-dress them.

For that reason, one of the �rst issues we tackled analytically was the ques-tion how digitalization and automation would impact the number of jobs and the structure of employment.

You might know the study by Osborne and Frey, who thinks that almost one out of two jobs in the US is lost to automation over the next ten to twenty years.

Research we commissioned at the Ministry and many discussions we had with experts and practitioners from various sectors of the economy have le� us – not complacent, but de�nitely a little less alarmed.

�e existing evidence shows that we will observe increasing changes and shi�s of speci�c tasks both within and between professions as a result of digi-talization. Jobs will change and new jobs will be created, e.g. in the care sector. I dare to say that with a large degree of con�dence we will not run out of work.

Rather, the digital transformation o�ers the potential for new and better jobs. But not by itself, only if we manage the transformation process well and adapt our institutions accordingly.

�e labour market will become more dynamic. It is clear that in the fu-ture the proliferation of computers alone will mean that some occupations with many routine tasks, such as administrative and accounting work, will no longer exist in their present form.

So I think that sometimes we underestimated changes in some sectors, es-pecially services sectors, and we have to take it very seriously. �ere will be di�erences between companies and sectors, but we have to look at all sectors to make sure we understand what is going on. And we don’t want to understand it


Thorben Albrecht42

only, but we have to make sure that we shape things. We have to guarantee that we have good quali�cations. Also an upskilling is necessary for the workers that are already skilled but who might be in a position where their skills will not be su�cient in the future.

Now new technologies are emerging: A new generation of robots interacts directly with workers. Machine learning and early examples for the application of arti�cial intelligence are already a reality and can perform simple aspects of the jobs of knowledge workers. “Big data” is another keyword.

In these areas, we will experience rapid development in the coming years. �e combination of these technologies will change the way we are used to work in the production, service and knowledge sectors.

�ere will be fewer routine tasks, while knowledge-intensive, cognitive and interactive tasks will become more important.

Conversely, this means that “upskilling” is necessary even for skilled em-ployees, presumably not just once, but several times in their lives. Preserving individual employability over the entire course of a working life must become the focus of institutional support and social security programmes. In my view, this is one of the major challenges to which we should look for answers not only in our own country, but also at the European level.

In the digital age, skills are the best safeguard against unemployment. Our most important response to the digital transformation has therefore

been a skills drive. �is should: • include independent skills counselling that is available to each and every

person paying into the unemployment insurance plan and• a right to continuing vocational education and training.

In this context, I also regard the creation of a “personal activity account” (compte personnel d’activité) in France with great interest. It shows the idea of creating mechanisms to provide workers with time and means to engage in continuous training and education, is a highly relevant issue in other countries, too.

However, it is also clear that the State can only create the framework for such a skills drive. For it to be e�ective, we need a new social compromise in which all actors – the State, companies, workers – do their fair share. To achieve this social compromise we need the social partners – employers and strong un-ions, but also employees willing to train for new skills.

�e �exibility compromise

�e second major issue is the organization of work, in particular new forms of work and work arrangements in an age where digital devices allow people to work almost anywhere at any time.



I genuinely believe that the digital transformation of our economies al-lows for new forms of work organisation that bene�t both companies and their employees – if we develop the right rules.

For arrangements that enhance the �exibility of enterprises, while at the same time increasing peoples’ sovereignty to structure their working lives and increase the compatibility of work and private lives.

What we need to achieve are negotiated solutions that provide bene�ts for both sides, and I believe this is an area where the social partners will play an important role by negotiating �exibility compromises.

Our task as policy-makers is to strengthen the role of the partnership be-tween management and labour, to increase their negotiating options and to cre-ate incentives for negotiation processes. And to open up rooms for experiments, in which innovative ideas for the workplace can be tested, could be part of the solution.

Our aim is for work schedules to be able to be adapted �exibly to var-ious life phases. We have established an initial framework for this in Ger-many with working time accounts, parental leave and care-giver leave. Management and labour have also already realised exemplary models within companies. We want to promote the spread of �exible working models through company-speci�c and collective agreements, and possibly through new govern-ment incentives (e.g. for long-term working time accounts).

In addition, we are currently discussing how the already existing right to part-time work could be expanded to a general right to temporary part-time work.

Decent work in the digital age

Realising the emancipation potential of new technologies of course means more than �exibility in terms of when and where work is done. How work is structured and what kind of social security coverage there is are also important. I think the topics of the “future of work” and “decent jobs” are inseparable.

Given the rapid technological progress, the question is how we can develop models that can usefully combine our innate human abilities – creativity, empa-thy and judgment – with the new technological possibilities of machines and algorithms. And indeed in such a way that produces work suited to human needs and not only fragmented tasks that are then distributed via crowd-work-ing platforms.

�is brings me to my third point: Currently, a lot of money is being invest-ed in algorithm-based business models that assign individual workers, mostly self-employed, small individual tasks that must be completed on a computer or smartphone, or services that must be completed for new private customers.


Thorben Albrecht44

In Germany, the number of people working like this is, as far as we know, still low. But we know that in labour markets, such as in the US, these business models can have an entirely di�erent e�ect relatively quickly – disruption is indeed the goal of many Silicon Valley start-ups.

As someone involved in social and labour market policy, it is important to me that in the European debate we make a clear distinction: �ere are innova-tive business models that bring growth and decent jobs, and there are business models that do not. We should not promote or support the latter.

If tasks mediated through platforms are poorly paid, then employees do not have control over their time, because they have to be permanently ready to work while still not earning enough to survive without the support of solidarity from the community.

�at is why in Germany we are discussing a compulsory system to provide a social safety net for the less well remunerated self-employed. If new, digital busi-ness models emerge in Europe, then they should not stray outside the European Social Model. And that means that whoever assigns work needs to take on the responsibilities of an employer.

�ey must not shirk o� social contributions for employees and should cre-ate conditions under which employees can acquire skills and develop them-selves professionally over the long term. In Germany, we are also working with the Unions on the question of how viable worker participation can be brought about for the new forms of employment.

International and European dimensions of Work 4.0

At European level, the Digital Agenda of the European Commission has pro-vided a new momentum for the drive for a digital single market and for com-petitiveness. �e digital single market is a good place to start because it not only promotes European integration, but also increases our competitiveness on international markets.

Only if we have a European single market, are we at par with the US and Asia, and only so can we play a critical role in the decision-making process. However, the social dimension and the impact on work have still not been suf-�ciently addressed.

�e European Union has not set speci�c goals for the creation of decent digital work. It does not tackle consequences for di�erent countries and regions in Europe. Minister Viera da Silva talked about this.

Europe needs a debate on the future of work. We must continue this discus-sion on the European level, where the digital transformation of work must also be taken up.

Both previous speakers have mentioned the need to have a de�nition of



what will be the worker in the future. It’s something that we have to think about. And, there again I think we have to go forward, but we should stop trying to invent everything from completely new. �ere are still some traditions. Workers writing a so�ware program at home on their personal computer, for a platform, is no completely new model. �ere were people with her sewing machines who worked for the textile industry, not employed but a company they were work-ing for. In Germany we still have a so called home work law. It means that the person buying the goods have some social responsibility for the people at the sewing machines. Maybe we can use this for the personal computers in the fu-ture. We really have to be intelligent. We can’t say they are out of the labour law.

No, we have to �nd new forms and maybe re-established some ideas. I also very strongly support what has been said by Carvalho da Silva. �e age of col-lective representation is not over. It’s still needed.

But we have to do it in a way that we really convince employers and trade unions that it is a win-win situation when it comes to new technology. It’s not easy. �ere are con�icts and we should not try to put a carpet over the con�ict. But there is a possibility and in the best European tradition we can do so.

Last remark, when it comes to the European tradition I do agree that Euro group might have had a blind eye over the Social Model over the last years. And I think we have to re-establish the European Social Model and that it can con-tribute to growth and competitiveness, at the same time that safeguards social interests. A European project without the European Social Model would fall short and cannot be the solution for the future.

And I strongly believe that our European Social Model is not only su�cient-ly equipped for handling the digital transformation.

But in fact it o�ers a superior institutional setting to do just that.

�e European Social Model is successful:

• where it puts people at the centre when it comes to implementing changes in the world of work;

• where it recognises and promotes the constructive and productive role of workers’ participation, co-determination and collective bargaining;

• and where it thus manages to strike a fair balance between economic �ex-ibility and social security, particularly in times of change.

I am very glad to have the opportunity to exchange ideas with you today.

�ank you very much for your attention.


Thorben Albrecht46


�e re�ection of the German Secretary of State, which I greatly appreciated, brought to my mind the formulation of three questions that I’ve structured based on close observation of the situation that my country has been living:

What causes the high unemployment rates and the loss of labour rights we are facing, particularly in Portugal, and how can we react?

How can we analyse and react to the arrival of new technologies and to the likely materialization of a new wave of automation?

How can and should we foresee the future of labour?

1st Question

Today, in Europe, and particularly in Portugal, we have a high unemployment rate, huge pressure to reduce wages and to weaken or eliminate labour and social rights. Today, most young people feel like their future is blocked.

At in the origin of high unemployment rates and loss of rights, which I men-tioned in the �rst question, were there some new technological waves?

Basically, I think not. In Portugal, we got here, �rst because wrong employ-ment and economic policies have been adopted; because unregulated national and international powers acted in favour of some, at the loss of most. In recent years, we had an Adjustment Programme that failed to solve any of our struc-tural problems and worsened much of others, including public and private debt, which had been the basis of the Programme. Meanwhile, the intensity of de-mocracy dangerously decreased, inside and outside labour. Although we were told otherwise, wages and labour rights were not responsible for this situation. And it is also true that, even in this period of employment crisis, new technol-

Comments

Manuel Carvalho da SilvaProfessor and Investigator, former Secretary General of the General Confederation of the Portuguese Workers (CGTP-IN)


Manuel Carvalho da Silva48

ogies – which are arriving every day – were not responsible for the signi�cant increase of unemployment.

I’m not overstating when I say that it is collectively known that our country cannot enter into a development path with a permanently high unemployment rate and without providing conditions to signi�cantly improve investment, namely public investment, which will always be the great leverage of private investment. So, how do we solve the problem of unemployment?

Following the neoliberal playbook – fortunately, it is not what the Secre-tary of State brought us – unemployment is solved by eliminating labour rights, precarizing the goal of full employment, making people responsible for their “employability”, thereby eliminating collective bargaining, devaluing the na-tional minimum wage and cutting salaries. All done in the name of an e�cient functioning of the market, whose promises of prosperity only bene�t a few. In fact, these policies impoverish and cause social exclusion, exacerbate inequali-ties, disqualify peoples’ skills, generate diseases and con�icts. At the same time, these policies block the modernization of economy and innovation, reducing the ability to produce wealth and to distribute it fairly. Finally, the pressure to-wards emigration strongly incapacitates the Portuguese economy from its best resources – workers – thus mortgaging the future of the country.

�e “expenditure” cuts recipe has made it clear that cuts in health, in educa-tion, in justice, in social protection, in the structure of most Public Administra-tion services, generate unemployment and create serious problems and su�ering.

�is is a path we must avoid!We must therefore seek conditions – both internally but also in dialogue

with the European partners, especially with Germany – that enable us to make a good use of our resources, produce useful goods and services to the country and e�ectively take advantage of all expressions, old and new, of the economic and social organization, whether in the public, private or social sectors. We’re in need of a State with policies that choose not to follow the promotion of the individualization of access to employment and the provision of services such as health, education or social security, but with a strategic systemic intervention in the economy.

In our view, and considering the speci�c conditions we are facing, I will say that we will not solve the unemployment nor improve the quality of em-ployment, if the EU insists on imposing blind rules of unfair Treaties and un-democratic decisions coming from the Eurogroup, neglecting the European Social Model and its potentialities. We must bear in mind countries’ di�erent conditions and solve the obvious contradictions in the functioning of the single currency, with a strategy that does not see labour factor as a variable of adjust-ment.


Comments 49

2nd Question

�ere’s no doubt we have to face the impacts of technologies in the wide expres-sion of its branches, including automation. And the intervention of Mr. Secre-tary of State is incisive in its problematization.

In a bleak scenery of hundreds of millions of unemployed, new successive waves of technological change, automation and robotics are foreseen and will a�ect skilled and unskilled labour, that devoid of social and political frame-work, are not a source of hope, as they should, but of fear and anxiety for the vast majority of workers. A consistent approach in this area would lead us to the prior clari�cation of concepts and this is not the challenge or the focus of this intervention. I do make, however, three remarks:

First: �e umbrella of the concept of technology is used both in an amputat-ed way to mean only the digital and the new platforms, and also as an extended concept, to put into it in a multitude of components and also the automation. �ere are important di�erences in the impacts on production and organiza-tion of labour which should not be amalgamated under the generic umbrella of “technologies”.

Second: Technological innovation is positive when social innovation pro-gresses meaning when it’s framed and motivated by political decisions that en-compass all the dimensions of society and its humanization, enabling a better life for all. We need, of course, political decisions that ensure the social dimen-sion of work

�ird: �e more speci�c approach to Automation takes us to other areas of discussion that were not addressed in the re�ection we’re debating, particularly productivity gains, how they should be distributed, the dynamics of creation and destruction of jobs tendencies, or the unequal impacts on the international division of labour.

Within the circumscribed debate about technologies and the new digital platforms, the contingency of the wrong titled “collaborative economy” is her-alded as a brave new world, where through digital platforms downloaded in our mobile phones we would have a new labour supply model, �exible and tailored to the needs and to the “autonomy” of each worker, with potential bene�ts for consumers. If today the most notorious examples are in the transport industry, with Uber or Cabify, which were referred by Mr. Secretary of State, there are already several apps which extend this model to new services and activities and to work-from-home types of jobs, some of them with huge responsibility for those involved.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, the independence of the worker is false. What is clear is an extension of the working period and an invasion of the non-working period, which is the exclusive ownership of the citizen/worker.


Manuel Carvalho da Silva50

In this “collaborative economy” there is no longer work – only “activities”. And employment appears as an anachronistic concept. Who “provides” work is openly relieved of all the employers responsibilities. Is this acceptable? No! With more or less technology it’s always possible to identify and regulate new working relations, in new ways of providing it. �e political discourse cannot get on technological dazzle.

Let’s be clear: the replacement of the right to collective bargaining, to most fair wages and pensions and to basic social rights – with so many voices claim-ing for it, in Portugal, – in conditions which may be di�erent from the past and from other forms of organization and work provision, only means a return to democracy and progress, always possible with more or less technology.

�e goal of full employment had and will have strength when fundamental rights at work are a�rmed and consolidated.

3rd Question

�e future of work faces many challenges that might endanger the founding principles, the objectives and the ILO Agenda for decent work.

�e new technologies and automation destroy the existing balances at work and in the relations’ systems that regulate it. �is summons us to the need to identify what is destroyed, in order to rebuild relations that were a�ected, and to the urgency to identify and enforce new devices that create balance between capital and work factors.

It is said that the old model of working relations is exhausted and we’re chal-lenged to focus our discussion on new forms of working organization, submit-ted under a false technological determinism. Yes, we have to keep them in mind, technologies are here, but this is not enough. We need to take into account the new forms of organization and work provision, but also: the structure of em-ployment; quali�cations; the identi�cation and preparation for the skills that each new technology demands; the identi�cation and accountability of all ac-tors involved in labour and their roles; the powers presented in each context and the relations between them; the old and the new expressions of the processes of negotiation/con�ict/commitment that anchor the most advanced models of labour relations achieved to date or that can be foreseen.

Moreover, it is essential to bear in mind that there will be no e�ective so-cial protection if it does not have a strong support, structured in commitments provided for in the workplace. So, the degree of justice that drives the primary distribution of wealth is absolutely determinant.


Comments 51

Final notes on how to frame this discussion

We should envision “the future of work” with 3 objectives: less su�ering, more creativity, more dignity and happiness.

Societies are able to ensure conditions to guarantee the citizenship and de-mocracy. �is implies: to discuss and enhance work and non-work; value the salary and keep the concept from decaying; assume policies that put wealth at the service of the whole society; do not forget that time belongs to each person.

Ensure organizational conditions for workers, freedom of association and collective rights, including the right to collective bargaining and the realization of it.

“Work is not a commodity”. Decent work and the conditions of its provision require political decisions. Progressive forces can not hesitate in relation to this principle, no matter how charming the speeches on technological moderniza-tion can be.

Either the future of work is digni�ed and well balanced, or we will have no social justice, no peace, nor democracy.


I would like to thank Minister Vieira da Silva for inviting me to comment on the speech presented by Mr. �orben Albrecht, Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social A�airs of Germany, wich I will do with pleasure.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Minister Vieira da Silva for preparing the centennial celebrations of the Ministry of Labour.

A �rst word of appreciation for the re�ection made by Mr. �orben Albre-cht, about the future of the labour market and, above all, the various and stimu-lating leads pointed out by Mr. Albrecht for the development of public policies in this �eld. �erefore, I hereby congratulate him.

I appreciated how the State Secretary underlined his concern on how the transformations that are being carried out could be le� in the hands of small groups of so�ware technicians and investors. �ere is a true risk that these changes happens regardless the envolvement of the ordinary citizen.

�e European ideals are already heavily threatened, so we cannot accept that the future of people, regarding their life and employment conditions, comes to be de�ned by computers or machines, smart as they will be.

On the subject itself, the �rst observation that comes to mind is that we’re facing something completely new and with consequences that we are yet to master.

Comments

José da Silva PenedaPresident of the General Council of the University of Trás os Montes e Alto Douro and former Minister of Employment and Social Security


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�erefore, I also appreciated the Secretary of State intervention’s style that, far from trying to suggest a prescription, announced his e�ort in trying to involve various actors and institutions, in an attempt to �nd the best solutions to meet the challenges faced by labour market.

For my part, I would like to give my contribution and, to do so, I think it is advisable to understand what’s di�erent and what’s new when compared with other profound transformation processes that occurred previously.

�e feature of the novelty in this recent process of transformation is the amazing speed with which changes occur.

As a result of globalization processes and the recent technological revolu-tion we’re witnessing, for the �rst time in the history of the planet, the fastest pace in the cadence of transformations with widespread impact in the �elds of economics, politics, culture and social and, of course, in the way the lives of workers are organized.

Let’s see: in the world of work non essential functions gradually became subject of outsourcing, most of it, o�en, to regions quite far from the o�ce headquarters.

Companies are no longer organized vertically and began to establish con-tractual relations that allow them to take advantage of global value chains and international talent to foster their growth strategies.

Temporary work has become more common. Companies are now hiring a higher number of independent workers for shorter periods.

�e digital economy is increasingly becoming the rede�nition centre of the value chains and the creation of competitive advantages because speed and scale will be the cornerstones of the economy of this century.

It is said that about half of the existing professions will be partially – if not fully – computerized.

Perhaps there is some exaggeration, as mentioned by the Secretary of State, but with more or less intensity, this is will be the trend.

It seems clear that the most sought-a�er skills in advanced economies will be of two types:

- �e �rst has to do with roles of coordination or those requiring interper-sonal and interdisciplinary relations.

�is trend can be explained by the fact that the number of jobs is, increasin-gly, a result of complementariness between di�erent knowledge in the design and the execution, as a decisive factor for creating value.

- And the second with non-routine tasks;

On the evolution of non-routine occupations we must look at what happe-ned between 1995 and 2010.

During this period, the number of jobs created for non-routine tasks grew


Comments 55

from 28% to 38%, while the employment volume in routine tasks fell from 53% to 41%.

An increase of 10 points for non-routine jobs and a decrease of 12 points for routine jobs!

In summary, we have witnessed a huge change in the way of value crea-tion; in the opening of markets; in the new forms of trade; in technologies that leverage economic activities; in the outsourcing of productive activities; factors that have had major impacts on the work relations and on the changes in social structures.

In the future it seems clear that people will change jobs and employers seve-ral times in their life career; professional careers will alternate between jobs in the private/public sectors and non-governmental organizations, between dependent and independent work, full-time and part-time jobs, and the mobi-lity will increase signi�cantly. Tensions between the new hiring forms and new business models and the traditional hiring forms raise questions that have to do with the concept of worker, from the statistical, economic and legal standpoints.

In these circumstances, it will become increasingly di�cult to distinguish it and, even more di�cult, to make the potential distintion between the concepts of worker, self-employed and entrepreneur.

�e concept of work will not be a static concept but a kind of umbrella to shelter the roles played in di�erent ways and also with di�erent legal architec-tures.

�is situation requires the need to reconsider the employer’s responsibilities in the triangular relation and in the de�nition of contracts, in order to prevent undeclared work.

�e truth is that the prevailing legislation does not cover the consequences of the changes that have been taken place which has led to an increasing level of precarious working conditions, an increasing risk of abuse and a potential obstacle to the increasing of quali�cations.

We can take an important consequence from this evolution: Designing common approaches and establishing commitments through

traditional structures such as political parties and social partners have become more complicated and the recent forms of governance made it more di�cult for the development of collective bargaining and social dialogue.

Surely this evolution will enable the emergence of many opportunities for new jobs and signi�cant increases in productivity levels in knowledge-intensive sectors.

But, because those jobs will require very high levels of skills, it is necessary to take into account the �ip side, which has to do with possible increases in wage inequalities and the risks associated with di�erentiation in the access to social protection.


José da Silva Peneda56

Public policies that include active employment measures that promote the increase of quali�cations and develop social measures – such as the social inser-tion income – are, therefore, necessary.

Learning to learn, bene�ting from lifelong learning and better education will be increasingly necessary tools to remain useful in this rapidly changing world and with an increasingly globalized labour market. In the intervention of the Secretary of State this point was addressed in a way that I consider to be correct.

Public policies can only be considered as positive if, together with economic growth, social cohesion levels are strengthened, because it is a proven fact that the deterioration of social conditions and the increase of inequalities are an obs-tacle to growth and the creation of productive employment.

�e challenge that public policies face is, therefore, huge. Europe presents positive indicators when compared to other parts of the

world in terms of social equity, but the ability to protect the citizen from the adversities of life has been progressively challenged.

Today, nine out of ten Europeans have the perception that income inequali-ties in their countries have been extending greatly.

Against this background, promoting social cohesion and strengthening the middle classes are crucial aspects in terms of higher economic growth and, more important, for the preservation of the quality of our democracies because when the most vulnerable in our societies lose, all the society loses.

It is, therefore, important to realize the nature of the causes that led to the increase of income inequalities, as well as the social, economic and political consequences of their spread.

�e globalization and the digital revolution, on the one hand, allowed many millions to leave the poverty line, but is is also true that it resulted in an increase of income inequalities.

It is estimated that the recent digital revolution has contributed to the increase of inequality in OECD countries, accounting for over a third of the growing income gap between the highest and lowest deciles.

�e technological revolution has also contributed to an increase of capital income, to the detriment of labour income.

In OECD countries, labour income decreased from an average of 66.1% in the 1990s, to 61.7% in the 2000s.

�is means that the share of labour income generated by the economy is smaller, and greater the share that is destined to those who pro�t from capital income.

Recent evidence shows that the decrease in labour income has a signi�cant relation with income inequality, as shown in a report by the ILO and the Korean Institute for International Economic Policy, drawn up in 2015.


Comments 57

I would like to emphasize the following point: the issue of income inequali-ties cannot be solely seen as a problem of the economy.

It is much more than that. Inequalities to be compounded will bring the emergence of political alie-

nations, social unrest and increased con�ict which will amplify nationalist and xenophobic attitudes and the development of more radical social movements.

To respond e�ectively to this reality, Europe must adapt its economic and social policies, with the aim of building a stronger and more sustainable social model that can o�er equal opportunities to all citizens.

�e intervention of the Secretary of State goes in this direction, but as he also mentioned, there is still a long way to go.

For example, the situation is more severe in the southern European coun-tries, where the room for action is too small to implement public policies that promote growth and the creation of decent jobs.

�at is why it is urgent to provide the euro area with instruments that enable it to act as a genuine Economic and Monetary Union.

On this subject everything is already studied. �e report of the �ve Presi-dents points in the right way. Now, it has to be done.

I conclude by expressing the idea that, without completing the construc-tion of the Economic and Monetary Union, it will be very di�cult to face the challenges that the future of work reserves for us.

Do not let political myopia blur the decision makers of European public policies. �at is the most hankering wish that I would like to formulate.

�ank you very much.

Gregório Rocha NovoDirector of the Department of Legal and Social-Labour A�airs of the

Confederation of Portuguese Business (CIP)

Cristina MoraisHead of the Cabinet of the President of Confederation of Portuguese Farmers (CAP)

Ana VieiraSecretary-General of the Portuguese Commerce and Services Confederation (CCP)

Nuno Bernardo Member of the Executive Commission of the Portuguese Tourism Confederation (CTP)

Paula BernardoDeputy Secretary-General of the General Union of the Portuguese Workers (UGT)

Arménio CarlosSecretary-General of the General Confederation of the Portuguese Workers (CGTP-IN)

Luisa GuimarãesDirector of the Program on Social Protection, Governance and Tripartism

from the International Training Centre of the ILO


Summary of the Panel III – Is Legislation and are Public Policies and Collective Bargaining Following the Rapid Pace of Labour Market Change?

Challenges of a changing labour market

Is legislation and are public policies, and collective bargaining following the rapid pace of labour market change? �is was the motto for the discussion between the representatives of all social partners within the Standing Commit-tee on Social Dialogue at a round table during the International Conference on the Future of Work.

Luísa Guimarães, Director of the Program on Social Protection, Gover-nance and Tripartism of the ITC-ILO, and moderator of the debate, launched the challenge: “How can we ensure that, considering of new forms of work, new emerging sectors, intensi�ed competition or liberalization of labour markets, these instruments will be transformed in order to prevent situations of exclusion, and may, on the contrary, create innovation but also social progress”.

Gregório Rocha Novo, Director of the Department of Legal and Social-Labour A�airs of the Confederation of Portuguese Business (CIP), acknowled-ged the di�culty of giving a straightforward answer, since the various segments of economic activity are not on the same level and, therefore, “are, also, not all equally vulnerable to adjustments that eventual changes can determine”. For the representative of CIP, legislation and, particularly, the framework in which col-lective bargaining operates, “has reasonable space for development”. �is space, resulting from the 2003 Labour Code, gave collective bargaining “the possibility to entering new �elds, including confrontation with the law itself that become vital for businesses”. As an example he referred “the problem of mobility and working time organization”.



�ere were companies that took advantage of what the law conferred to collective bargaining and, as Gregório Rocha Novo highlighted, “overcame the crisis in a dynamic way, without major losses and taking place in the internatio-nal market, being able to adjust to the delectability these markets o�en bring”. �e CIP’s representative has no doubts about the bene�ts that collective bar-gaining agreements brought to companies, and believes these factors are “indis-pensable for preserving employment and creating new jobs, when it comes to competition”, meaning that “to solve the problem of poverty and exclusion, employment is the best solution”. Gregório Rocha Novo stressed that the virtue of collective bargaining was to remove from companies the “additional impedi-ments to risks they already take”. But, although there were success cases, there were some sectors of the economy that have not yet taken advantage of these virtues of the law, he said.

Gregório Rocha Novo, Director of the Department of Legal and Social-Labour A�airs of the Confederation of Portuguese Business:

“�e sectors that used and developed the virtualities that the Labour Code has boosted for collective bargaining overcame the crisis, conquered markets, gained sustainability and created jobs, because of increased competitiveness.”

“Companies also demand a de�ned framework, that regulates and disciplines col-lective relations, without the weight of collective agreements, which companies usually do not appreciate.”

Adjusting collective bargaining to a new reality

Referring to the changes that are likely to happen in the labour market, CIP’s representative admitted that many jobs will be lost, but assured that many others will be created – although di�erent in their essence. “Collective bargaining will be maladjusted, namely at the level of professional commissions, which means that we will need to take a closer look to training and quali�cations”, he added.

Agriculture is an example of this situation, admitted Cristina Morais, Head of President’s Cabinet of the Confederation of Portuguese Farmers (CAP). She said that there are several “blank areas” in the sector, where collective bargaining is missing. In order to support some of the regions that faced this situation CAP led a collective bargaining in 2007. �e profound knowledge of the speci�cities in the agricultural activity, helped CAP to recognize and understand the impact of new forms of work in collective bargaining, and the need to innovate to meet the companies’ needs. “Within collective bargaining are not only emerging new forms of working, but also new forms of production”, she noted.


Summary of the Panel III – Is Legislation and are Public Policies and Collective Bargaining Following the Rapid Pace of Labour Market Change? 61

Alongside the issue of innovation, growth and competitiveness, the need for change has already occurred with the globalization process once, some of the activities of companies of this sector were transferred to countries as Chile, Mozambique or Angola, causing the relocation of workers.

�e reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy, the changes of production – that, with technology, uses less but more quali�ed workers in green jobs – along with climate change challenges are factors that will lead to adjustments in the sector, both in terms of crops or production.

Cristina Morais, Head of President’s O�ce of the Confederation of Portu-guese Farmers (CAP):

“At this point, we don’t feel there is a need to make major changes to labour legis-lation. We felt it in 2009, then we spoke with the Minister of Labour and made a signi�cant change in the short-term employment contracts.”

“Reality runs faster but we have to keep up with it using regulation. Probably in the future these new form of work will require adjustments at the legal level.”

Gaining new skills for the new labour market

Regarding this issue, Cristina Morais stressed the need for a “stronger social dialogue on legislation and policies”. “If it is not possible a reconversion process regarding some jobs through vocational training, and if workers face unemploy-ment, it is important that public authorities, namely social security, can provide them tools – training and skills – so that they can re-enter the labour market. Only this way we can ensure that this transition is done in a fair way”, concluded CAP’s representative.

New technologies are long being used by trade and services sectors. �at is why the Portuguese Confederation of Commerce (CCP), as a social partner, is focused on “not missing the opportunity to decrease the distance to other markets”, said Ana Vieira, CCP’s Secretary-General.

Based on the information given by several companies that no longer work in a logic of physical space or �xed timetables, CCP concluded that the biggest dif-�culty of this sector in expanding operations or competing with markets such as Poland, is the lack of human resources with speci�c skills, such as technology engineers.

Taking this reality into account, Ana Vieira would choose as a priority within collective bargaining, the debate on the quali�cations, starting with the concerning fact that young people have been showing less enthusiasm for areas like engineering. Moreover, this concern has been at the basis of several studies



developed by CCP, regarding training and tailored pro�les in quali�cation. “We know there is a mismatch. We also know there is huge potential for job creation, but there will also be some job loss”.

Drawing the audience’s attention to the country’s little experience on voca-tional reconversion, she also expressed CCP’s full willingness to collaborate with other social partners, to help the country match existing opportunities with di�culties. For Ana Vieira, the biggest challenge of collective bargaining is “knowing how to cross and update contracts of more traditional sectors with those of emerging sectors, where Unions or similar structures do not exist, and for which we cannot �nd any collective agreements that may apply”.

�e CCP representative goes against the idea of “big groups” outside col-lective agreements, preferring to speak of poorly framed activities. �is way, we must work towards a better understanding of where many of these new acti-vities situate, and how companies look at collective agreements. “One thing is certain. For new dynamics, these new collective agreements are inadequate in terms of professional categories and content”.

Ana Vieira, Secretary-General of the Portuguese Confederation of Com-merce (CCP):

“Of the companies created in 2000, 92% survived the �rst two years of activity. Of the companies created in 2010, more than half disappeared, two years later. It is no longer worth thinking about long-term employment, as if companies would last for 50 years. It is a concept that no longer exists and it is this new reality that must be incorporated in labour laws.”

“�e �nancing of social security systems cannot possibly continue to rely almost exclusively on contributions from companies and workers. We must think about new formulas.”

Responding to unpredictability and intensity of change

For CCP, collective bargaining su�ers from the same problem as the Labour Code: “It is built for a reality of physical work places, physical products and �xed timetables that, although �exible, are pretty much standard. Today, we know that those who work with technology can perform their tasks anytime and anywhere”, says Ana Vieira. In this scenario, the greatest di�culty is to know how to ensure that these time schedules correspond either to businesses or workers’ needs. Moreover, this is a concern that has not been answered by recent collective agreements, guaranteed the CCP representative.



If talking about change in the labour market is nowadays a common-place, one must realize that its intensity and pace have been escalating, as has also the unpredictability of its e�ects trough globalization, defended Paula Bernardo, Deputy Secretary-General of the General Union of Portuguese Workers (UGT), comparing the present moment with the period of the Industrial Revolution.

“For those who in the trade unions movement – itself emerged from a moment of profound change in the production processes, aiming at the pro-tection of workers and the promotion of equality – transformation and adapta-bility is something that we are used to deal with, sometimes more successfully, sometimes less”, acknowledged Paula Bernardo. She also defended the need for social partners and other civil players to re�ect and meet the challenges that lie ahead, “instead of just reacting to a future that sometimes runs us over, and is presented before us as inevitable”. We should rather shape the future the way we want it to be. For this to happen, UGT stresses the importance of creating a space for dialogue that respects the founding principles of the International Labour Organization. �is is one of our biggest concerns, said Paula Bernardo, giving as an example the way social dialogue has taken place “in a Europe very focused on their economic progress and �nancial consolidation, where people have been marginalised”. UGT’s representative acknowledged some signs “that indicate the opposite”, but noted that collective bargaining has been blocked by the institutions that conceived Portugal’s economic and �nancial assistance pro-gram. �us, many of the collective bargaining processes were “strongly paraly-zed” in recent years.

In a country faced, not only with these changes, but also with the severe impact of the economic and �nancial crisis, Paula Bernardo argued that an open dialogue on concepts such as employee, company or employer, should take place. �e goal, she said, is to reach compromises and consensus on what is the scope of employment relationships, considering the proliferation of atypical forms of work, as well as the multiplication of business organizational formulas.

�e UGT’s representative took this opportunity to encourage the involve-ment of the social partners in the de�nition of macro policies for education and training, at a time when it is urgent to invest in human resources development and vocational training, i.e., in acquiring targeted skills for new profes-sions and emerging sectors. A concern supported by data regarding Portuguese active population’s quali�cations, that show the high gap between Portugal and other European business partners and constitutes a constraint to our economy’s growth. We are talking about not only highly specialized skills, linked to new technologies, but also of a set of more transversal competences, essential to sustain economic development, enterprises viability and guarantee a greater employability.



Paula Bernardo, Deputy Secretary-General of the UGT:

“Social protection must be able to shelter all workers, regardless of how they were hired. It is not acceptable that workers with a given contract do not have access to social protection in old age, in sickness or in parenting.”

“�e challenges associated with the future of work are very complex, going from technological change, to climate change and globalization. We cannot resist to change, but we want a future that o�ers better life and working conditions for all, and not just for some.”

Meeting the challenges brought to legislation by new businesses

Tourism is one of the most illustrative examples in what concerns recent econo-mic activities that still lack regulatory framework that could �t the speci�cities of the sector. Seasonality, diversity of businesses and continuous work “pose many challenges to entrepreneurs and workers”, acknowledged Nuno Bernardo, member of the Executive Commission of the Portuguese Tourism Confedera-tion (CTP).

“Some of the new innovative forms of tourism don’t �t the static legal and regulatory frameworks and need a di�erent formula. �e Labour Code, which is in its essence a static repository, is not compatible with the need for adaptability of tourism”. Nuno Bernardo recognized these di�culties and pointed out some possible solutions, namely a “sectorial and more decentralized collective bargaining”.

For Nuno Bernardo, it is clear that the legislator has not been keeping up with new arising business models, which obviously creates problems of prac-tical application and in the day-to-day of the companies. Without the right legal tools, business owners can “fall into undesirable situations of informality”, he warned, saying that bottlenecks in this sector’s collective agreements are a reality, thus appealing for a broader social dialogue. “If this is not solved in the scope of collective agreements, it will certainly not be solved by Labour Code, a static and administrative via.

In this context, the representative of CTP considered the study of Euro-pean good practices and collective bargaining models to be important, inclu-ding innovative instruments of collective regulation, such as opening clauses and procedural agreements.

Nuno Bernardo, Member of the Executive Commission O�cer of the Por-tuguese Tourism Confederation (CTP):



“Legal frameworks must be adapted to these new business models, within social dialogue. We will require quick adjustment mechanisms for better tax and con-tributory frameworks.”

“We must look to some economic activities, such as tourism, in a speci�c way: this is not to claim a statute of precariousness subjective concepts, but an imperative need for some economic activities.”

Ensuring that the future will not be an argument for deregulating

For the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), the most impor-tant thing is to ensure that the future of work will not provide an argument for the “deregulation and the attacks on workers’ rights”. Arménio Carlos, CGTP’s Secretary-General, criticised the need for greater �exibility, giving as an exam-ple the failure of the agreement resulting from Portugal’s Government request for international �nancial assistance. “We have deregulated, facilitated dismis-sals, reduced compensation, blocked collective agreements, reduced wages and work retributions, and changed the rules of working hours”, he stated, posing the following questions: “Are companies more competitive now? Do newly crea-ted jobs have more quality? Has economic growth evolved? “Being certain of a negative answer to all these questions, Arménio Carlos concluded that any changes in the law should not go towards further deregulation or workers’ disempowerment, but instead towards a revision of the “burdensome rules that modi�ed labour relations and at the same time deepened inequalities and impo-verishment”.

To support this idea, the Union leader presented some data, indicating that, in 2015, eight out of ten new jobs were precarious, and that 42% of full-time workers had net wages of less than 600 euros per month. “We can see that pre-cariety is still extremely signi�cant, remaining as a waiting room for unemploy-ment”, he said. It leads to a cycle of poverty, a�ecting not only workers but also their dependants, namely children and young people.

In this context, CGTP stressed the importance for social dialogue on col-lective agreements that currently covers 8.3% of the Portuguese workers. “�e negotiation process is unbalanced, with one part favoured by limitation periods, used as a tool of pressure over trade unions. If unions do not accept the con-ditions, there is denunciation process of the agreement”, said Arménio Carlos, defending that all parts must �nd a plan of equality and openness, allowing the right solutions to be reached.

He also showed his concern about low pay standards to what he considers to be the most quali�ed generation in Portugal ever, questioning this model of “low wages, precarious work and general impoverishment of workers”, which he said it is imperative to break.



Arménio Carlos, Secretary-General of CGTP-IN:

“Employability has been used to replace employment’s stability and security principles, turning them into a mere occupation of a workplace during a certain period of time. If that’s what it means, we are generalizing precarity.”

“Social Security is inseparable from employment quality and distribution of wealth, namely through wages. If we continue to assist to a degradation on employment’s quality and a rise of precarity, it will have profoundly damaging consequences in the future of social security.”

Conclusions by moderator Luisa Guimarães, Director of the Program on Social Protection, Governance and Tripartism from the ITC-ILO:

Collective bargaining is perhaps the instrument that can better respond to changes in the labour market. However, to do so, we need to adjust the current collective agreements’ framework to new forms of work and production, new working time organization, new professions and professional categories, arising from emerging sectors.

�e heterogeneity of responses/adjustments to changes in the labour market, regarding speci�c vulnerabilities faced by di�erent segments of economy and the importance of looking at good practices in terms of collective bargaining, including innovative collective regulatory instruments.

One of the biggest challenges for collective bargaining is knowing how to cross and update contracts of more traditional sectors with those of emerging sectors that, in many cases, don’t have associative structures for employers or unions.

�e importance of education and training policies, to ensure fair transition and inclusive processes that promote the acquisition of specialized and transver-sal skills for professions and sectors, potentiating job creation and professional reconversion of workers, whose skills no longer respond to newly created jobs.

Social protection systems must be able to keep up with changes in the labour market and to protect all workers, regardless their contract employment relationship.

�e current transformation processes are outlined by intense change with unpredictable e�ects. In this context, we must promote a broader dialogue between social partners and civil society, to anticipate change and manage it in a fair and inclusive way.



Changes in the labour market must go hand in hand with a more open dia-logue, on concepts such as worker, company and employer and the creation of new consensus in the scope of employment relationships, considering the proliferation of atypical forms of work and the multiplication of business orga-nizational formulas.

It is important that the adjustment to the changes in the labour market is done within the respect of the framework of fundamental values of the Inter-national Labour Organization, and that the future of work o�ers better living conditions for all and not just for some.


Cadernos Sociedade e Trabalho, n.º 1968

Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho Full Professor at the University of Lisbon, School of Law/President of the Portuguese

Association of Labour Law (APODIT)

Arlindo Manuel Limede de Oliveira Full Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and President of the Instituto

Superior Técnico

José Manuel Fernandes Chairman of the Frezite Group

Miguel Santo Amaro Co-founder of Uniplaces

David Dinis Journalist and Director of the journal Público


Summary of the Panel IV – �e Technological Revolution is Redesigning the Labour Market and Labour Relations – Risks and Challenges

�e technological revolution has begun and nothing will ever be the same

On the short or long term, with more or less risks, in a more optimistic or pes-simistic perspective, with more or less e�ects. In a way or another, no one has doubts anymore: the fourth industrial revolution that we are experiencing is faster than any other and will irreversibly change the way our society is orga-nized

�e dream of “full employment”, as Arlindo Oliveira, Full Professor and President of the Instituto Superior Técnico recalled, is actually just that: “A dream we’ll never reach again”.

And the fourth industrial revolution, that everyone talks about – or 4.0 revolution – is not a scenario of the future: “It’s happening” and “quietly pene-trating our companies”, said José Manuel Fernandes, Chairman of the Frezite Group. “We have broader so�ware. We have companies with branches [where] everyone can be online. From a single location we have global leaders and we don’t need many local leaders”, said the entrepreneur, stating it as an example.

In a panel where technological revolution’s risks and challenges were analy-sed, it became clear that the dizzying speed at which the world is changing, thanks to new technologies, leaves room for few certainties about the challenges that the future labour market will face.



José Manuel Fernandes, Chairman of the Frezite Group:

“Big changes will happen on competences’ adjustment, quali�cations, taking into account a new way of communicating in new media, which will allow for substan-tial gains in productivity and competitiveness.”

“�e country will not be turned into a digital startups’ country.”

Legislation is indeed inadequate to deal with these new kinds of jobs that begin to proliferate, but it is not an obstacle and the priority is to avoid deregulation. �e “inalienable rights” for which unions are �ghting today were criticized by several speakers on this panel, following a provocative statement coming from the moderator – the director of the journal Público, David Dinis – who inqui-red: “can we still talk about inalienable rights, at such a troubled time of trans-formation of the labour market?” �e speakers had a clear answer, targeting the Unions: “Don’t swim against the tide.” And once again it became clear that the workers’ quali�cations are key to what happens in the future.

For the President of the Instituto Superior Técnico, Arlindo Oliveira, quali-�cations are the main drive: “�ere are between 5,000 and 10,000 vacant jobs in Portugal in the area of technologies. In 2020 it is expected that this �gure rises to 20,000 in Portugal and one million in Europe.”

Miguel Santo Amaro – co-founder of the technological startup Uniplaces – invoked the concept of globalization to explain that the current way companies compete “internationally” is changing the labour market and its challenges. Within this area, tech companies promise to be the centrepiece of all debates. It’s important not to forget that “in 2012, the 10 largest companies in the world ranking had only one technological company; today this ranking encompasses eight companies in that area” said the entrepreneur.

Miguel Santo Amaro, Co-founder of Uniplaces:

“�ere is no Portuguese company competing internationally in the world’s top 100. I think that will change in �ve years. But we have to look at what we have today and the relevant factors to allow one of the major technological giants to be Portuguese are just not there.”

“�e kind of work developed by a physician in a health centre, today, can be easily done by a machine. And so, a job that was highly quali�ed 10 years ago is one of the areas where technology will be more disruptive.”


Summary of the Panel IV – The Technological Revolution is Redesigning the Labour Market and Labour Relations – Risks and Challenges 71

For now, this is a level that Portuguese companies – even the more technological ones – have yet to aspire, but the speakers were unanimous in considering that the good examples of national startups are a good sign that Portugal can take advantage of this asset to relaunch economic growth and become a competitive player in the digital world. “�e country’s capacity in the area of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) allows Portugal to be internationally competitive, because ICT is the main force of growth. Portugal is at the fore-front”, according to Arlindo Oliveira.

José Manuel Fernandes was also con�dent, saying that all these technologi-cal transformations and changes can mean big opportunities. “Portugal’s level of development and possible economic growth upgrade, if triggered e�ectively, might become a great opportunity”, stated Frezite’s entrepreneur.

“Much of the technology is in the universities and the labour market is not aware of what’s coming. Managers, physicians, everything will change, but we will create fantastic opportunities. For Portugal, that is still trying to �nd a new position, this might be a fantastic way to do it. We have highly skilled labour force in these areas. Picking up a labour market and requalifying much of the talent we have today is a major challenge”, added the founder of Uniplaces, Miguel Santo Amaro.

Legislation: what changes?

But the moderator – David Dinis – who stated he did not know whether to be “frightened and worried or excited” about the changes that are occurring in the labour market, asked how legislation could adapt to this new world.

Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, Professor at the School of Law of the University of Lisbon and President of APODIT – Portuguese Association of Labour Law, said that she believes that the current legal framework “already encompasses many of the new labour contract models”. However, she highli-ghted the dangers brought by “ways of employment that might develop, but are not limited to labour” and then yes, “without any legal control. �e possibility to mask false self-employment”, with the Uber platform as the best known exam-ple, is one of the biggest risks identi�ed by Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho and should be better safeguarded.

“�ere’s a need to adapt legal regimes to meet the needs for relocation, func-tion adaptation, competence modi�cation”, she argued. But it’s not a question of throwing away our legal system nor creating a new one: “It’s important to readjust what Portugal already has today, with a great amount of �exibility at di�erent levels”, considered the President of APODIT.



Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, Full Professor of Law at the University of Lisbon School of Law:

“Platforms like UBER are formally autonomous work, but some american courts have ruled that UBER workers’ duties correspond to similar duties to those of subordinate employees, but are not protected the same way.”

“�ere’s a requisite to adapt legal regimes to meet the needs for relocation, working time adaptation, function adaptation.”

And when it comes to �exibility and new labour organization opportunities brought by technologies, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho expressed some con-cern: “Not everything is an advantage. �e technological revolution has radical implications, from recruitment systems to workers” management, to working tools”, no matter if we’re debating checking personal pro�les on Facebook, com-pany’s car GPS, computer and professional mobile phone with active email 24 hours a day, despite all the advantages, “we must involve all the resources of privacy and personality rights”, considered Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho. �e risk, she pointed out, is “to transform work into a contemporary slavery” and here the subject of remuneration is unavoidable. �e reality that shows that “we have highly quali�ed youngsters with poor salaries” is pointed out, by the legal expert, as a new “form of slavery”.

It is, indeed, in the level of pay and collective agreement that Maria do Rosá-rio Palma Ramalho believes that it is necessary to make changes to the current legal regime. “�e system is still very rigid in what concerns collective agree-ments and remuneration” she said, acknowledging, nonetheless, some advances in terms of dismissals. “It takes lower levels of protection to reach more people. If the levels are too high, the number of workers with those characteristics will continuously decrease and, socially, this is dangerous for the future”, she added.

Change, said Professor Arlindo Oliveira, must begin in the area of public employment. Arlindo Oliveira explained that today “it is entirely impossible to hire a computer engineer for the State, with the current restrictions. �e State pays poorly and it is no longer attractive”, which leads to the “devaluation of the State’s human capital” with the risk of “losing responsiveness”. Wage limits are one of the main impediments, with the Professor recalling that a newly licen-sed engineer “who enters the State gets paid 1,500 euros; in Germany gets paid 4,000 and in Silicon Valley 12,000 euros”.



Arlindo Oliveira, Full Professor and President of the Instituto Superior Téc-nico:

“Globalization tends to focus on fewer companies and the greater part of the income goes to tech companies. Just look at Apple or Facebook. �ey’re worth more than General Motors or Boeing and employ much fewer people.”

“Portugal is at the forefront in terms of ICT capacity. If we do an intervention in primary and secondary education, to create more employability, we have every-thing to gain. It’s in our hands. We are not dependent on the global economy.”

�e end of full employment

What short-term e�ects will all these changes bring to a country that despera-tely needs jobs? Unlike to what happened in previous industrial revolutions, “where machines didn’t replace human work but gave them tools to accomplish more sophisticated tasks”, recalled Arlindo Oliveira, the Professor doubts this will happen again: “�ese are systems that are impossible to distinguish from humans in many forms of action. If we call a contact centre we might not know if we’re talking to an human being.”

David Dinis wondered how can Portugal handle this transition model.�e Professor of the Instituto Superior Técnico took this idea to quote a

study by the Economist magazine pointing the professions which were most at risk of disappearing in the coming decades: retail sales, drivers and accountants are in the top of those bound to disappear. On the other side of the chart are physical therapists, personal trainers, priests, editors or dentists. In other words, the Professor believes in the need for accurate changes in the way societies orga-nize themselves, because unemployment is an increasingly high probability for many people. And this is where Arlindo Oliveira ends the dream of full employ-ment: “A structural unemployment with values around 50% might become a reality. And a society with these unemployment �gures is a society in need of profound changes”. How can this be solved? �e Professor holds no solutions, but speaks of more e�ective delivery mechanisms, like a basic income given to all citizens. �e stigma associated with the fact that the person doesn’t have a job needs to cease.

Anyway, there are areas that appear to be immune to the danger of unem-ployment; computer engineering and highly specialized jobs that exist around the world, and also in Portugal, with job vacancies un�lled due to lack of can-didates. Which brings Arlindo Oliveira to argue that the “biggest goal of the country should be to give all young people the most competitive training”.



Regarding the challenges to employment, Miguel Santo Amaro was more optimistic, advocating new ways of labour organization. �e active generation, the so-called Millennials, “no longer want or aspire to jobs for the next ��een years and might live in a world where the weekend will have more than two days, because there is no need for much of the labour we have today”, says the founder of Uniplaces.

�e most quali�ed generation ever

�is panel also addressed the fact that Portugal has, today, the most quali�ed generation ever and is not knowing how to take advantage of it. Miguel Santo Amaro highlighted the fact that this generation, “which has a willingness to innovate and a propensity to interact with technology” is also the one “who is unemployed and cannot help organizations to change and innovate”. He then supported, therefore, “incentives for this population that lacks experience but is much more comfortable with English and computer science than other previous generations”. First, making sure they get into companies.

Miguel Santo Amaro also said that we must keep quali�ed youngsters in Portugal. �e founder of Uniplaces believes the country should not be closed and should allow these young people to stay and “help to improve”. He is con-�dent that the entrance in Portugal of foreign and highly quali�ed know how companies that may choose the country given its cheaper labour force when compared with countries such as Germany or other parts of the world where technology is well known, such as Silicon Valley – should be harnessed to teach young people the things they are still missing, especially at marketing level.

�e role of universities is therefore pivotal. �e speakers pointed out the excellence of Portuguese newly-graduated and the innovation that comes out today of Portuguese universities. �ey also identi�ed the cost of labour and the Portuguese know-how as critical assets to be successful in the competitive market arising from technological revolution. And because that future will not be built exclusively by digital startups, José Manuel Fernandes le� a challenge for a large share of the Portuguese business structure which should not limit their action to qualifying people, but should focus especially in the triangle “price, quality and response price”. And if, on the two �rst ones, it is di�cult to �ght the competition coming from the Nordic countries, Germany, the United States or China, then we should bet on “getting there faster than the Germans”, aid Frezite’s Chairman ironically.

But the work force in Portugal is not limited to quali�ed generations. And that is why the Chairman of Frezite argued how necessary it is to provide training in companies, targeting “this �exibility and cross-cutting perspective



of technologies, where the component of digital language is very basic as lear-ning the vowels a, e, i, o, u”. Miguel Santo Amaro also believes in the need to “requalify the existing talent”.

With Union representatives in the audience, José Manuel Fernandes did not restrain from declaring the death of certain professions – and gave turners as an example. “�e transition is violent and there’s no other way”, he a�rmed.

So did Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, who le� a question: “Inalienable rights for whom and for how many?” She actually believes that “the employee is no longer what it used to be, and much less when we speak of youngsters. We cannot preserve traditional standards. �e idea that the workplace was forever, keeping the same position throughout the entire life, that bene�ts were acqui-red rights which could not be messed with and that the employer could not dismiss is the perspective of the traditional trade unionist”. For the Professor of Law from the University of Lisbon, in the new era of industrial revolution and of new forms of employment, it no longer makes sense to keep these standards and these protections. �e system has to evolve through regulation, said the Professor.

She also stated the need to involve the social partners in these new discus-sions, instead of “swimming against the tide”. A remark directed at both sides: “trade unions and employers”, she said.

David Dinis, journalist, director of the journal Público, concluded:

Our debate, herein synthesized, clari�es the dimension of the challenge opened by this fourth industrial revolution. Due to its nature, it came to our lives faster, without knocking and without choosing the time to do so. And it was imme-diately welcomed by each of us to our everyday life: if not as workers, at least as citizens and consumers.

We, on the other side of the mirror (as organizations, companies or as workers), can only embrace the challenge and seize the opportunities. But what we were told by the members of this panel is that we cannot look at what’s next with the same compass that has been guiding us, following the general principle that the future is built through trial and error. As di�erent as our starting points or ways to look at reality are, we are undoubtedly coming to a new paradigm. Maybe that’s why theorists call it “revolution’. Although peaceful, it really came to change our way of life and organization.

�at’s why discussions like this one are, nowadays, fundamental. Because of their target – those who are accustomed to look at labour relations – they’re an unmissable opportunity to break down barriers and perceptions.



In little more than an hour, we realized how societies suddenly broke in half: companies, laws and generations with a history, a past; and startups, laws and generations with nothing behind them – just a di�erent future in perspective. We realized that there is a lot of people in transition between these two worlds, And also that challenges have di�erent dimensions, a huge degree of comple-xity, an unpredictable ending. In the end, all the speakers came to the simple – but necessary – conclusion it’s not worth resisting, just adapting. In order to join forces and �nd solutions, taking advantage of the best that the present (not only the future) has given us.

�e Government is given a recognition and a pivotal remark: only those who realize the scale of this challenge have the courage to launch the debate, especially in the current circumstances. �e future will be thankful for the cou-rage.





Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who participated in this conference. I have attended many international conferences on similar topics, in various

international dimensions, and I can say, without any hesitation – you may con-sider that praising in my own home is not very suitable – that the quality of the work developed here, throughout this day, is as good as any other, anywhere in the world. Largely because we were fortunate to have the presence of excellent speakers, both national and international. My congratulations!

I would also like to make a statement of interest: I am an economist and a�er all we have heard about economists, please note that what I will say will be bounded by this limitation. But, because I am a Minister, it will be compensated.

A preliminary note on the future of work regarding risk, that was so e�-ciently, creatively and deeply identi�ed by the last panel.

I am by nature much more pessimistic than optimistic. And, as I said in my opening remarks, even if it’s true that all industrial revolutions created more jobs than those destroyed, I’m not sure that the current industrial revolution will deliver us the same result.

Having said that, I believe that the mechanical models that use technological innovation to predict the creation and destruction of jobs have two problems. �e �rst one is that they don’t anticipate the consequences of these technologi-cal evolution in the creation of new social needs.

International tourism is, nowadays, one of the most important sectors of developed economies. Not so many decades ago, tourism was an exclusive right of a tiny minority of the world’s population. Today, it is turning into a universal right, or, better saying, an almost universal right – since most people don’t yet have the possibility to be a tourist from an international point of view. Techno-logical transformation, particularly in the transport chains, in material tech-nologies, in resources reduction, is radically changing this situation. In other

Conclusions




words, technology has created new markets and the current technological revo-lution will inevitably continue to do so. An example of this, are these machines that accompany us everywhere, smartphones. I’ve read, can’t remember where, that this machine, the smartphone, contributed to an increase in economy’s pro-ductivity, only comparable to the Middle Age period, when the use of eyeglasses was widespread.

I take bene�t from both.Just like glasses, this ability to communicate by the use of mobile phones, is

generic, it is global. It’s not so much a question of GDP growth, but an increase in the quality of life in general.

New areas of social needs will create new markets and new work needs. �e exclusion of this dimension from economic forecasting models will insure then to death. �en, there is another dimension, the social one. I will give you a very simple example: since the last 20 or 30 years, when we entered a hotel in any European capital, we could use the elevator all by ourselves by simply pressing a button. But in the United States of America (USA), we still �nd a gentleman, in a uniform, assisting us in that task. Is that job really necessary? No! So, if it doesn’t exist in Europe why does it exist in the US? Because the American society pro-bably found out that the elevator would be used more o�en if they had an ele-vator operator. We are not saying that the American economy or labour market is more outdated than the European one. No. �ey made that choice. �e same goes for gas stations. While in Europe we are forced to pay the full price of fuel and do all the work ourselves, most of the gas stations in the US have someone to do it for us. And they pay less for fuel than we do.

Markets are resilient and make their options from a job conservation point of view, set by essential historical situations and collective choices made by communities. But be careful! I will obviously not diminish the risk of job des-truction. Mainly, and not turning away from global systemic risks, because the real risk is that job destruction and creation are not coincidental, leading to new mechanisms of inequality. Inequality in time and inequality in space.

I am con�dent that when robots produce large amount of things, we will no longer need to invent ways for people to have money to buy the products pro-duced by them – not that I am against that. I trust that the market, the economy and society will be able to create opportunities for new jobs, so that people can also have the right to work and thus giving people access to these goods in the most civilized way, which, in my opinion, is through work. Even if this work is regarded by other more mechanical standards, “more engineer” as unnecessary. If we were to consider some unnecessary professions, then I don’t know if some lawyers would pass the test. Mind that this is only a comment by an economist.

Having made this prior note – that i only make due to the intensity, richness and high quality of the debate here witnessed today – without attempting to


Conclusions 81

summarize what has been said, I would like to point out some issues that seem relevant to me. I will try to be brief.

Firstly, it has been said here, and rightly so, that the pace of change and its acceleration is of extreme relevance. �is is something indisputable and brings consequences to all levels: economic, social, cultural. And it’s something we have to learn to live with. To live in a world undergoing rapid change.

�e second point that was rightfully emphasized in the intervention of the OECD’s representative, Stefano Scarpetta is the question of globalization. We cannot discuss the impact on the future of work only based in technological paradigms alone, without associating the dynamics of trade and international economic relations. In the future’s perspective, globalization and technological revolution must go hand in hand, especially when we want to answer the third question. �e �rst was the question of acceleration, the second the one of glo-balization, and the third has to do with the need to make a strategic re�ection, in a shared manner, about the positioning of our economy in this international vision of work.

�e new division of labour corresponds, moreover, to an inevitable shi� of power relation in the world. We could not continue to believe that the predomi-nance of the European economy, followed by the American and Japanese econo-mies, will continue to overcome other world economies. �is was an historical and dated phenomenon that inevitably had to be adjusted. When we say that Europe’s major problem is that it’s losing its importance, we must acknowledge that it’s only natural for this to happen since Europe has a minority position in the world. But it’s not Europe that is losing importance, it’s other economies that are taking the positions they are entitled to. And we must get used to live with it.

I regret to say that we o�en compare our growth of 1%, and I’m talking about Europe and not only Portugal, with growths of around 5% or more of other economies. But this growth of 1% is frequently more relevant in terms of social welfare. Mathematics explains this in a very simple way. Faced with the accelerated changes that are taking place in technology and globalization, we must place ourselves in a winning position, to defend our standards and our quality of living – this is the central question.

�ere is a fourth point that I would like to enhance, which I believe is abso-lutely crucial. �e real risk brought by these changes, is that of breaking the bonds, created during the last decades, between work and social protection. And when that happens, we will face huge social risks. We cannot live in a society where some have protection systems guaranteed by work and the majority of the population lives on social minimums, especially when there is lack of work.



In my opinion, and I know it’s a controversial one, all actions that can jeopar-dize what is called by social security theorists the “synallagmatic” relationship between employment and social protection, are extremely risky. I think this is a challenge for the International Labour Organization (ILO) – forgive me for this Mr. Director-General – that fortunately has already integrated these concerns in the core of their agenda. Precisely, because, perhaps, for the �rst time in history, the risks of social protection’s degradation coexist with the lack of social protec-tion in other parts of the world, where social protection never existed.

�is is also why the ILO has an increasingly more important role. We can �nd di�erent forms of tackling the problems referred by me today, both in more developed countries and less developed ones.

�is is the fourth point that I would like to underline: the problem of a potential social protection’s degradation in the more developed countries, along with the lack of social protection in many of the emerging economies. In the notes I took along this day, I marked, as a key point, the need to “stren-gthen and reinvent the link between employment relationships and social pro-tection”. �ere is a lot to do on this matter in what concerns the big and the “small” global issues, such as social protection for independent or self-employed workers.

�e ��h question that I want to raise, is related to something that was brou-ght up by the last panel, in a most interesting way: the issue of initial training. We must review and reconsider young people’s initial training in our societies, particularly in Portugal – where it already is actually very good. I’ll say some-thing that might be politically incorrect, especially coming from a Minister of Labour: it is commonly said that we need to reassess initial training considering the needs of the labour market. Yes, if we think of it in a medium-long-term logic. No, if we think of it in a mere short-term logic. If we think of initial youth training – including dual certi�cation – at the light of what the labour market is today, we are setting aside everything that has been discussed today.

I’m not particularly worried with the fact that students coming out of excellent schools, such as Instituto Superior Técnico and others, have some di�culties in integrating labour market and reaching initial high standards of professional performance. Let’s not deceive ourselves: school is school, work life is work life. As much as we want to make a connection, there is always a transition step. In a small country, with an increasingly diversi�ed economy, going through large and fast changes, it is essential to develop high quality initial training, as broad as possible, so to adapt to di�erent sectors.

Unlike other economies, like the German one, for example, where a sig-ni�cant number of young people can say they want to be aerospace industry engineers, in Portugal it will not be so easy to have such an ambition. Much of our initial training should be geared towards high and not overly specialized


Conclusions 83

quali�cation. In my opinion, a broadband training, able to �t the needs of the market, is more advantageous.

�e sixth question that I want to address here, is something I believe to be absolutely vital, and it was something reinforced during this debate: the need to increase the investment in lifelong learning or continuous training. �e example brought by the President of Frezite, shows the importance of this subject which, unfortunately, has not bene�ted from the steadiness or persistence of national investment. �ere have been too many �uctuations and, in the recent past, con-tinuous training was practically non-existing. �is is a dramatic mistake that we must quickly overcome, since it is fundamental for the Portuguese economy and society, that su�ered a degradation of its labour market, who has seen hun-dreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs, independently of the economic sector, many of which in their working years peak and many highly skilled – just look at the banking sector. In Portugal, there are currently 1.5 million workers, women and men in their working age, who are outside of the labour market and are not school age anymore. �ese 1.5 million relate to an active population of �ve million. �is means that we must improve the ratio between the active population who is outside of labour market and the one inside it. And it can only be improved through a strong investment in continuous training and in lifelong learning.

�e seventh question is related to the famous question of �exibilization. It is one of the most controversial and di�cult issues to reach consensus on collec-tive bargaining and social dialogue. I think that we would be making a terrible mistake if we assumed that our economy does not need more �exibility. What economy doesn’t need more �exibility? Any open, small economy, that is inser-ted on a free trade area and a single currency, needs permanent �exibilization. �is is not the same thing as saying that we have to make the labour market �exible. Because that’s the lazy answer, the simple answer, but it’s not the answer that brings value to our companies and our human resources.

A �exibility that enhances our potential is a �exibility that has resulted from negotiation, one that is not based on the freedom to hire and �re. Because it’s not the easiness of hiring and �ring that de�nes the quality of economy’s and labour market’s �exibility. I would even say that, the more �exible the economy is, the more regulation we need. I’m not talking about regulamentation, but regulation. �at is, if we want to make labour market more �exible, we must have more demanding frameworks. I think this is the debate Europe will have soon. We have more diversi�ed, more di�erentiated working relationships, but they cannot coexist with the absence of formalization, as it happens today. In an economy like the Portuguese one, we can’t have zero hour contracts as it happens in some countries, or the predominance of unjusti�ed �xed-term con-tracts.



I say yes to �exibility, but not any �exibility, particularly one which is based on the external dimension of the labour market. Not in the internal dimension of companies, but in its external dimension, which is linked to hiring and �ring.

Of course, we can always say that we have �exicurity as an alternative. Recen-tely, I remembered the debates about �exicurity in 2007, 2008. I remembered about a meeting I attended to in Canada, where the OECD presented �exicurity as its major innovation, an alternative to the model of �exibility. It was hard regarding OECD standards, but it was presented. Flexicurity was wiped out of the map when the �nancial crisis erupted in the USA. Now, we are talking about this concept again, but in the meantime, we only spoke of �exibility. Security? We couldn’t even see it.

Unfortunately, the way the issue was presented and managed during the years of crisis in many countries, may have condemned this concept that, in its essence, has very positive aspects. �erefore, my seventh re�ection is: �exibili-zation yes, but with regulation rather than deregulation, as some argue.

My eighth point of re�ection concerns the issue of social dialogue. I think we will not move forward if, from the point of view of labour market regulation and preparation for the future, we do not combine, in a more intense manner, the bipartite social dialogue with the tripartite social dialogue. In other words, collective bargaining and agreements at national level between employers and unions must have a more imprinted role in our collective life, and we must give a positive answer to the recommendations frequently made by international institutions to decentralize collective bargaining.

I know this is a sort of taboo for trade unions, but they are wrong. To aban-don the idea of increasing the social dialogue inside companies, is wrong from a social point of view and for labour rights. I’m aware that we have a di�erent constitutional model, but nothing prevents the model used in labour relations and collective regulation from incorporating the dimension of decentralization. In fact, our legislation already allows it. It’s just not part of our business practi-ces.

By this, do I mean that decentralized bargaining is better than traditional sectorial negotiations, like the ones used in Portugal? No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that, in sectors which have the capacity or the dimension to do it, it is worth exploring trading models that combine sectorial negotiation with decen-tralized negotiation. In some areas. In others, we can have sectorial regulation. �ere is an enormous �eld for negotiation creativity to help us reach �exibility and security, and to create and defend employment.

A ninth question, which is also a provocation – I’m allowed to do that – is a reference that seems important to me: we will hardly move forward in social dialogue, if we always adjust to the past instead of the future. Unfortunately, and for historic reasons, negotiation – at the top level but also at the base – is


Conclusions 85

made through adjustments to a more recent or more distant past. Even today, there are those who argue that we must make adjustments facing the years of the democratic revolution, which happened 40 years ago, and defend that not doing so is causing the current problems of our labour market. I’m not saying – and I’m emphasizing this – that labour relations expressed in the law do not have to take into consideration the existing social relationships, including the balance of power in doctrinal and ideological matters. �ey must, of course they must. If not, our collective choices will not be worthy. But the adjustment must consider the future. It must be based on these values, but thinking about the future and not only on strategies of resistance or progress regarding the last cycle. When I say last cycle, I am referring to the preceding cycle and not to recent past.

Having said that, it is obvious that we came from a heavy process of dere-gulation and, above all, of individualization of labour negotiations. We need to send some strong signals to contradict this excessive tendency for individua-lization of the industrial relations because today, almost everything is indivi-dually regulated: working hours, overtime work, salary. Almost everything is directly regulated in the direct relationship between employer and employee. �e problem is not just the one referred by the German Secretary of State in his speech, when he said that collective bargaining was more e�ective than indivi-dual bargaining. It’s because the essence of collective bargaining is to put social partners in a more balanced position. Individual relationships are, by de�nition, unbalanced ones. �at is why collective bargaining is more advantageous from a strategic point of view, from a cohesion point of view and from society’s point of view. But we better do it by looking at the challenges of the future, and not by trying to correct historical episodes of insanity or recent changes. Even though some of them really needed to be corrected.

I am convinced that, on this critic dimension of excessive individualization of labour relations in Portugal, the country has two choices: either to do it the best way, through collective bargaining and social dialogue, or the worst way, through legislation.

�e tenth point I want to talk about was already mentioned here, and it would be strange not referring to it: the debate on the future of work in Portugal has to be inserted in the European debate. I won’t be developing this much fur-ther, but Europe has once been our utopia, it has been our destiny... sometimes it seems to be our punishment. �is must be changed and we must help changing it. But we will not get there by standing outside Europe. As far as we can see, our future outside Europe would always be more di�cult. And, among other things, labour regulation would always be much more unfavourable. �erefore, it is good that, being an utopia, continuing to be a big part of our destiny, Europe is not a punishment. We must have the ability to demonstrate to Europe that it cannot appear to the Portuguese people as a kind of punishment.



I am here as Minister of Labour and when a government member speaks, it is usual for him to present a proposal. I’ll present one: I think the German model regarding the creation of a programmatic re�ection on the future of work is a good one, and we should replicate it in Portugal.

I don’t know whether it will be a Green, Blue or White book, but I launch this challenge to all of those interested in having a structured re�exion on the future of work or on the work of society 4.0. �is debate must take place and proposals must arise, aligned with some – not all – of the suggestions brought by Professor Rosário Palma Ramalho, which looked very interesting.

Studying the adaptation of our model of industrial relations to the require-ments set by the changing period we are living in. �is is my last point, and I would like to leave you with this commitment: the proposition to have, as soon as possible, a national structure – that I am sure will, certainly, be supported by social partners – to promote a deep re�ection on the subject and present some proposals regarding the impact of technological revolution and globalization, not only in labour marker relations, but also in what we all aspire to and share – at least in principle – which is the strengthening of dialogue, the strengthening of negotiation, in order to have a more cohesive society, with the ability to pro-ject, with the ability to meet, at least, some of our utopias.

�ank you very much.

To stay faithful to the model of the conference, it was decided to make a verbatim transcript of the impromptu speech given by the Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security.

Documents

Sociedade e Trabalho booklets XIXofuturodotrabalho.mtsss.pt/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ingles.pdfSociedade e Trabalho Booklets, n.º 19, 2017, pp. 1-2 ˚e conference that this publication