Strengthening social regulation in the digital economy: comparative findings from the ICT industry

ABSTRACT

National economies with different industrial relations and welfare state traditions are experiencing a similar digital transformation. This article examines how labour unions are seeking to influence digital strategies and investments in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, based on initial research findings in the US and Germany. These efforts can be divided into three action fields: campaigns focused on influencing state investment and data protection or AI regulation; efforts to extend legal or negotiated labour market protections to new groups of workers; and collective negotiations over new technologies at firm and workplace levels. All three can be seen as complementary in establishing the conditions for the social regulation of new digitally enabled markets.

KEYWORDS:

• digital transformation
• ICT industry
• labour unions
• artificial intelligence

Acknowledgement

This article is based on a keynote address at the AIRAANZ conference in Sydney, Australia in February 2022. Nell Geiser, Dan Reynolds, and Giovanni Suriano provided helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Case study findings draw on research in progress with Sean O’Brady and Ines Wagner, funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant, a Research Council of Norway Grant (# 295914), and a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Research Award.

Notes on contributors

Virginia Doellgast

Virginia Doellgast is the Anne Evans Estabrook Professor of Employment Relations and Dispute Resolution in the ILR School at Cornell University and a Senior Research Fellow at the WSI-Hans Böckler Stiftung. She is the author of Exit, Voice, and Solidarity (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and Disintegrating Democracy at Work (Cornell University Press, 2012).