The New World of Work: Challenges and Opportunities for Social Partners and Labour Institutions

Actors in the world of work are facing an increasing number of challenges, including automatization and digitalization, new types of jobs and more diverse forms of employment. This timely book examines employer and worker responses, challenges and opportunities for social dialogue, and the role of social partners in the governance of the world of work.

Through interviews and surveys, the volume provides direct evidence on three central questions: how can we cultivate autonomous, bipartite social dialogue in order to meet these critical challenges? How can the social partners strengthen their representativeness and membership, and extend their influence? What role can social partners and social dialogue play regarding digitalization, and what best practices can be identified?

The volume also addresses significant trends such as demographic changes, migration flows, global supply chain management and environmental objectives. It covers the current EU member states while extending analysis to EU candidate and potential candidate countries, thus enlarging coverage to 34 European nations. The detailed evidence by theme and by individual country will provide a unique source of ideas on social actors’ innovative roles in ensuring sustainable and inclusive practices in the future world of work.

This will be an invigorating read for labour economics and labour policy scholars looking for a better understanding of the new world of work. Labour organizations, employers, trade unions and representatives of national and supranational institutions will also benefit from the detailed case studies in the volume.

Edited by Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead, Founder and Chair of the Fair Wage Network and University of Geneva, Switzerland, Youcef Ghellab, Head of the Social Dialogue and Tripartism Unit, Governance and Tripartism Department, International Labour Office, Geneva, Switzerland and Rafael Muñoz de Bustillo Llorente, Professor of Applied Economics, University of Salamanca, Spain