Global Workers’ Academy on Addressing Transitions: Trade Union Responses and Strategies

The world of work is undergoing significant transformations due to concurrent transitions, including digital transition, artificial intelligence, green and just transition and transition for formality. These transitions are transforming jobs, skills sets, work organisation and employment relations with profound direct and indirect implications on workers, decent work and trade unions operations. While trade unions have traditionally addressed these transitions separately, it is evident that they share common risks, challenges and, opportunities for workers. In response, trade unions are transforming, leveraging opportunities albeit mounting challenges. It is in this context that the Global Academy was designed and tailor-made to build knowledgeable, strong and responsive trade unions able to adapt, navigate, anticipate, and innovate, ensuring they remain relevant and effective in supporting their members amidst these transitions. The Academy also aimed at strengthening trade unions’ capacity to holistically and effectively influence and shape national polices and responses across these transitions, placing the needs and concerns of workers as a priority. Discussions and strategies focused on ensuring just transitions, worker-centeredness and, decent work and social justice principles at the centre of these four transitions. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES The specific objectives of the training activity were to: i. Increase trade unions’ knowledge capacities for action on each of the four transitions (digital, artificial intelligence, green and informal to formal economy transitions), with particular attention to the definitions and key (new) features of the transitions; interconnectedness of the four transitions and the common and emerging challenges and risks cutting across them; and, implications for future of work, workers, decent work and trade union transformation; ii. Enhance trade unions’ and workers’ agency and responsibility to act, adapt and innovate and to integrate all these transitions in their trade union development strategies, policies, and, collective bargaining; iii. Capacitate the trade unions with tools to take advantage of opportunities, shape and cope with the all the four transitions; iv. Empower trade unions to increase their agility, workers’ voices, and, effectively engage with and influence the policy makers regarding these four transitions; and, v. Learn and share good practices to navigate these transitions successfully and possible replications. CONTENT The course covered the following modules: Module 1: Digital Transition | Module 2: Artificial Intelligence | Module 3: Green and just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all | Module 4: Transition from Informality to Formality. Learners spent an average of 40 learning hours to complete the course. ECAMPUS The online phase of the course was delivered via the eCampus. The eCampus is the education platform of the International Training Centre of the ILO. It was used to distribute course information, training material, learning tasks, exchanges of good practices and experiences, feedback and multimedia content. NUMBER OF HOURS: 32