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

The world of work is undergoing significant and rapid transformations shaped by four concurrent transitions, namely, digital transition, artificial intelligence, green and just transition and transition to formality. In this context, knowledgeable and strong workers’ organisations are not only important but essential!

This Academy emphasised a holistic approach to these four key transitions that are significantly impacting workers and the pursuit of decent work. It was meticulously designed to equip and enhance workers and their organisations with the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to understand the transitions, their interconnectedness to leverage opportunities and synergies, and to actively influence and shape national policies. The Academy also enhanced workers’ competences enabling them to act, adapt, and innovate strategies that promote decent work and just transitions. The Academy was also strategically designed in the context of the general discussion on the transition to formality at the 2025 International Labour Conference, enabling participants to develop innovative strategies for trade unions to organise and support informal workers, whilst promoting and influencing national formalisation strategies at national level. Discussions and strategies anchored on fostering just transitions, worker-centeredness, decent work, and social justice principles at the centre of these four transitions.

OBJECTIVES

The specific objectives of the training were to:

1. Enhance workers’ organisations knowledge capacities to navigate the transitions with reference to the relevant International Labour Standards, and in preparation for the 2025 International Labour Conference (ILC);

2. Review and analyse a decade of trade union initiatives in promoting the formalization of the informal economy and organising workers in the informal economy, emphasising challenges, successes, lessons learnt, and opportunities through shared best practices;

3. Explore and identify the strategic interconnectedness between the transition to formality and concurrent transitions namely: digital, artificial intelligence, and green transition, leveraging on synergies and opportunities, and fostering coherent trade union approaches within trade unions;

4. Equip the trade unions with competencies to effectively act, adapt, innovate, and integrate transition to formality and related transitions in their trade union development strategies, policies, education and training, and collective bargaining strategies; and,

5. Empower trade unions to enhance policy influence in national formalisation processes and policies, ensuring commitment by policymakers to foster inclusive processes, decent work and just transition principles.

PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH

The pedagogical outcomes included:

1. Increased knowledge base and tools for engagement and influence ahead of the 2025 ILC and in national processes;

2. Enhanced skills and competences to articulate the interconnectedness of transitions and develop holistic strategies to address the emerging challenges;

3. Robust and transformative trade union action plans that integrates transition to formality in an integrated policy framework;

4. Increased agency and responsibility to act, adapt, and innovate strategies that promote decent work and just transitions; and,

5. Knowledge sharing of best practices and possible replication targeting all groups of workers.

STRUCTURE AND CONTENT

The course consisted of four (4) weeks of online learning.

MODULE 1: TRANSITION TO FORMALITY

MODULE 2: DIGITAL TRANSITION

MODULE 3: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TRANSITION

MODULE 4: THE GREEN TRANSITION

SKILL AND COMPETENCIES

This four-week online Academy allowed individual learning tracks and group interaction using contemporary digital tools involving virtual classrooms for learning and online collaboration. Participants learnt using the ITCILO digital learning environment, eCampus.

NUMBER OF HOURS: 32