The informal meeting of the Member States’ Employment and Social Affairs Ministers, which took place on Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 April in Warsaw, was an opportunity for them to “exchange experience and best practice” in terms of integration into the labour market and reconciling work and family life, but also to identify the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, particularly in terms of respect for workers’ rights, working hours and the role to be played by social dialogue, summarised the Polish Minister for the Family, Labour and Social Policy, Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, on Tuesday.
The digital revolution and the world of work. The Ministers were invited to three working sessions. The first, on digital change and algorithms in the world of work, focused on the tools that the EU could acquire. The Vice-President of the Commission responsible for Employment and Social Rights, Roxana Mînzatu, has reportedly been talking about overhauling existing legislation with a view to a possible legislative proposal on the use of AI in the workplace.
According to sources, this approach was supported by a number of countries, but a larger number of delegations felt that any proposal was somewhat premature or unnecessary at this stage. The tone of the discussion would in fact have focused in part on the need to avoid an unnecessary burden on businesses.
The need for social dialogue and collective bargaining to play an important role in managing the use of AI in the workplace and developing new rules and practices was also raised. The potential benefits of AI were also mentioned; for example, to accurately monitor working hours and give workers greater control over their time, as well as improving productivity and competitiveness in the EU. On the other hand, extreme surveillance of workers and a lack of transparency in the use of AI to manage workers were singled out as potential risks, with the Ministers also reiterating the importance of a human-centred approach.
“They also discussed the need to adapt EU legislation - including the Directive on platform work and legislation on AI - to guarantee workers’ right to information and consultation”, summarised the Polish Presidency in a communication.
In a preparatory note, the Polish Presidency stated that “productivity growth is more likely when humans and AI complement each other, rather than when automation is pursued at all costs”.
The Presidency also considered that there was an urgent need to strengthen the capacity of the social partners, in particular workers and their representatives, to deal effectively with the impacts of digitalisation in the workplace. The scope of support should be defined in consultation with the social partners. “On the one hand, the adoption of AI technologies can create power imbalances between workers and employers, for example due to a lack of AI expertise and information asymmetries regarding workplace data. This could compromise the representativeness of the traditional players in social dialogue”.
Active integration policies. At the session devoted to active integration policies in EU countries and how to ensure the full integration of non-European migrants into European society, Member States focused on the benefits of migration in addressing labour and skills shortages in times of demographic change, as well as on ways to ensure integration, for example, through language training or further education and employment programmes for migrants already in the EU.
According to sources, there was also talk of ways of allaying the concerns of the local population, for example with regard to the risks of social dumping.
Equality in the labour market. In terms of equality in the labour market, the emphasis would have been on reducing and sharing the burden of care, whether for children or elderly or disabled relatives.
The contributions from the Member States would have highlighted the measures that exist in their countries to encourage men to take on a greater share of tasks and other care, through paternity leave, or free/affordable childcare from an early age.
The discussion highlighted the need to invest more in public infrastructure and care services and to strengthen formal care services for the elderly by making these jobs more attractive, but also by encouraging immigration to fill labour shortages. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)