At EFF, we believe that tech rights are worker’s rights. Since the pandemic, workers of all kinds have been subjected to increasingly invasive forms of bossware. These are the “algorithmic management” tools that surveil workers on and off the job, often running on devices that (nominally) belong to workers, hijacking our phones and laptops. On the job, digital technology can become both a system of ubiquitous surveillance and a means of total control.
Enter the EU’s Platform Work Directive (PWD). The PWD was finalized in 2024, and every EU member state will have to implement (“transpose”) it by 2026. The PWD contains far-reaching measures to protect workers from abuse, wage theft, and other unfair working conditions.
But the PWD isn’t self-enforcing! Over the decades that EFF has fought for user rights, we’ve proved that having a legal right on paper isn’t the same as having that right in the real world. And workers are rarely positioned to take on their bosses in court or at a regulatory body. To do that, they need advocates.
That’s where unions come in. Unions are well-positioned to defend their members – and all workers (EFF employees are proudly organized under the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers).
The European Trade Union Confederation has just published “Negotiating the Algorithm,” a visionary – but detailed and down-to-earth – manual for unions seeking to leverage the PWD to protect and advance workers’ interests in Europe.
The...
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