SUMMARY REPORT SHARING THE FUTURE WORKERS AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE 2020S Summary of the final report of the Commission on Workers and Technology The Changing Work Centre was established by the Fabian Society and the trade union Community in February 2016 to explore progressive ideas for the modern world of work. Through in-house and commissioned research and events, the centre is looking at the changing world of work, attitudes towards it and how the left should respond. The centre is chaired by Yvette Cooper MP and supported by an advisory panel of experts and politicians. Community is a modern trade union with over a hundred years’ experience standing up for working people. With roots in traditional industries, Community now represents workers across the UK in various sectors. The Fabian Society is an independent left-leaning think tank and a democratic membership society with 8,000 members. A Community and Fabian Society report This report represents not the collective Community general views of Community and the Fabian secretary: Roy Rickhuss Society, but only the views of the individual Fabian Society general commissioners and authors. The responsibility secretary: Andrew Harrop of the publishers is limited to approving its publications as worthy of consideration within the labour movement. First published in December 2020 Cover image © Johavel vector/Shutterstock. 2 / Summary report The Commission on Workers and Technology CONTENTS was established in August 2018 by Community and the Fabian Society. It was chaired by Rt Hon 4 Introduction Yvette Cooper MP who led the commission’s work across its life. The other commissioners were Hasan 7 Chapter one: Bakhshi, Sue Ferns, Paul Nowak, Katie O’Donovan, The Covid-19 crisis Roy Rickhuss and Professor Margaret Stevens. The commission’s aim has been to take a ‘worker’s 9 Chapter two: eye view’ of technology change in the workplace, and A fair share in the rewards especially the automation of existing job tasks. It has looked in granular detail at case-study occupations 12 Chapter three: and sectors to draw conclusions on what needs The support to adapt to happen to make new workplace technologies an opportunity not a threat for typical workers. 14 Chapter four: The commission was hosted by the Changing Work Better jobs Centre, a joint initiative by Community and the Fabian Society. Community generously provided financial 16 Chapter five: support for the commission as well as invaluable Making workers’ voices heard access to workplaces and workers; the Fabian Society provided the core research and secretariat capacity, 18 The commissioners in the shape of Josh Abey and Olivia Bailey (until February 2020). Colleagues from both 29 Endnotes organisations made up the wider project team. The lead authors of this report were Josh Abey and Andrew Harrop. They were extensively supported by co-authors Natasha Collett, Lauren Crowley, Alastair Holder Ross, Anna Mowbray and Luke Raikes. The full version of the report is available at www.fabians.org.uk. Technology is already fast changing the world of work – creating remarkable new opportunities but also serious dangers of widening inequality and injustice unless we act. The Covid-19 crisis makes those dangers much more acute. Government, employers and unions cannot stand back and watch while inequality grows. We need urgent action now to make sure all workers benefit and that we use technology to rebuild a fairer, stronger, greener economy instead. That is what this report is all about. Yvette Cooper MP, chair of the Commission on Workers and Technology 3 / Summary report Introduction Covid-19 and the future of work technology in order to survive. Technology is Some people have seen unexpected im- These are extraordinary times. Covid-19 has saving and changing jobs that would other- provements in the way they work this year. taken loved ones, upended lives and will wise have been destroyed by Covid-19, and But those on low incomes have both been have an enduring impact on our future in we are seeing its huge potential to improve most likely to lose out in the short term and ways we cannot yet foresee. The economic work and boost productivity for the future. are at greater risk from the long-term con- shockwaves are hitting communities across But at the same time, the Covid-19 crisis is sequences of the crisis. Unless we act, work- the country and will continue to do so for dramatically accelerating the pace of job dis- place inequality stands to widen because of years to come. ruption and dislocation, something that had both Covid-19 and accelerating automation. Even when the public health crisis has previously been happening at a much slower All of this makes it far more urgent to passed, after so much dislocation the world speed. Jobs in some sectors – like high street address the work and technology issues of work will not just snap back to how it was retail or hospitality – face a ‘double whammy’ our commission has been considering for before. Instead, we are probably entering from Covid-19 and accelerating technology the past two years. We already had choices a decade of unsettling economic transition. change: we found that 61 per cent of jobs to face as a nation, over how to shape the Just like the many structural changes the furloughed in the first half of 2020 were in impact of technology on work for better or UK has experienced over the course of our sectors at high risk of automation.1 worse. But with Covid-19 these challenges industrial history, this one is likely to bring have become immediate and pressing. new opportunities but also to be most pain- 61 per cent of jobs ful for the people and the places that can A crossroads for jobs least afford it. furloughed in the first half The future of work could go in two direc- Technology will be at the forefront of tions after the Covid-19 crisis. whatever transition comes in the months of 2020 were in sectors at In one possible future, jobs get worse as and years ahead. For two centuries tech- technology gets better. Millions of people nology change has been reshaping how we high risk of automation face greater insecurity, harder work, more work; building up and tearing down differ- surveillance, and worse pay and condi- ent industries and sources of employment Many of the jobs put on hold by public tions. They are shut out of decisions without across our villages, towns and cities. And at health measures will not come back even rights or representation and are denied the times of crisis, technology-driven change when better times return. Spending patterns training to adapt to new jobs and prepare can be at its fastest. are shifting permanently towards digitally for the future. In this world, only a minor- During 2020 digital technologies have based consumption, and to cope with new ity of workers share in the new wealth and enabled transformations in the way we conditions businesses are adopting technol- opportunities that technologies create, and work that have been unprecedented in their ogies that frequently replace human tasks, people who lack the skills needed in future speed and scope, with employers of every even if they also have the potential to create jobs are shut out. The scars from a painful shape and size innovating and investing in new or better jobs. Covid-19 recession run deep – and those 4 / Summary report who lose their jobs struggle to find good to respond to the crisis by driving positive ers are drawn from experts, businesses and new work. Inequalities with respect to earn- change. The way we have had to react dur- trade unions, and the focus of our work has ings, working conditions and control get ing 2020 shows us how fast we can change been on reserved UK policy (although there wider, and the people and places with least and how radical we can be when it is need- are also lessons in our findings and propos- are hardest hit. In our work as a commis- ed. Building back better means using this as als for decision makers in Northern Ireland, sion, we have already glimpsed this dismal a moment to reset the economy: a chance Scotland and Wales). future in parts of the labour market today. to force the pace on ambitious new agen- We examined how technology is chang- But there is a second, more optimistic fu- das from decarbonisation to strengthening ing everyday jobs now and in the next few ture too. Technology change can be a huge our public services, from a skills revolution years, hearing from hundreds of people force for good. We need it to solve Covid-19, to reducing inequality and improving all our in different jobs in different sectors of the support our ageing population, make our working lives. economy across the country. Other reports economies more productive, fund and im- This is a moment where politicians, have looked at the future of work over prove our public services, and deal with the workers and business leaders can shape the a much longer time frame. This report is fo- crisis of climate change. We can use tech- future together. But it needs active leader- cused on jobs and the labour market in the nological innovation to make our country ship. In previous eras of major technologi- short and medium term, and we have delib- fairer, stronger, cleaner and greener. We cal and economic change it took decades erately taken a workers’ eye view. have seen that in the way smartphone apps, for new legislation and new institutions to During our work, we sought answers to video conferencing, cloud computing and emerge to tackle injustice and to make sure a series of big questions: responsive algorithms have helped millions the rewards were fairly shared.