Data has the potential to revolutionise our lives – including our working lives. Person-centric services can (and for some people do) empower us and support our individual needs. But individualisation also risks fragmentation, atomisation and disempowerment, especially in working life.
For unions, whose very purpose is to bring workers together to collectively achieve change, this poses major challenges.
Whilst there are new challenges there are also major new opportunities for unions.
Our new report looks at how unions can use data to help win a better deal for workers and to build strong, successful unions, how they can make best use of what they have (and also other sources) and what structures will need to be put in place to do this.
We will also have guest speakers who will lay out some new ideas and practical suggestions for unions going forward.
Our main part of conference will be in person, and it is also possible for colleagues to sign up to our report launch online.
Agenda:
1.00 - Registrations
1.15 - Data and unions report paper.
Welcome address from Mary Bousted, joint GS at NEU.
Paper report from Tom Hunt, Senior Fellow Unions 21, Deputy Director SPERI
2.00 - Report paper case studies in more detail. We will be hearing from Jenny Andrew from CSP, Melantha Chittenden from Community, Linda Kelly from Fórsa and Andrew Pakes from Prospect on their reps training
3.20 - Recovery economy and unions. Building on our Changing World of Work paper, we'll be exploring how the labour market is changing and the place of unions within that. With Jeegar Kakkad, Head of Productivity and Innovation at the TB Institute for Global Change, Stan de Speigelaere, Head of Research at UNI Europa, Martin McIvor, Researcher at Prospect and Unions 21 author, Louise Murphy, economist at Resolution Foundation
4.20 - Recovery economy and unions - the union response. With input from Michael Budolfsen (Danish finance union), Suzanne Tyler (RCM) and Ian Manborde (Equity).
We would like to thank HW Fisher LLP for their support for the final session.
