ICT Strategic study. Recommendations – DRAFT v.2.1
Laurent ZIBELL, 08-Feb-2016
ICT Strategic study. Recommendations – DRAFT v.2.1
Executive Summary
The ICT Strategic study by industriAll European trade union leads to recommendations for:

public policy, in the fields of industrial policy and of social policy

action to be performed directly by trade unions, to support these public policies, but also to
address concerns that are specific to trade unions.
Industrial policy recommendations rely upon the SWOT analysis performed during the study. They
are structured around the idea to leverage the opportunity brought by the Internet of Things in a
limited number of "locomotive" application markets, whose demand has a capacity to pull the
whole ICT sector. The “locomotive” application markets should be chosen by a broad debate
between stakeholders in industry, among those where European industry is already strong.
In order to support the development of such an integrated industrial approach, we recommend:

investment in industrial digital platforms, to perform the technical integration of the whole
value chain that converges towards the “locomotive” application market

the definition of standards, so that full interoperability is achieved between all components,

the promotion of innovation

fair rules for the right to use data and software

fair international competition for taxes, and for social and environmental rules.
These recommendations all aim at assuring a fair distribution of the value added between all parties,
for the sake of social fairness itself, and also to facilitate cooperation – and thus overall efficiency.
The effect of these recommendations on employment in the European ICT sector has been
evaluated in this study. It is expected that they would generate an additional ## (to be completed by
Syndex and WMP) more jobs in the year 2022.
Social policy recommendations aim at anticipating and preventing the social disruptions in industry
caused by digital technologies. They aim at a just transition for all workers in the ICT sector and in
the sectors impacted by the digital transformation.
Actions by trade unions that we recommend aim at lobbying to support the public policies outlined
above, but also at conquering new rights in terms of Information & Consultation, and of social
rights in the digitally-transformed work place. We also recommend that trade unions adapt their
internal practice to the digital environment.
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ICT Strategic study. Recommendations – DRAFT v.2.1
Laurent ZIBELL, 08-Feb-2016
Contents
Executive Summary................................................................................................................................. 1
Contents .................................................................................................................................................. 2
Recommendations for public policy ....................................................................................................... 4
Rationale for the proposed industrial policy recommendations: the SWOT analysis ........................ 4
Leverage the opportunity of the Internet of Things in a limited number of "locomotive" application
markets: an integrated industrial strategy ......................................................................................... 5
Public policy tools to be mobilised to support this integrated industrial strategy ............................. 7
Public-private investment in industrial digital platforms ............................................................... 7
Specific recommendations for industrial policy in selected sub-domains of the European ICT
sector .............................................................................................................................................. 8
Telecommunications infrastructure equipment – make spectrum available to support the
deployment of 5G ...................................................................................................................... 8
Standards ........................................................................................................................................ 9
Interoperable communication standards .................................................................................. 9
Ensure end-to-end interoperability: standards for addresses and semantics ........................ 10
Standards for the security and confidentiality of data............................................................ 11
Ensuring the fast development of standards .......................................................................... 12
Promote innovative start-ups ....................................................................................................... 12
Support technology developments with innovative public procurement along the Darpa
model ....................................................................................................................................... 13
Structural support for seed capital funds ................................................................................ 13
A patient, professional, tightly regulated, Europe-wide stock market to finance high-growth
innovative firms ....................................................................................................................... 13
Ensure fairness to support cooperation and innovation in the digital economy ......................... 14
Regulating the rights attached to data .................................................................................... 14
Regulating the Intellectual Property Rights attached to software .......................................... 15
Fair competition: no to fiscal or social dumping........................................................................... 16
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ICT Strategic study. Recommendations – DRAFT v.2.1
Laurent ZIBELL, 08-Feb-2016
Fair competition within the European Union .......................................................................... 16
Fair competition between the European Union and third countries ...................................... 17
The proposed social policy recommendations should anticipate and prevent the social disruptions
in industry caused by digital technologies: for a just transition ....................................................... 17
Skills policy .................................................................................................................................... 18
Liability and Health & Safety rules ................................................................................................ 19
What can be expected from the implementation of these recommendations? A first quantitative
assessment for the year 2022 ........................................................................................................... 20
Trade union action ................................................................................................................................ 20
Lobby public authorities to support the adoption of industrial and social policies ......................... 20
Adapt trade union recruitment strategy and tools to the digitally-transformed work place .......... 21
Organise the workers in the digitally-transformed work place .................................................... 21
International digital coordination platforms for trade unions and workers ................................ 21
More Information & Consultation rights, specifically for European Works Councils (EWCs) .......... 22
A dedicated space for workers' representatives and trade unions in corporate Intranets.......... 22
Right for Works Councils to access custom-made indicators from the corporate management
data repository (ERP) .................................................................................................................... 23
Extend Information & Consultation rights to innovation ............................................................. 23
Social rights for the digital workplace............................................................................................... 23
Fight for the principle “equal work = equal pay, equal benefits, equal working conditions” ...... 23
Protect worker-related data with a specific regime ..................................................................... 24
Right to disconnect from the digital work environment .............................................................. 25
Right to privacy at work ................................................................................................................ 25
e-Inclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 26
Reflect on working time ................................................................................................................ 26
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Recommendations for public policy
Trade unions should target industrial and social policies. The recommendations for industrial policy
are essentially grounded on the strategic analysis performed in the Phases 1 and 2 of the project, by
the consultants team. The recommendations for social policy emerged from the workshop organised
during the Phase 3 of the study, in which trade union representatives discussed the results of the
study.
The purpose of industrial policies should be to increase the number and the quality of industrial
jobs, in the European ICT sector itself. It is also to increase the number and quality of jobs in all
industrial sectors which include electronics and software in their offering (e.g. in the metalworking
sector – mechanical and electrical engineering, automotive, aeronautics, rail equipment, healthcare
instruments, domestic appliances – but also in the textile & clothing sector). Indeed, the competitive
position of these sectors on the market, and thus their capacity to generate value added to be
shared with workers, increasingly depends upon the features and functionalities brought to their
offering by embedded electronics and software.
The purpose of social policies should be to ensure a fair transition for workers impacted by the
digitalisation of industry, and to improve working conditions.
Rationale for the proposed industrial policy recommendations: the SWOT analysis
The industrial policies should rely on those main strengths that have been identified in the study:

tightly integrated industrial value chains in some sectors

good infrastructure

a highly skilled work force and world-level education & training facilities

leadership in industrial automation and electric power management, in telecommunications
equipment and in end-to-end security (specifically: smart cards).
They should also leverage some key opportunities that were detected, and whose effects will persist
over time:

the emergence of the Internet of Things

the digitalization of manufacturing operations (design, production, maintenance)

the transition to an environmentally sustainable economy and society: renewable energy
sources, energy-efficient transport systems, circular economy for materials

the ageing of the population.
Finally, they should prevent the further development of some negative trends that have already
been identified in the digital economy, and that threaten the very cohesiveness of European
societies:
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
the ever-greater out-sourcing of work to third countries, which leaves Europe with
diminished productive capacity

the concentration of power and wealth in a limited number of (corporate or personal)
hands, due to “winner takes all” models, which appear in the digital economy for the
following reasons:

o
The marginal cost for reproducing the additional digital element of content or software
is around zero. We are in a “fixed cost” economy, aka “zero marginal cost” economy.
The price ensuring the sustainability of the business model is thus equal to the fixed
costs divided by the number of customers – which gives a structural advantage to the
biggest player in the market
o
The value of belonging to a network is a strongly growing function of the number of
existing members of this network. This “network effect” gives a premium to the
standard that is most widely used – whatever its intrinsic quality – and locks whole
markets in low-quality options, while giving a huge profit to the owner of this winning
standard.
the massive surveillance of citizens and workers.
Leverage the opportunity of the Internet of Things in a limited number of
"locomotive" application markets: an integrated industrial strategy
We recommend that European industrial players and public authorities seize the opportunities
offered by the emergence of the Internet of Things. They should work together to define a limited
number of "locomotive" industrial sectors, which would constitute reliable and large-scale
application markets for the European ICT sector (as understood in this study, i.e. for the design and
manufacture of semiconductors, electronic equipment and software).
These “locomotive” application sectors would thus set-up a coherent and integrated industrial
offering, combining their own, specific value added with that of dedicated electronics and software,
in an integrated industrial strategy.
The definition of this integrated industrial strategy should include:

the limited number of "locomotive" application markets for the Internet of Things where
European industry wishes to establish its leadership. These markets should be of high
volume, and should enhance the continuity and consistency of the European Union’s
industrial supply chains. They would then pull the European ICT sector, and achieve an
integrated and high-performance value chain from the semiconductor to the full system

a massive public-private investment to implement it, in the form of an industrial digital
platform, with clear mutual commitments (and sanctions in case of non-compliance)
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
the areas in these "locomotive" application market(s) where new standards need to be
established, and a timetable for their establishment and their application – this application
being mandatory

an open and transparent discussion on the principles guiding the distribution, throughout
the supply chain and between EU Member States, of the added value and of the
employment thus created, for the sake of fairness, of the preservation of investment and
innovation capacities at every point in the supply chain and of territorial balance

a coherent regulatory framework to support it.
By generating high, predictable and profitable volumes, this strategy could warrant the construction,
within Europe, of advanced factories for high-volume production of digital semiconductors, but also
of plants designing and manufacturing electronic equipment. It would enable European industry to
win back its strategic control on the supply of electronics and software, and thus on a key source of
its non-cost competitiveness and of its (quality- and functionality-based) differentiation on industrial
markets.
The "locomotive" application market(s) should be chosen among the following:

electric power networks, with the prospect of a deep penetration of renewable sources in
the energy mix, and thus the smart management of decentralised supply, of load shifting
and of storage systems, aka “smart grids”,

multi-modal hybrid transport systems for passenger and freight traffic, connecting cars,
buses, trains, trams, “soft” transport means, in urban and inter-urban settings

digitally-integrated industrial processes (which include design, production, sales, distribution
and maintenance), aka “Industry 4.0”

the Circular Economy, with full traceability of items (“product passports”), and industrialised
testing, maintenance, upgrade, dismantling and recycling

healthcare monitoring networks

home appliance networks.
Whatever the "locomotive" application market chosen, the industrial digital platform being
developed should bear a high level of:

openness and interoperability, with Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND)
economic & legal conditions to use the technology

end-to-end security of data (specifically using smart card technologies), in order to make
sure that only those persons and organisations that are legitimate can access, modify or
erase the data

confidentiality of personal data, but also of worker-related data (e.g. related to his/her
performance or behaviour).
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The definition of this strategy would bring together a very broad range of industrial and societal
stakeholders, including firms, trade unions and public authorities1. This variety in stakeholders opens
the way for a fair distribution of the value added by this strategy.
Public policy tools to be mobilised to support this integrated industrial strategy
We recommend to mobilise the following public policy tools to implement the integrated industrial
strategy outlined above:

public-private investment in industrial digital platforms, including in the manufacture of
electronic components and systems

standards, using the capacity for the Commission to mandate the use of standards for the
sake of the Internal Market

promote the development of start-ups, and their subsequent scale up

ensure fairness to promote cooperation and innovation in the digital economy, specifically
regarding the rights attached to data and to software

ensure a fair competition with third countries, with neither social nor fiscal dumping.
Public-private investment in industrial digital platforms
Industrial digital platforms are the technical infrastructure where the communication flows
between all the elements of an industrial value chain are to be digitally integrated, tested and
validated in real-life settings:
1
Stakeholders to be included in the discussion could include:
 designers of tools for the development of logic and analogue circuits, as well as of MEMS (if
consistent with the application market chosen), potentially as Free, Libre and Open Source (FLOS)
software
 designers of IP (intellectual property) blocks integrated into semiconductors, potentially also under a
FLOS legal regime
 bodies involved in conducting technological research into semiconductors, i.e. the suppliers of design
and manufacturing technologies
 designers of complete semiconductors, i.e. the integrators of externally-sourced and of internallysourced IP blocks
 manufacturers of semiconductors, whether integrated or externalised in foundries
 manufacturers of connectors and of packages
 designers of electronic equipment, including those of smart card systems, i.e. the integrators of
semiconductors and of passive components
 developers of on-board software in such equipment or cards, potentially as FLOS software
 industrial players in the application market(s) chosen, which integrate such equipment, electronic
modules, smart cards and software in their commercial offering
 public authorities in the Regions and Member States concerned, as well as at EU level, which would
then play their full role by coordinating the efforts and facilitating industrial development, when the
markets fail to do so
 the trade unions in the companies and sectors concerned, at national and European levels.
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
from the design to production to sales to customer care and maintenance, within each
company

from the component manufacturer to the equipment manufacturer to the systems
integrator, between companies.
Designing and operating these industrial digital platforms is a huge challenge. It is one of the pillars
of the current policy project of the European Commission, DG Connect, on “Digitalising European
industry”. We support this ambition, and recommend that significant public and private investment
be dedicated to their development.
We also recommend that these platforms should be developed, operated and run by open
consortia, which apply Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) economic and legal
conditions to third parties to use the platform, and also to join the consortium. Thereby, the
economic benefits of the platform are fairly shared within society and European industry, with no
"winner takes all" situation.
In order to secure the provision from within Europe of the components essential to the development
of these industrial digital platforms, we support the objective that the European Union should
double the value of electronic components and systems being produced in Europe by 2025, by
implementing the European Strategic Roadmap on Electronic Components & Systems published by
the Commission, DG Connect, in June 2014, as part of its strategy on Key Enabling Technologies
(KETs). This Roadmap includes both massive investment in supply (full factories) and in the demand
of innovative socio-technical systems (in the form of geographically dedicated "reference zones" for
their digital integration and testing). However, despite much public relations around this Strategic
Roadmap, the industry has so far failed to deliver to its promise. We consider this as particularly
worrying, and call all players in the European semiconductor industry to raise its deeds to its
proclaimed ambitions.
Specific recommendations for industrial policy in selected sub-domains of the European
ICT sector
## TO BE COMPLETED BY SYNDEX AND WMP
Telecommunications infrastructure equipment – make spectrum available to support the
deployment of 5G
The key challenge for the years 2020 – 2025 will be the deployment of the 5th Generation of mobile
communications (5G). Public authorities have an essential role to play, in order to enable the fast
and efficient roll-out of the technology throughout Europe: make the necessary spectrum available.
Indeed, it is only if a uniform range of radio frequencies is made available for 5G across the whole
European Union, within a tight and ambitious calendar, that operators will have the incentive to
invest in the deployment of the technology, being sure that handsets will be usable whatever the
Member State and whatever the infrastructure equipment installed.
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Standards
The Intellectual Property Rights regime of the standards for industrial digital platforms has a
determinant impact on employment in European manufacturing, and on the quality of this
employment. Indeed, according to who owns the Intellectual Property in these standards, the value
added derived from using them will flow in one direction or the other, to one side or the other of the
Atlantic.
It is thus vital for European industry workers that these standards be non-proprietary, and that the
economic & legal conditions for using these standards be Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory
(FRAND). It is only then that the value added being created by these standards will be fairly shared
among all industry players, and among all industrial workers in Europe.
The definition of such FRAND economic & legal conditions remains an open issue2. Considering the
economic importance of such a definition, and the power that Intellectual Property Rights have in
channelling value from one company (or continent) to the next, we consider that it is a priority for
the Commission to work on this definition and clarification of FRAND economic & legal conditions.
This issue is so important that it should not be driven by industry and market forces alone.
According to the Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI), there are more than 40 different
and competing standardisation initiatives in the field of industrial platforms. We have no time to
waste in waiting for the battle to be settled, nor can we take the risk that the winner be a
proprietary monopolistic or duopolistic solution (specifically if it is US-based).
The European institutions have a determinant role to play here, to solve the market failure known as
the "coordination problem" between market players. It is by providing a clear signal regarding the
date at which the standard should be available, its main functional features, its interoperability
requirements, and its Intellectual Property regime that the Commission can, and should, provide a
determinant competitive advantage to European industry.
Interoperable communication standards
In our views, the standard for the communication protocol and the data formats for the industrial
digital platforms of strategic importance must exist and be open.
Under such an open standard regime, any firm or stakeholder active in the European industrial
sector has the possibility to contribute to the standard, and is freely able to use the standard, and to
integrate its machine or equipment into the network provided by other suppliers, so as to build a
complete integrated system – and yet preserves sufficient margin to invest, innovate and provide
quality jobs to its workers. The standard must thus be a common infrastructure (and a common
good) for the whole European industrial sector, for all to use (manufacturers of equipment,
2
The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission is currently working on such a definition. Cf. Yann
Ménière, “Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) Licensing Terms – Research Analysis of a
controversial concept”, JRC, upcoming.
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integrators, users and maintenance operators). If possible, the standard should even be based on
Free, Libre and Open Source (FLOS) principles.
In order to achieve this goal, we demand that the European Commission mandate the European
Standardisation Organisations (ESOs) to develop such an open communication protocol and data
format for the application field of the “Internet of Things” chosen for the integrated industrial policy,
for a given date (e.g. 2020). This mandate is justified because it contributes to the Single Market for
industrial products3. The very existence of this open standard would significantly enhance the
competitive position of European industry, in the ICT sector and in the various industrial sectors
involved. A further policy step could be that its application be made compulsory in the European
Union4.
This standard must ensure full interoperability between machines and devices from different
vendors, which implies a very high level of detail and of quality in the standard: the meaning of each
bit must be explicit and unambiguous (or explicitly left for proprietary developments)
In order for the participants from the application sector to be able to contribute actively in the
standardisation process of telecommunication protocols with which they are not familiar, a specific
training may be necessary. This training for telecommunications novices should be included in the
mandate given to the ESOs, and the costs for this should be shared with (or even borne by) industry
associations of the application sector.
Mandating this single, potentially mandatory, standard for the networking of manufacturing
equipment will send a strong political signal to industry. This political signal will not only support the
interests of European workers in the European ICT sector. It will have the additional collective
benefit of speeding up the uptake of digital integration of industrial value chains, by lifting the
hesitation and uncertainties of the market confronted with competing technical solutions5.
Ensure end-to-end interoperability: standards for addresses and semantics
Corporate networks that originally were disconnected from one another (e.g. in the design,
manufacturing and accountancy / management processes of the same company, and the networks
of different companies) tend now to connect with one another to build a single, giant network
connecting whole value chains, in a percolation phenomenon. This evolution, which tends to be very
brutal (it is a threshold-based phenomenon), would deserve standardising the components of end-
3
See the Opinion of the European Economic & Social Committee of 4th June 2014 n°INT/731
on Industrial Products, which advocates that standards are tools of industrial policy, beyond safety
and environmental issues.
4
under Art. 17 of the Telecoms Framework Directive of 2002.
5
This is a frequent situation in the case of competing standards: classical examples include
the war of video formats in the 1970s (VHS / Betamax / V2000), cordless telephony in the 1990s
(DECT / CT2), etc.
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to-end communication in these upcoming networks that emerge at the scale of whole industrial
value chains. This means standardising the addressing space and the semantics of the message.
The Internet of Things needs billions of addresses, one for each of the objects to be connected to the
network. Current estimates range these needs at 25 to 50 billion in 2020 – 2025. The current
addressing protocol, IP v.4, only provides 4.3 billion addresses. This is not enough.
The next version of the Internet Protocol is IPv6. It provides an address space that is vastly sufficient
to meet current and future needs.
The EU should mandate that all network equipment in Europe must be compatible with IPv6
protocol (or with an updated version of this protocol) by a given deadline (e.g. 2022). This initiative
should be open to any other interested party in third countries. Thereby, the Commission, as the
Europe-wide public authority, would play a key coordinating role, as the Member States did for the
transition from analogue to digital terrestrial television. This disruption of the market would also
open a strategic window of opportunity for European network equipment manufacturers to
increase their market share in routers, a key infrastructure element of which they have been very
absent.
The same rationale would apply for the application of a common semantics taxonomy, aka
“ontology”, in order to enable end-to-end automated interpretation of the meaning of data. It is
indeed only when each computing machine in the system can interpret the meaning of a given
element of data that it can process it automatically. E.g. “Price VAT included” must be understood
along the whole value chain, and be designated with the same code, to be understood by all
computers. This ontology would benefit from being specific to a given vertical value chain, as already
being illustrated in the automotive industry with the Odette standard for the exchange along the
European car manufacturing industry value chain. It could also re-use the legacy work of the United
Nations Edifact.
Standards for the security and confidentiality of data
We recommend the development of a compulsory standard, defined in functional terms, ensuring
the security and confidentiality of the transmission, storage and processing of online data (including
in the “cloud” and in corporate networks), and thereby the preservation of fundamental rights to
privacy and confidentiality. This standard should be implemented in software, in microelectronic
components and in complete systems.
The establishment of a demanding, rigorous standard for data security and confidentiality in
Europe would have a doubly positive outcome:
1. it would leverage the current European stronghold in smart cards and biometrics, so that
developments in these fields would benefit EU industrial players
2. it would support specific European values.
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Ensuring the fast development of standards
In the strategic debate about industrial digital platforms, and their use to support European industry,
a leitmotiv is:
1. we need open, interoperable standards to ensure end-to-end communications and
interactions along the value chain
2. we need these standards fast.
This is absolutely strategic if Europe wants to have its fair share of the benefits of the Internet of
Things.
In order to do so, one first option could be that the Commission should support the activities of an
Open Source community to develop the protocol stacks (i.e. the software that performs the
communication) and the application software exploiting the data formats, in parallel to the
definition of the standard (the legally binding text of which can remain proprietary under FRAND
conditions for access, although a Free, Libre and Open Source regime would also be highly
legitimate). This development would be part of the mission of the “Future Internet” PPP or of a
sequel programme. Thus, the open standard and the underlying software would be simultaneously
available at the end of the process, in an agile and parallel engineering process. The participation of
this Open Source community in the standardisation process should also be financially supported by
the Commission.
Another, bolder procedure could also achieve this challenging, and apparently contradictory,
objective. The Commission could:
1. ask the industry users (and only them) to agree on a specification of technical requirements
2. issue a call for tender to deliver a fully interoperable standard for communication and
interaction along industrial value chains (and an open-source software reference design),
under the following conditions:
a) the competition is open to all suppliers, large or small, firms or consortia or
standardisation bodies, in Europe or elsewhere
b) the winner is awarded a (very significant) prize
c) the winner transmits the full ownership of all Intellectual Property Rights
incorporated in the standard and in the reference design (or a world-wide,
permanent licence with a right to sub-licence) to the European Commission
3. mandate the use of this standard for all companies operating in Europe, based on the
Telecommunications Framework Directive, and for the sake of achieving a key public policy
objective (which appears to be very much the case).
Promote innovative start-ups
The entrepreneurial innovation model, based on venture capital financing of start-ups, is currently
the almost exclusive focus of European policies aiming at supporting innovation. Despite this longInternational Trade Union House (ITUH) - Boulevard du Roi Albert II 5 (bte 10) - B-1210 Brussels
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standing attention, two significant gaps in financing persist: at the seed stage, and much later, when
the company becomes international.
Support technology developments with innovative public procurement along the Darpa
model
The DARPA model through tender and contracts with the most advanced technology firms should be
used to leverage and promote new programs so as to place Europe at the forefront in many fields,
and specifically to set-up pilots of digital platforms.
## TO BE COMPLETED BY SYNDEX
Structural support for seed capital funds
Within the venture capital financing chain, the seed capital stage is widely recognised as the critical
"valley of death" in the development of innovative firms. This stage lies between the availability of
the firm's business plan and the production of the first commercially viable prototype. The
profitability of seed capital investment firms – and their long-term survival – is hampered by high
structural costs.
Seed capital funds generate high structural costs because the people working in such institutions
should be numerous and highly competent, and therefore expensive. Numerous, because they need
to examine, select and later manage a large number of applicants for their funding. Competent,
because they must take investment decisions based on highly incomplete technical and market data,
with no industrial, commercial nor financial track record to comfort them.
We recommend that public structural support be allocated selectively to investment firms active at
the seed capital stage, in order to create a sustainable economic model for seed capital fund
management teams.
A patient, professional, tightly regulated, Europe-wide stock market to finance highgrowth innovative firms
In order to scale up their operations beyond what European venture capitalists provide (a few tens
of millions €), innovative firms need to find additional sources of financing; e.g. to fully industrialise a
manufacturing process, or to set up global sales networks. In the United States, such high volume
financing is provided by the Nasdaq. In Europe, such a market does not exist, despite repeated
attempts (Easdaq, Nouveau Marché, Neuer Markt, Alternext6, Alternative Investment Market7). The
reason why all European attempts to create stock markets for high-growth companies failed is, in
our views, due to a flawed strategic option of low (or even zero-) regulation favouring casino-like
greed and leading to investors losing confidence.
6
Market capitalisation of only € 8.235 bio. in December 2013, with only 184 listed companies.
According to its Factsheet of 2010, the London-based Alternative Investment Market (AIM) listed a total of
3,125 firms over 15 years, of which 1,243 were still on the market, and 141 were transferred to the main
London Stock Exchange – leaving 1,741 firms not being accounted for – and that most probably went
bankrupt. It raised £ 67,5 bio., and its market capitalisation was £ 60.5 bio., having thus destroyed £ 7 bio., in
addition to the complete value of the firms upon entering the market. Despite its claimed ambition of
supporting high-technology firms, these account for only 9% of the leading FTSE-AIM 100 index, the rest being
made of mining, oil & gas, leisure & hotels, support services, specialty & other finance services and other
unspecified activities.
7
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We support the creation of a radically different, tightly regulated stock market to finance highgrowth, innovative firms, at European scale, in which priority is set on quality, patience and
professionalism – not liquidity and fast money. More details on the nature of the proposed market
regulation can be found in industriAll Europe’s Policy Brief n°2015/08 “Innovation by all and for all”,
Part II, §8.b.
Ensure fairness to support cooperation and innovation in the digital economy
“Winner takes all” models prevalent in the digital economy are a strong incentive for individual
economic operators to engage in it. They are however also strong deterrents for them to cooperate.
If economic operators fear that they may be stripped of their assets by engaging in a cooperation
regarding digital technologies, they will refrain from doing so, or bog down in endless legal
discussions to attempt to protect their interests. This time spent at a legal discussion on how to
share the economic gains obtained from digitalisation is as much time lost for the technical or
commercial development of innovation.
This is why legal framework conditions ensuring ex ante the fairness of the treatment of all
economic operators engaging in the digital economy, whatever their size and without having to
reinvent the wheel at each new occurrence, are a strong contributor to the development speed of
digital technologies in Europe.
This fairness should specifically apply to:

The rights attached to data

The rights attached to software.
Regulating the rights attached to data
What is important here is the nature of the rights attached to data: who is entitled to mobilise
them, for how long, where, and for what purpose.
Here would be a first list of rights that could be attached to data, and which could each be the
purpose of a specific agreement:
 to access,
 to duplicate,
 to store, and then: for how long,
 to modify,
 to erase,
 to transfer – where, to whom, under which conditions (specifically: with a transfer or not of
the original rights),
 to aggregate – i.e. to analyse jointly with the same nature of data collected on other
machines / persons / items,
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 to correlate – i.e. to analyse jointly with different nature of data collected on the same
machines / persons / items,
 to exploit, commercially or not, in anonymised form or not, where, when.
Multiple entities can legitimately claim access and usage rights on the same set of industrially
generated data8. In order to avoid endless conflicts around equally legitimate claims, we recommend
to provide a legal framework for non-exclusive rights on data, and to make this feature of nonexclusivity mandatory – in order to cover the largest number of sectors. The exact list of "legitimate"
claimants to data sets, and the conditions attached to accessing them should be specified ex ante.
This discussion on rights attached to data should not be mistaken with data "ownership". The
concept of "ownership" is not neutral: it conveys the idea that, once the data is "sold", the seller
loses any further right on the way it is used (as is the case with any material object: once it is sold,
the former owner loses any right to it). In our views, the democratic discussion to take place on the
rights attached to industrial data should leave the option open of maintaining a legal connection
between the originator of the data (and potentially of others), to the data itself, across its whole life.
One way to proceed further in the direction of fairness in the usage of “big data” could be the “Big
data is open data” principle.
Any organisation (large or small, private or public) that gathers large amounts of data (and, more
specifically, of personal data) in the European Union should be required to anonymise it, and to
replicate it into a public, freely accessible, Europe-wide, open data repository, under a common,
open standard (e.g. an XML profile) for all to use (e.g. economic, academic, public and nongovernmental groups or bodies). Thus, any "Big Data" in Europe would be managed as "Open Data".
Personal (i.e. nominative, non-anonymous) data, however, would remain under the strict protection
of existing European law – as would worker-related data, under a regime to be defined.
Regulating the Intellectual Property Rights attached to software
Public authorities have encouraged innovation by legally protecting their interests, specifically
against undue copy of their creative work. In the views of industriAll Europe, this is fully legitimate.
Historically, two modes of protection were attributed:
1. Authors‘ rights on Literary and Artistic Work
2. Patents on inventions.
8
E.g. from an industrial machine: the manufacturer of the whole machine, in order to improve its design; the
manufacturer of each specific module, for the same reason; the maintainer of the whole machine or of each
specific module, in order to predict failures and to engage on time the necessary preventive measures; the
operator, in order to measure performance and yield.
This is only an example of the most obvious entities potentially interested in exploiting data. In real life, one
could expect the number and variety of legitimate claimants wanting to access a given data set to increase
very significantly.
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Authors’ rights are attributed to the physical person who created the literary or artistic work, and
last in Europe for 70 years after the death of the last author (in a collective work). By definition, a
literary or artistic work is made public, and can be easily copied with low-tech means.
Patents are attributed to the firm employing the inventor. They last 20 years after the registration of
the first patent in a given country – that is, much less than authors’ rights. As a counterpart to this
legal protection, the inventor must divulge his/her invention, ca. 18 months after registration, so
that it can be further improved by others – thereby contributing to the common good.
In the case of software, the current European legislation9 is based on a fallacy that leads to
permanent ownership of rights by corporations, with no requirement for divulgation. Software is
protected like a Literary or Artistic Work, so that there is no requirement to make the source code
public (as would be the case for a patent) – and technical means are used to make access to the
source code de facto impossible. However, contrary to standard Literary and Artistic Works, the
rights are owned by the company employing the developers. Since generations of developers follow
one another on the same piece of software, and since all developers contribute as a collective to the
software, the rights are extended over and over – and at least 70 years after the death of the last
developer in the series. De facto, this means that software companies have all the rights, forever,
with no obligation in exchange towards society.
This situation is not acceptable.
We recommend that the legal protection of software be limited in time to 20 years after the
registration of the software code, and be conditioned by the publication of the source code.
Fair competition: no to fiscal or social dumping
The European ICT sector is faced with fierce international competition, from those third countries
that have identified the highly strategic nature of the sector for the competitiveness of all industrial
value chains (specifically: the United States of America, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan).
This competition takes several forms, where each potential industrial site attempts to lure investors
by:

a race in subsidies and tax breaks, so that ever higher fractions of the cost are borne by
public budgets

a downward spiral in social rights, working conditions and environmental protection rules.
Fair competition within the European Union
Internal competition on subsidies between Member States in the European Union is prevented via
the existing prohibition of State Aid. Rules and standards for environmental protection are meant to
9
Directive 2009/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the legal
protection of computer programs
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be uniform across the EU, so that competition among Member States in this area is not too much of
an issue (although differences in implementation of rules may lead to de facto unfair competition).
Internal competition on taxes should in our views be reinforced by measures such as the mandatory
Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base, which was re-launched by the European Commission in
late 2015. Internal competition on social standards has made some progress (e.g. on working time,
on health & safety on the work-place, on social benefits such as maternity leave), but much remains
to be done. We strongly recommend that the European Union set minimal social standards in terms
of employment conditions and of wages, e.g. along the “living wage” concept.
Fair competition between the European Union and third countries
At international level, we recommend that the European Union should achieve a more balanced
competition environment, by mobilising the following tools:

match the subsidies provided in third countries by using the clause of Important Projects of
Common European Interest (IPCEI) in the European treaties. This clause allows the level of
subsidies for industrial projects to reach levels beyond those set up by internal competition
rules, in cases where EU interests are at stake. The European ICT industry should unite to
promote the EU common good in the sector, specifically in order to attract the massive
investment needed by the large-scale manufacturing of advanced digital semi-conductors;

set up internally the procedures preventing Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) of
corporate taxation, as defined by the OECD, and pressure third countries to implement them
as well, as being the new standard regarding the prevention of tax avoidance by large
multinational corporations

raise the legal enforceability of "sustainable development" clauses in Free Trade
agreements with third parties. These "sustainable development" clauses gather all pledges
regarding social and environmental rights. They have become standard in all negotiations led
by the European Commission lately, but their application is not mandatory. Should the other
party not comply with these clauses, the European Union currently has no legal means,
within the framework of these treaties, to force the other party to actually fulfil its promises.
We recommend that the level of legal enforceability be raised, so that such legal procedures
be possible in case of non-compliance by the other party, with a threat to re-consider some
or all of the improvements of access to the EU market, should this non-compliance persist.
The proposed social policy recommendations should anticipate and prevent the
social disruptions in industry caused by digital technologies: for a just transition
Digital technologies have caused, and will cause, disruptions in industrial value chains, with deep
consequences on skills and employment. For the uptake of these technologies to be socially
acceptable, these deep changes must first be anticipated, early enough to be able to act, and to
achieve a just transition for workers.
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Once known, these changes must be discussed in social dialogue fora, or in even broader ones
involving trade unions, employers, industry, academia, public authorities (as exemplified in Germany
with the “Arbeit 4.0” initiative), in a process of full participation of workers and of their
representatives. The purpose of these discussions must be to prevent disruptions in professional
biographies, and to achieve a smooth transformation – specifically by mobilising training & life-long
learning. Thereby, the skills made necessary by the digital transition will be generated from the
existing workforce.
Finally, the specific risks for workers in a digital environment must be prevented: health & safety,
capture of worker-related data.
Skills policy
The technical changes entail the need for changed and new qualifications for workers. In this process
it is important for us that qualification is a right for the worker, and not a favour from the employer.
We have to fix mandatory and sufficient training rights for workers to keep and improve their
chances in the modern labour market.
1. Integrating the new digital qualifications, tasks and work categories in negotiations with
employers.
2. Negotiating the permanent up- and re-skilling of the existing workforce, to adapt to the fast
pace of technical change in the digital world.
3. Supporting the usage of standards as tools to increase vendor-neutral training and certification.
4. Negotiating e-learning conditions that are favourable to workers, i.e. with effective, measurable
and certified outcomes, at affordable prices and with a fair sharing of costs (in time and money)
and benefits.
5. Anticipating the need for new qualifications and competences, especially for young people.
The skills needs must be anticipated early enough to engage people in the rather long learning
process that a digital environment needs.
The training courses must be offered by the employer (i.e. it should be an obligation, not an option),
to all workers (not only to those considered as having a "high potential"; also to workers in SMEs,
with a mutual fund at sector level, and not only for workers in large multinationals).
The concept of Life-Long Learning should be applied to all workers, specifically in digital
technologies when the obsolescence of skills is extremely fast (they generally need to be refreshed
and updated every 5 years). This would provide life-long career security in industry.
The costs and benefits of training (in terms of time, money and constraints) must be fairly shared
between the workers and the employers. The exact meaning of such a "fair sharing" is the purpose
of social dialogue and of collective bargaining.
Training centres and institutions, jointly managed and funded by social partners (e.g. in Belgium),
should be promoted and supported across the EU.
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Social dialogue, at all levels (industrial site, company, sector, Member State, European Union)
should also define the precise content of training, the way its results are certified and acknowledged
in the salary and the career of the worker, both within the company and outside.
The skills transmitted to the workforce should ensure their long-term, internal and external
employability. This means that they must be vendor-neutral, and based on general scientific and
technical principles, which are permanent and transposable. Training should not be a tool for
dominant vendors of ICT technologies to pursue their lock-in strategy.
Skills for the digital work-place should not be mixed with the ability to surf the Internet, to send
tweets or to post on a social network. The fundamental change brought by digital technologies is
programming: i.e. instructing a perfectly dumb, perfectly obedient, but very fast machine to perform
computational and material tasks. This requires an extremely rigorous and structured mind set, with
a good capacity for abstraction, and is the purpose of significant learning – which cannot be
performed overnight, and needs some Science, Engineering, Technology or Mathematics (STEM)
background. Access to such an abstract mind-set is specifically difficult for skilled workers in
industry, whose intelligence and skills are more connected to the immediate perception of reality.
Teaching times and methods of digital technologies to this public should be adapted accordingly.
Considering the scope and speed of the required changes in a digitally transformed industry, the
main capacity to be developed at school, and to be maintained throughout working life, is the
capacity (and the desire) to learn and to concentrate. To do so, direct and early contact with video
screens at school is not only useless; it is actually detrimental.
The work-places themselves need to be transformed in order to maintain and improve the
capacities of workers in the demanding environment of digitalised industry. They must be designed
to be skills-enhancing and stimulating, by providing opportunities to exercise and improve all forms
of intelligence, of professional competence, and of participation and initiative.
Liability and Health & Safety rules
The liability for accidents caused by digitally-connected, autonomous vehicles, machines and robots,
when they are in direct interaction with human workers should be defined. This loss and damage
compensation for the worker must be simple and straightforward: s/he cannot wait for the lawyers
of all the parties at stake to agree on ultimate liability.
The "safety of machines" Directive should be adapted to this new environment. Doing so, the
"Feedback method" that was developed by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) to collect the
concrete experience of workers using machines, and to feed it into the legislative or normative
process, should be used.
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What can be expected from the implementation of these recommendations? A
first quantitative assessment for the year 2022
Syndex and Wilke, Maack & Partners have estimated the quantitative impact, in terms of
employment volume and quality, of the implementation of these recommendations. The date at
which the impact is evaluated is 2022, i.e. five years after the publication of the present report.
## TO BE COMPLETED BY SYNDEX AND WMP, based on the “desired state” of the Phase 2 report.
The title of this state should now be: “State after implementation of the recommendations”.
As a summary, and compared with the “business as usual” case, the implementation of the
recommendations for public policy described herewith can be summarised as follows.
<Table>
Trade union action
Trade unions should act to support the public policies outlined above.
In addition, trade unions have their own agenda to address the challenges emerging from the digital
transformation of industry. They should:

adapt their recruitment strategy and their tools to the digitally-transformed work place

obtain more Information & Consultation rights

obtain more social rights.
These recommendations for specific trade union action emerged from the workshop organised
during the Phase 3 of the study, in which trade union representatives discussed the results of the
study.
Lobby public authorities to support the adoption of industrial and social policies
Trade unions should mobilise the whole range of lobbying tools to support the adoption of the
industrial and social policies that are recommended in the preceding chapter. To that end, they
should:

identify the policy fora where the digital transformation of industry is being discussed, and
obtain a statutory position in them, in order to be involved – and listened to – early in the
process. This is valid at all levels: regional, national, European.

share with their peers at European level the discussions being held in these fora, and the
positions that they have developed, so as to reach unified trade union positions on these
issues. To this end, the structures of industriAll Europe should be actively mobilised (sector
activities, policy committees such as Industrial Policy or Collective Bargaining)

perform lobbying actions towards administrative technical staff, decision-makers and
members of Parliaments (at all levels), to support common trade union views. This lobbying
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should be performed in cooperation with allies in industry (social partners) or in civil society
(NGOs), on an ad-hoc basis.
Adapt trade union recruitment strategy and tools to the digitally-transformed
work place
Organise the workers in the digitally-transformed work place
The digital transformation of industry spawns new categories of workers, with which trade unions
have little experience:

precarious workers

crowd-workers, (bogus) self-employed workers

white-collar workers, such as high-skilled software engineers and ICT managers

workers in start-ups and emerging economic activities (e.g. electronic games)

home workers.
Trade unions should dedicate specific efforts to organise these workers, whose needs are very
different from those of trade unions’ existing constituency, but where the recruitment potential is
huge. This means, among others:

allow all economically dependent workers (whatever their formal legal relationship to the
company allocating the tasks) to be members of trade unions, and to be covered by
collective bargaining agreements

establishing on-line and telephone contact points with dedicated personnel to answer the
questions and concerns of these workers, e.g. by following the example of the
FairCrowdWork web site of IG Metall

get information when possible in local, national ou European Works Council on the
employment of contract workers, freelance workers or other dependent workers

promote trade union discussions on company and sector strategies, specifically regarding
innovation (in products or in processes) in order to develop credible alternatives to those
proposed by management.
International digital coordination platforms for trade unions and workers
Company management coordinates world-wide, and exploits this unity of decision-making to put
workers in competition against each other internationally. This central command is made more
efficient by digital means.
In order to combat this central power in corporations, employees have traditionally built
coordination networks - which are the core of trade unionism. Most of these networks, however, are
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based on physical means, and do not yet fully exploit the resources that digital technologies could
supply to support the workers' movement.
In the digital age, trade unions should make full use of the resources of digital technologies. They
should build up digital platforms and networks dedicated to Europe- and world-wide democratic
coordination of their action, in parallel to existing or future "physical" networks, in order to:
1. disseminate and share information about working conditions and wages, company- or
sector-specific events and mobilisations,
2. collectively and democratically define common demands and policies vis-à-vis company
management, national and European authorities.
We recommend the development of (preferably open-source) dedicated software to support this
international, cross-lingual democratic coordination of workers.
In order to address the language barrier within the EU, trade unions could request to have access to
the Machine translation facility of the European Commission, which currently is only open to public
administrations.
More Information & Consultation rights, specifically for European Works Councils
(EWCs)
It is of great importance to secure information and consultation rights of workers’ representation in
this process at company level as well as at sectoral, national levels and European levels. The
technical changes and possibilities will bring about many social changes in companies and in society
too. Workers and their representatives should be involved in due time in finding solutions for the
challenges of a more connected work environment and should have their say, as they are the
workplace experts. Only if workers’ representatives and trade unions have sufficient information and
consultation rights will we have the possibility to act and to use the moment of transition to the
digital age for establishing good regulations at company level and for negotiating good collective
agreements addressing the changes.
A dedicated space for workers' representatives and trade unions in corporate Intranets
In the physical world, workers' representatives and trade unions have the right to be allocated a
dedicated, private space in the company's premises for them to hold their meetings and to organise.
The equivalent right should be given to workers in the digital workplace.
We recommend that workers' representatives and representative trade unions in a company be
given a private, specific space on the corporate Intranet, under conditions to be mutually agreed
with the employer.
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Right for Works Councils to access custom-made indicators from the corporate
management data repository (ERP)
Corporate management has access to loads of management data, obtained via multiple physical
sensors and pervasive reporting procedures. However, the information made available to workers is
often extremely limited in scope and precision.
Workers should be allowed to request from the corporate management data repository (generally
managed by the Enterprise Resource Planning software), specific indicators and analytic accounting
data tailored to their needs, and to obtain the resulting charts and dashboards on a periodic basis.
Thereby, they would be in a much better position to assess the situation of the company and of each
individual site or business unit, according to metrics that matter to them. They would thus be in a
much better position to objectively discuss the relative economic indicators – which often are at the
root of restructuring decisions.
If necessary, they should be entitled to access the assistance of qualified consultants and auditors to
perform these tasks, under the standard conditions for workers-appointed experts. It is well known
that the information / consultation right is often purely formal when workers’ representatives
receive massive amounts of data with no or little time to analyse them.
Extend Information & Consultation rights to innovation
Information & Consultation rights of workers could be made more pro-active than what is currently
foreseen in Directive 2002/14/EC, by including:

consultation (and not only information) on "the probable development of the undertaking's
or the establishment's activities and economic situation" (Art 4-2a)

information and consultation on innovation (i.e. on work organisation, on industrial
processes, on commercial offerings).
Thereby, Information and Consultation rights could be made into a positive means to enable
companies and workers to pro-actively engage in change. Adding such anticipation issues to the
mandatory agenda of Information & Consultation discussions with workers could be the purpose of
a policy which would be serious in really supporting and generalising Work-Place Innovation.
Social rights for the digital workplace
Fight for the principle “equal work = equal pay, equal benefits, equal working
conditions”
Digital transformation enables unscrupulous companies to push ahead their divisive agenda of
segmenting the workforce between a dwindling “core” of provisionally secure employees under
open-ended contracts, and a diversified array of precarious and badly protected workers, where
each layer is threatened to be dumped into the lower one, and lured into obedience by the promise
to be promoted to the higher. Under the pretext of unilateral flexibility, this evolution led to
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dramatic increases in the numbers of agency workers, of fixed-term contracts, and of "new" digital
forms of employment, such as “crowd-working” and forced / bogus self-employment.
We fear that a decentralisation or even an individualisation of collective bargaining could rise with
digitalisation of work, because workers and labour markets are more and more fragmented. This can
cause difficulties for the collective organisation of workers.
Trade unions cannot accept these “divide and conquer” tactics by companies. IndustriAll Europe will
fight to include all persons working for a company in the coverage of Collective Bargaining
agreements, whatever their legal status.
Protect worker-related data with a specific regime
Worker-related data is specifically sensitive for trade unions. It has been a constant concern for
workers' organisations to discuss and regulate the surveillance of workers, and the usage made of
the data being collected (e.g. when employers transmitted to one another their records on a given
worker).
Worker-related data is specific, and potentially distinct from "standard" personal data, for the
following reasons:

a worker is appointed by a company to perform a task (be it under the subordination regime
of a standard employment contract, or in the much more vulnerable status of a commercial
service contract). There is therefore a legitimacy in allowing the appointing company to
verify that the task is indeed being performed, according to its own quality standards and to
(e.g.) health & safety regulation. In that sense, a form of surveillance of the worker by the
appointing company is legitimate, in proportions that are much higher than what is
allowable for the surveillance of normal citizens, but that should definitely not be infinite,
nor even reach the unprecedented levels that digital technologies make technically and
economically possible

a worker is, in a limited extent, entitled to have activities on the work place that are not
related to his/her work. The worker does not cease to be a citizen with his/her rights
attached, when entering the company's premises. These work-unrelated activities are
naturally protected by the legislation on personal data. What is at stake here is the data
related to professional activities: measurement of performance, of time spent on each task,
etc… be it performed on the work-place, on the move (mobile office), or at home (home
office). This professionally-relevant data is the purpose of the legitimate surveillance
mentioned above.

the gathering of personal data is generally covered by opt-in clauses in (often abstruse)
"General terms and conditions" of commercial offerings. It is assumed that the gathering
and further processing of data is allowed when a person has given his/her prior, free and
informed consent to the gathering and further usage of data collected on him/her. In the
case of worker-related data, one would imagine that this prior and informed consent to the
collection and processing of professionally-relevant data would take place upon the
International Trade Union House (ITUH) - Boulevard du Roi Albert II 5 (bte 10) - B-1210 Brussels
Tel: +32 (0)2/227 10 10 info@industriall-europe.eu www.industriall-europe.eu
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ICT Strategic study. Recommendations – DRAFT v.2.1
Laurent ZIBELL, 08-Feb-2016
signature of the work contract (employment contract or service contract). In both cases, the
freedom of choice can be strongly debated. The worker to whom an employment or a
service contract is being proposed is in such a position of weakness (in societies with mass
unemployment such as the current EU Members States) that s/he cannot discuss or
negotiate such clauses. Considering this structural weakness, there would be a point for a
regulation of such contractual clauses, and to determine ex ante what level of information
collection and processing is legitimate, and not leave it to the "contractual freedom".
Worker-related data must thus be protected, with a specific legal regime, distinct from personal
data, but also from machine-generated data. Trade unions cannot accept that worker-related data
be stored, processed or even transferred from one company to the next, without the knowledge and
consent of the workers involved. Trade unions must be present in the definition of these rights
attached to worker-related data, and of the conditions under which workers' consent is obtained.
Right to disconnect from the digital work environment
Digital technologies must contribute to social progress and human emancipation. In our views, this is
an issue of human rights and of basic freedom. The employment contractual relationship is an
exchange between security for the employee against a subordination to the employer, limited in
time and framed by the labour regulations.
The worker must be given a right to disconnect from the more and more invasive digital tools. In
order to make this right effective, we recommend the institution of technical procedures that make
it possible to force the disconnection of workers from their digital work environment, out of
working hours. Examples of such measures are:

the shut-down of access to e-mail servers, according to the local time zone, and with exceptions
for those workers who are on alert duty

the automatic re-direction of telephone calls to a voicemail server.
Right to privacy at work
Employers have the right to ensure that their employees actually perform the work that they are
paid for, and that they respect safety and security rules. A form of surveillance of workers by their
employer is thus legitimate. However, the technical means made available by digital technologies
enable a level, a permanence and a frequency of surveillance that is beyond anything experienced so
far.
This excessive surveillance is resented by workers. It is also an issue for employers – because it leads
to de-motivation and passive-aggressive behaviours. We recommend a right to privacy at work. The
exact limits of legitimate surveillance, adapted to each work-place situation, should be the purpose
of explicit social dialogue.
International Trade Union House (ITUH) - Boulevard du Roi Albert II 5 (bte 10) - B-1210 Brussels
Tel: +32 (0)2/227 10 10 info@industriall-europe.eu www.industriall-europe.eu
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ICT Strategic study. Recommendations – DRAFT v.2.1
Laurent ZIBELL, 08-Feb-2016
e-Inclusion
The "non digitalised" persons (i.e. those people not able or not willing to use digital devices) should
be protected against forced adoption of digital technologies or devices. Appropriate legislation
should make sure that alternative technologies remain available to customers and citizens.
Reflect on working time
Digitalisation brings with it remarkable productivity gains: the work time needed to perform many
value-adding tasks (including highly qualified tasks in R&D&I and product design) will be dramatically
reduced. Tele-working enabled by digitalisation specifically has a remarkable potential for saving
time, infrastructure capacity and energy for daily commuting between home and work-place.
In our views, the allocation and distribution within society of these gains should be broadly
discussed. Working time reduction has been a historical trend for almost 200 years. The value added
by new technologies must be fairly shared between investment, shareholder and workers. And the
workers’ share may include working time reduction in terms of working hours per week and/or
along the whole professional career. The solution whereby the working time remaining from the
digitalisation process should be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands is not sustainable.
digitalisation process should be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands is not sustainable.options.
International Trade Union House (ITUH) - Boulevard du Roi Albert II 5 (bte 10) - B-1210 Brussels
Tel: +32 (0)2/227 10 10 info@industriall-europe.eu www.industriall-europe.eu
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