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Organizing non-manual workers in a digital world

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15 October, 2015IndustriALL Global Union is continuing its work with non-manual workers, with the third meeting of Office in your Pocket on 19 and 20 November 2015 in Barcelona. 

The Office in your Pocket agenda covers issues including the increasing digitalization in industry, organizing and campaigning in social media, stress and connectivity, new ways of working such as crowdworking, and self-employment.

Borders are more and more blurred between manual and non-manual work because of new industrial structures.  Where industry used to employ a majority of manual workers and a minority of non-manual workers, in many workplaces the situation is now just the opposite. This new type of worker also includes more women.  Nevertheless all of these people are workers, and all workers need a union.

The challenge for trade unions is to be able to organize white-collar workers and highly skilled people who are not always available in the office or the workplace at all times. Nowadays people work more and more outside working hours on their laptops or their smartphones and are always reachable. This new set of realities creates different questions for trade unions when it comes to organizing members and protecting the members they have.

IndustriALL welcomes the election of Martin Linder as president of the Swedish union Unionen, Sweden’s largest private sector union. Martin is co-chair of IndustriALL’s non-manual section together with Anne-Catherine Cudennec from CFE-CGC Métallurgie, France.

For more information about this workshop please contact Rubén Ortiz Pamplin, Administrative Assistant, IndustriALL Global Union. Tel: +41 22 308 5015 Email:  [email protected]