Conference Agenda

From 2019, the Chilean subsidiary of a leading retail multinational has been promoting a socio-technical modernisation plan for supermarkets which, linked to new online inventory systems, digital self-service technologies and e-commerce areas, seeks to reconvert the supermarket workforce, eliminating some specific jobs (e.g. cashiers, stock replenishers) and implementing a single multi-functional job in rotating and flexible shifts. This plan was accelerated during the pandemic and has been criticised by workers, given the increased work intensification and decreased wages compared to previous jobs. Considering their low levels of structural power and the existing fragmentation of union representation, collective bargaining and workers' mobilisations have been insufficient to shape these changes. In this scenario, unions have opted for new strategies to engage state actors in the regulatory space.

This study asks what strategies supermarket unions have developed to engage state actors in regulating the functional flexibility plan. The contribution of this research lies in addressing the regulatory issues involved in socio-technical changes at work, which has been little researched beyond the recent interest in the gig economy. To this end, the literature on technological change at work and the literature on industrial relations and regulatory spaces are brought into dialogue.

This research adopts a qualitative approach. Data collection was based on the review of company, union and legal documents, participant observation at various union meetings and interviews with 45 participants during 2022 and 2023, including managers, union officials, workers, and different state regulators. Qualitative content analysis techniques are then used to organise the findings.

Regarding findings, two main strategies are identified as being carried out by different trade union profiles. With a historic partnership with management, the largest and most institutionalised union has opted for the legal reform route: pushing for a new bill to regulate the functional flexibility scheme. On the other hand, the more adversarial unions have initiated complaints to the Labour Inspectorate through their local trade union networks. This has made it possible to gather evidence on fines and infractions against the company to bring collective complaints to the Labour Court. This strategy has so far been successful in setting a precedent. According to court rulings, flexible functionality plans lack "labour certainty" insofar as the allocation of multitasking depends on the discretion of the store manager. These rulings have enabled the various regulatory actors (i.e. unions, companies and state actors) to move towards more inclusive arrangements to protect supermarket labour.

Psychosocial risks, particularly those exacerbated by the digital era, are a rising occupational health crisis in the workplace. Examples include technostress caused by constant connectivity, frantic work paces set by algorithms and social isolation through telework or crowd-work (Akhtar and Moore, 2016; Todolí-Signes, 2019; EU-OSHA 2022; Vignola et al, 2023). Many have called for specific legislative action to combat these risks (European Parliament, 2019; ETUI, 2021).

As the ILO looks to regulate psychosocial risks, I argue that attention should be given to reinvigorating a pre-existing ILO principle.

‘Adapt work to the worker’ was an innovative ILO principle in the 1950s in response to a disillusioned post-war workforce (Joint ILO/WHO, 1950; 1952; 1957). In the 1970s, the principle was reinvented as the ‘humanisation of work’ principle, which the then ILO Director- General called a ‘radical new approach’ to ‘abate the revolt against work as a dull monotony’ (ILO, 1972, pp. 34-35).

Today, the principle has been elevated to a fundamental principle at work, found in Article 5(b) ILO Convention 155 and other ILO instruments. The question therefore is, can the principle offer an innovative regulatory solution to today’s psychosocial risks – or is it a dated principle, unable to evolve?

Whilst academics in the EU context have highlighted the principle’s ‘potentially revolutionary’ nature (Bercusson, 1996, p. 332), there is currently no existing literature analysing the principle’s origins, evolution and status in international labour law.

My research fills this gap by using doctrinal and comparative law methodology. Through an analysis of ILO preparatory drafts, interdisciplinary literature and case law across multiple jurisdictions, I offer reflections on a reinvigorated interpretive framework of the principle, which can once again evolve to offer an innovative solution to today’s psychosocial risks at work.

Paid sick leave laws allow sick employees to stay at home without losing pay. These laws incentivize workers to stay at home while they or their family members are ill. Such laws in the US differ by state, city, and county. Paid sick leave and its relationship with infectious diseases has been an interest for researchers in various disciplines long before the pandemic, and Covid-19 provides a new opportunity to test this theory on a large scale. Were paid sick leave laws associated with a decrease in the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic? The answer to this question is important for scientific literature as well as for policymaking.

In my research I hypothesized that paid sick leave laws in the state, city, and county level are associated with a decreased number of new daily Covid-19 cases and deaths. I have used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to compare between US counties in which one or more local paid sick leave laws were in effect in 2020 vis-à-vis counties where no local paid sick leave law was in place. To control for other covariates, I have added control variables such as population density, testing, socio-economic inequalities, Covid-19 mitigation policies, rural/urban divide, self-reported mask usage, public health-related variables, and time-related variables. I have compiled a dataset for this research using publically available data sources; provided primarily by Johns Hopkins University, A Better Balance, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Results show that paid sick leave laws in effect in US counties in 2020 were associated with a decrease of 4.112 new daily cases per 100k residents; and a decrease of 0.465 new daily deaths per 1M residents. These findings contribute to existing literature in several ways. They provide new and large-scale findings that corroborate previous theories about the effectiveness of local paid sick leave laws. My research shows that even while studying Covid-19, a new pathogen that spread quickly throughout the entire United States, the findings nonetheless show that paid sick leave laws are associated with a decrease in infectivity. Additionally, these findings show the relevance of labor and employment law for industrial relations research. Employment law is associated with improved public health outcomes, and it is therefore important for researchers to study its effects on society. My preferred conference track is Track IV: Regulatory Innovation.