From AK website:
Digital Works for People - European conference on work in the digital world
In an innovative and elaborately staged event, on October 22, 2018, a large number of digitisation projects from all over Europe were presented. In small tour groups, almost 180 participants of the event were able to discover some of the 17 projects and get to know their initiators. On this first discovery tour from one project island to the next, followed the opening speech by AK President Renate Anderl and a round of interviews with the Italian Secretary of State for Labour and Social Affairs Claudio Cominardi, the union secretary of the ETUC Esther Lynch and the former Social Affairs Minister Alois Stöger.
Speeches and interviews took place in a two-sided stage built centrally in the Odeon Theater, which was designed in the style of the British House of Commons. This official opening was followed by small group discussions on the following topics: participation, training and working conditions. The event ended after the summary lectures of the previous discussions, by experts, a reflective panel discussion and the final contribution of the piano artist, who gave the entire event time and frame.
The event aimed to bring together workers' councils, trade unionists, politicians, business representatives and experts from all over Europe in order to facilitate an exchange around the shaping of technological change, supported by concrete approaches of the pioneering projects.
It's clear that digitisation needs to be designed to benefit not just a small elite, but everyone. It deals with distribution issues, working conditions and educational opportunities. The often unanswered question, however, is: what can and should be done concretely at company or municipal level, in clubs, unions, science or civil society in order to live up to the claim to design? was taken up and the attempt started to answer these by the example projects represented.
Thus, the event also served as a prelude to the announcement of the project fund. The AK project fund work 4.0 is an essential component of the digitization offensive of the future program of the Chamber of Labor and as such supports and finances projects to improve working conditions by means of digital technologies. As an innovative source of inspiration, for fund submissions, the projects presented during the event should serve.
