9

Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry

4.0: A German and Italian Debate
Matteo Avogaro

 New Concept of Manufacturing, a New Idea

A
of Work
Manufacturing and the industrial sector are parts of the work contexts
expected to be influenced by the process of digitization most. The process
started two decades ago and nowadays seems to have reached its peak.
The prediction is supported by a wide series of elements. Recently, a
new way of work—online or in outsourcing—has arisen (Valenduc and
Vendramin 2016, pp. 19–20) and some productions have been digitized.
The phenomenon has been inspired by the diffusion of smartphones,
tablets, internet connections on mobile devices and geo-localization
apps—currently used not only as means of amusement but also as instru-
ments to improve productivity and efficiency on the job—and by the

M. Avogaro (*)
Labour Law, Department of Civil Law and Legal History, University of Milan,
Milan, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2018 165

E. Ales et al. (eds.), Working in Digital and Smart Organizations,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77329-2_9
166 M. Avogaro

technological development that extended the possibility to use services

such as cloud and big data (Valenduc and Vendramin 2016, p. 20;
Lestavel 2015, pp. 70–73).
On the other hand, the most striking innovation giving rise to the
process of digitization of manufacturing is represented by Cyber-
Physical Systems (CPS): a new generation of robots that are able to
assimilate experiences and to learn from the surrounding environment
in a way to develop and to adjust their behaviour (Lee 2008). For this
reason, there are some discouraging theories suggesting that this new
kind of machinery will endanger some traditional and consolidated pro-
fessions (Seghezzi and Tiraboschi 2016a, 8 ff.), causing increases in the
unemployment rate.
The aforementioned scenario is indicated as Industry 4.0, entailing a
new idea of production, founded on the integration between smart
machinery, internet, robotics and remote work (Bentivogli 2016; Wetzel
2015) that, in recent years, has been moved to the top of the agenda of
the most relevant economies in the world. Among them, the US, with
the Manufacturing USA project, financed by government, public and
private entities for an amount of about $0.5 billion (USD); France, which
supports the programme Industrie du future, with an investment of 10
billion euros; Germany, where the federal government launched a plan of
1 billion euros to finance company projects, research centres and tax
incentives; and Italy, which presented a plan of 13 billion euros of hori-
zontal incentives for the years 2018–2024.
The technological improvement of manufacturing could entail a pos-
sible powerful relaunch of Western economies, but at the same time
it could heavily affect the conditions of the workforce and create space
for abuses and unemployment by 2025 (Cagol 2016; Dal Ponte et al.
2016).
In light of the above, other than bringing a new concept of company,
Industry 4.0 seems to be intended to bring a new idea of work. Informatics
and robots will deeply affect the workplace organization; the nature of
work itself seems to be destined to change, moving towards Work 4.0
(Weiss 2016, 657 ff.; IG Metall 2015a).
In the new professional and economic context, the space for stan-
dardized products will be reasonably reduced while the efforts towards
 Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry 4.0: A German… 167

tailor-­made production could increase. Therefore, new forms of con-

tinuous production will be experimented with in order to be able to
promptly react to new market requests.
Employees’ tasks will be modified as a consequence of the increasing
role of CPS. The outcome seems to be a diminution of low-skilled
employees, while more-qualified workers, such as technicians, will aug-
ment their relevance. The way of rendering the performance will
increase its flexibility: workers will profit from the possibility to realize
some maintenance or programme operations on machinery from long
distances and therefore to work, at least partially, from their houses
(Bentivogli 2015, 11 ff.).
In particular, two models have been developed (Kurtz 2014; Ganz
2014) to try to forecast the change brought by Work 4.0: the “automati-
zation model” and the “specialization model”.
The automatization model is a pessimistic prediction of the effects of
Industry 4.0 on the labour market: CPS will acquire a leading role in
factories, and human activities will be essentially directed and governed
by them. It seems to lead to an organization of work based on robots
assisted by a small number of highly specialized workers, charged with
great responsibilities and whose continuous education will be realized
mainly on the job. On the other hand, medium- and lower-skilled work-
ers will be replaced by CPS (Seghezzi 2016, 188 ff.).
In contrast, the specialization model wagers on a virtuous coopera-
tion between men and machinery. This theory conceives workers as the
centre of the production systems, while robots and smart machinery
will represent a new generation of technological tools designated to sup-
port them. This model entails a decrease of less trained workers, replaced
by CPS, but an augmentation of the request of high- and medium-
skilled employees, hired to cooperate and interact with advanced infor-
matic systems. Tasks will become less repetitive, while cooperation will
be enhanced, not only between men and machinery but also among
workers. Knowledge requirements will increase, and employees will
have the opportunity to improve their competences on the job (Seghezzi
2016, 188 ff.).
Neither of the above-mentioned two models is likely to be entirely
applied. Perhaps, the outcome of Industry 4.0 will be a hybrid result,
168 M. Avogaro

consisting of a medium point between the two theories, modulated on

the basis of the automatization level, market requirements and character-
istics of the commercial sector of the company (Hirsch-Kreinsen 2014).
In any case, both models indicate, as a further effect of Work 4.0, an
increasing independence of employees. The new figure of worker—high-­
skilled and bearing the burden of augmented responsibilities deriving
from managerial tasks and the possibility to interact with machinery
from remote—will entail the introduction of new instruments to protect
him or her in the workplace and during the labour relationship (Pero
2015, 24 ff.).
This seems to be, in particular, a two-sided problem.
The first issue concerns the classification of “employees 4.0” as
autonomous workers, with a specific condition of dependency from
their (in general, one) customers (Forlivesi 2016, 664 ff.), or as depen-
dent workers, with the consequential need to introduce new criteria to
enlarge the definition of dependent work. On this aspect, European
scholars suggested different instruments to clarify the “grey zone”
between the area of self-employment and the one of dependent work,
such as the controversial institutes of the TRADE in Spain (Valdés dal
Ré and Valdés Alonso 2010, 705 ff.; Villalón 2013, 287 ff.) and of
arbeitnehmerähnliche Person in Germany (Grunsky 1980; Wank 1988).
In relation to the extension of the legal definition of employee, it is
worth analysing the debate concerning gig economy (Dagnino 2016,
137 ff.; Rogers 2015, 85 ff.) and also the new and recent Italian legal
arrangement of heter-organized work (Ferraro 2016, 53 ff.; Santoro
Passarelli 2015).
The second aspect is related to work–life balance in the age of BYOD
(Bring Your Own Device) policies and company devices. The debate,
developed mainly in France and Italy, concerning the right to disconnect,
is expected to assume a key role in the future scenarios of Work 4.0.
To address the aforementioned issues, the main German and Italian
trade unions promoted a wide debate in recent years. This research is
aimed, in particular, at investigating the strategies proposed by these
organizations to regulate the new digitized work environment, in order to
protect employee’s rights, and will be restricted to the main fields where
 Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry 4.0: A German… 169

Industry 4.0 is developing: manufacturing and the metalworker and

mechanical engineering industry. Hence, the point of departure will be
the studies and the suggestions of the workers’ organizations themselves,
to be analysed in a critical way observing the degree of practical actualiza-
tion of these ideas through collective bargaining. Attention will be
mainly focused on the Italian workers’ organizations FIM-CISL and the
German IG-Metall, which privilege procedures of co-determination or
cooperation between employers and employees. This should be done in
order to underline the main characteristics of the approach of trade
unions not refusing technological innovation or digitization but attempt-
ing to find new instruments to manage this transition in advance, pro-
tecting (also) workers’ interests.

Trade Unions’ Approach in Italy

In Italy, Industry 4.0 is at the top of the agenda of the government and of
some social partners. In 2015, the Ministry of Economic Development
launched a relevant financing plan to encourage manufacturing to
embrace digitization and technological innovation. Among trade unions,
FIM-CISL was the first attempting to promote a debate on the implica-
tions of Industry 4.0 on the Italian labour market and on the role of
workers’ organizations in defining the factory of tomorrow. Recently, this
initiative has been followed by other Italian trade unions, such as CGIL,
which launched the “Idea diffusa” project in May 2017 (CGIL 2017a).
From the practical side, collective bargaining also faced the technologi-
cal change occurring in factories, providing for some solutions to be ana-
lysed to reconstruct the Italian debate.

Re-organize Workers’ Rights in the Digitized Factory

The organization of work in the environment of Industry 4.0 is the main

issue addressed by FIM-CISL, and by its leader Marco Bentivogli, to
analyse the evolution of Italian workers’ organizations.
170 M. Avogaro

In light of the above, attention is focused on lifelong learning, on the

modification of tasks, on the redefinition of time and place to work and
on the kind of labour law solutions that could best protect workers. FIM-­
CISL shares the specialization model: education and training are the key
elements to prevent technological unemployment. Therefore, in order
not to allow smart machinery to endanger human work, trade unions
should anticipate the change (Bentivogli 2015, p. 6).
According to the said organization, professional levels of the era of
Industry 4.0 will be reshaped, since tasks requesting relevant human
labour and routine activities will be gradually replaced by high-skilled
ones as planning, setting-up, maintenance, regulation and improvement
of machinery and software. In this context, teamwork will play a central
role: production lines and fixed and unskilled positions will decline as a
consequence of the affirmation of robotics and informatics. At the same
time, skilled workers are to become multitaskers such that each employee
will not be appointed only one specific task or role in the production
activity, but will have to reach different objectives together with the team
(Pero 2015, pp. 26–27).
The “rotation of workers” and the so-called “strategy of suggestions”
are effects directly descending from the adoption of the teamwork.
“Rotation” means that, in a team, workers will have to be interchange-
able and cover different tasks in order to allow the crew to reach the
assigned objectives. Through the experimentation of different positions,
the workers will augment their opportunities to expand experience and
improve their ability to find innovative solutions. At this stage, “strategy of
suggestions” becomes relevant. Its philosophy is to collect the highest pos-
sible number of amelioration proposals advanced by workers appointed to
a specific proceeding or machinery, in order to speed up production and
work in a more efficient way. With reference to employees, this new form
of work organization is characterized by pros and cons: working rhythms
will intensify; in any case, the quality of work in general will be improved
and as a result there will be a reduction in accidents and exertion. Finally,
the aforementioned new development of work organization should
increase employers’ margin of income. Therefore, also workers will have
the possibility to improve their salaries, in particular through the tool of
collective bargaining (Pero 2015, pp. 28–29).
 Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry 4.0: A German… 171

In this scenario, the central role is played by workers’ training. A sur-

vey carried out in 2015 by Randstad indicated, at that point, that 44% of
Italian workers interviewed are persuaded that their respective job will be
automatized in the next 5–10 years. Among them, 30% is concerned not
to have adequate knowledge to win the struggle of digitization, whereas
the average European rate is 18% and the world rate is 22% (Minghetti
2016; Randstad Holding 2015). Accordingly, 66% of employees urges
for more investments in on-the-job education. A new focus realized by
Randstad at the beginning of 2016 confirmed the tendency (Randstad
Holding 2016; Randstad Italia S.p.A. 2016): the skilled employees of
Industry 4.0 will need continuous improvement in their knowledge dur-
ing their working life.
A congruent reply to these issues, for FIM-CISL, is to widen the area
covered by the workers’ right of education, regulated, in Italy, through
Article 6 of law 53 of 8 March 2000. The aforementioned provision,
concerning leave of absence for continuous vocational training, after a
premise in which it is stated that workers have the right to extend their
educational period for all their life, at paragraph 2 delegates collective
agreements to specify, in concreto, how workers can exercise this right.
FIM-CISL suggests, at this point, that collective agreements of Industry
4.0 should renew the system of learning discharge, providing for an
employee’s individual right to stop working or to accede to a part-time
regime irrespectively of the employer’s opinion, for frequent periods, in
order to take courses to improve its knowledge (Bentivogli 2015, 10 ff.).
At this point, the first results were reached in November 2016 (see “The
National Collective Agreement of the Metalworker and Mechanical
Engineering Industry of 2016” section below).
With reference to the internal organization of factories, FIM-CISL is
oriented towards a progressive abandonment of fixed professional levels
set forth by collective agreements, in light of an exchange between more
flexibility, remunerated with more services, and in particular more educa-
tion (Navaretti 2015, pp. 31–33).
As indicated above, the new paradigm of Industry 4.0 will also modify
the traditional concepts of time and place to work in manufacturing.
The growing availability of tools that enable workers to interact with
machinery at a distance, and the progressive relinquishing of manual
production, will encourage employees to realize their performance, at
172 M. Avogaro

least in some cases, from locations different from offices or factories. In

addition, the foreshadowed emancipation from the traditional working
place will impact temporal articulation, which will become less bound to
office times and to the “classic” eight-hour working day. At this point,
great attention is devoted by Italian trade unions to smart working
(known as “lavoro agile” in Italy, Bentivogli 2015, 11 ff.) and to the
respective bill passed in 2017 concerning the first attempt to regulate
this phenomenon.
Although until 2015 the area of smart working was restricted to
experimentations promoted, at the company level, by social partners, in
2016 the government, and at a subsequent time a group of members of
Parliament, advanced two proposals about this matter, then reduced to
one in the bill S. 2233-B, approved by the Parliament as Law 81 of 22
May 2017. In particular, smart working is regulated by Articles 18–24
of Law 81/2017. According to Article 18 of Law 81/2017, it is intended
not as a new labour agreement but as a way of working applicable to
wage labour. Smart working could also concern phases, cycles or objec-
tives of the work relationship and request the utilization of technologi-
cal devices. The performance could be realized partially in and partially
outside the premises of the company, without a fixed working place, and
within the maximum daily or weekly time limits set forth by law or col-
lective bargaining. The agreement to accede to the regime of smart
working must be written and, according to Article 19 of Law 81/2017,
must regulate the activity that the worker could carry on outside the
premises of the factory and, among other things, provide for technical
and organizational measures to assure the worker of a right to discon-
nect from the technological devices. Finally, the law introduces other
rights and guarantees for the smart worker, such as the ones concerning
education (Article 20), limits to the power of control of the employer
(Article 21), work health and safety (Article 22) and the extension of the
mandatory assurance against injuries or professional illnesses to the
activity performed outside the factory (Article 23). In a nutshell, Law
81/2017 provides for a general framework that will have to be com-
pleted by collective agreements or by the agreements reached directly
between employer and employee.
 Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry 4.0: A German… 173

The law concerning smart working was, in general, appreciated by the

main social partners (Pogliotti 2015). Notwithstanding, both CISL and
CGIL—in the respective communications presented during the audi-
tions before the Labour Commission of the Senate in 2016 and of
Chamber of Deputies in 2017, concerning the bill S. 2233-B—demanded
that the regulation be improved but did not achieve the consent of
Parliament.
With specific reference to the right to disconnect, CISL, being con-
cerned with risks brought by an individual agreement setting the condi-
tions of smart work, insisted on the introduction of a provision expressly
recognizing at least the priority regulative role of collective agreements
(CISL 2016). CGIL demanded, in addition, that the employer be pre-
vented from using specific tools to survey workers when they are outside
their offices (CGIL 2017b).
A further effect brought by the upcoming revolution of Industry 4.0,
in this case criticized by the examined workers’ organizations, deals with
the individual bargaining between employer and employee. In the light
of above, trade unions are concerned that the affirmation of just-in-time
production and the increasing employee autonomy could move the most
skilled and qualified workers to breach the front of standardized-­
dependent labour agreement, agreeing individual, most flexible and/or
favourable conditions, with their company (Mandl et al. 2015, 72 ff.).
Finally, the debate is related to the structure and organization of trade
unions of the age of Industry 4.0. At this point, the concept of “smart
unions” was introduced. According to FIM-CISL, forthcoming worker’s
organizations could not be based only on traditional techniques of bar-
gaining and representation of workers, but the upcoming period of
change requires a new generation of officials, who are more competent,
selected on the basis of their abilities and knowledge, and also able to
suggest different and credible solutions to management. Therefore, edu-
cation will become fundamental not only for the workers but also for
their representatives. In addition, most of the services and information
provided by unions should become available on the web in order to ease
workers’ access and to increase the appeal of these organizations among
the new generation of employees. Some experts urged unions to become
174 M. Avogaro

more flexible, in line with the new generaion of employees: fundamen-

tally, being the representative of a group of 1,000 “ordinary” metalwork-
ers is different than representing 1,000 multitasking employees, and
different interests and bargaining power are in evidence. Therefore, tailor-­
made production could lead also to a new form of tailor-made trade
unions (Navaretti 2015, p. 33).
With reference to FIM-CISL’s point of view, the described strategy will
allow workers’ organizations to maintain, and if possible to increase, their
centrality in the age of Work 4.0. These proposals look to the future, but
in workplaces some efforts to adapt the labour context to new scenarios
have already been made by workers’ organizations through collective
agreements (Bentivogli 2015, 19 ff.; Pero 2015, pp. 26–27).

 ractical Solutions to Improve Organization

P
and Quality of Work: Collective Agreements

Through collective bargaining, Italian social partners recently attempted

to develop the first solutions congenial to Industry 4.0.
In light of the above, reference is made, in particular, to two remark-
able agreements:
–– the company one executed between Fiat and FIM, UILM and FISMIC
on 15 June 2010 to regulate the activity in the automobile factory of
Pomigliano d’Arco (De Luca Tamajo 2011; Santoro Passarelli 2011)
and
–– the national collective agreement executed by the main metalworkers’
and employers’ organizations on 26 November 2016.

The Fiat Agreement of 15 June 2010

The Fiat agreement of 15 June 2010, called the “Pomigliano agreement”,

has been executed as a condition posed by Fiat to approve an investment
of 700 million euros for the factory of Pomigliano d’Arco. This agree-
ment provoked a relevant debate as a consequence of its impact on indus-
trial relations (Carinci 2011, 11 ff.; Santoro Passarelli 2011, 161 ff.;
Garofalo 2011, 499 ff.).
 Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry 4.0: A German… 175

With reference to the matter of the current analysis, first of all, the
Pomigliano agreement introduced, in its Article 5, a new organization of
work that might represent a premise of Industry 4.0: the World Class
Manufacturing (“WCM”) system (Magnani 2011, 15 ff.).
WCM is a new management system of factories, developed in the US
during the ’90s and afterwards by Fiat during the first decade of the
twenty-first century (for an analysis of principles and structure of WCM,
see Mercadante and Spada 2015, 547 ff.; De Meyer et al. 1989, 135 ff.),
aimed to improve the quality of production through a theory based on,
among other things, principles of Lean Manufacturing (Liker and
Attolico 2014; Womack et al. 1993). The principles also include the
capability to promptly react to the modifications of the quantity and
quality of products requested by clients. In this context, WCM seems to
anticipate Industry 4.0, which, in the same way, is directed by means of
intelligent products and machinery to expand the just-in-time produc-
tion, and the final objective is to allow companies to reply immediately to
new market tendencies.
In addition, the philosophy of WCM is focused on teamwork and on
the participation of all the employees in improvements and successes of
their company (Mercadante and Spada 2015, 551 ff.). This is another
aspect shared with Industry 4.0, which tends to overcome the rigid
boundaries between directors and workmen, privileging teamwork and
the idea of a multitasking employee.
Finally, education is a key element of both WCM and Industry 4.0: on
this point, the new organizational scheme introduced by the Pomigliano
agreement supports the improvement of skills of the employees, and the
aims were to increase the competitiveness of the company and to strengthen
the security and safety of factories (Mercadante and Spada 2015, 558 ff.).
Beyond WCM, the Pomigliano agreement contains other innovations:
the most relevant is set forth by Article 3 of the agreement, which intro-
duced a new organizational scheme of tasks anticipating the reform of
Article 2103 of the Italian Civil Code enacted some years later by the
Jobs Act and, in general, the concept of the multi-role employee sug-
gested by Industry 4.0 (see “A New Concept of Manufacturing, a New
Idea of Work” section above) with the abandonment of the tayloristic
production model (Brollo 2016, 308 ff.).
176 M. Avogaro

In light of the above, the Pomigliano agreement can be considered a

step made by Italian industrial relations towards Industry 4.0 and to the
new structure of factories that could be imposed by the diffusion of smart
machinery.

 e National Collective Agreement of the Metalworker

Th
and Mechanical Engineering Industry of 2016

Another important effort to pave the way for the upcoming innovation
of Industry 4.0 is represented by the renewed national collective agree-
ment of the metalworker and mechanical engineering industry, executed
on 26 November 2016.
The agreement provides for a significant innovation in three specific
areas: professional levels, workers’ continuous education, and working
time.
In regard to professional levels, the new collective agreement expressly
recognizes the need to modify and overcome the old classificatory system,
elaborated in 1973, and charges a Joint Committee to detail proposals to
update it. In the same direction, it encourages companies to start experi-
mental periods in which they will test new methods to organize workers’
professional levels, under control of the aforementioned committee
(Armaroli 2016, p. 3). The experimentation will cease in December
2018, and the results could be used by social partners to single out the
more efficient way to improve work organization.
With reference to continuous education, section IV, title III, Article
7 of the national collective agreement recognizes, accepting a request of
FIM-CISL (see “FIM-CISL: Re-organize Workers’ Rights in the
Digitized Factory” section above), an individual right of the employee
to temporarily suspend work activity for educational purposes (Seghezzi
and Tiraboschi 2016b, p. 3). In particular, a worker hired without term
will benefit of 24 hours for each three-year period to be enrolled in
projects organized by the company or at the territorial/sectorial level,
aimed to enhance his education. In addition, workers not involved in
the said education projects will have the right, in any case, to benefit of
 Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry 4.0: A German… 177

a corresponding 24-hour period to be exploited in different activities to

improve their competencies. In the latter case, two thirds of costs will
have to be s­ ustained by the employer. In relation to Article 7, the over-
all number of employees that, at the same time, will have the possibility
to take part in education plans will be 3% of the total, but this number
may be modified by collective agreements at the company level.
Finally, with reference to working time, the agreement, as provided by
its section IV, title III, Article 5, encourages the workers’ and employer’s
organizations to find, at the company level, solutions to promote the
work–life balance. In addition, the same Article expressly mentions smart
working, specifying that the parties will consider whether to integrate the
collective agreement on the basis of Law 81/2017 (Armaroli 2016,
pp. 3–4).

Work 4.0.: The German Recipe

Germany is the European country which, before the others, started rea-
soning about implications of Industry 4.0.
In 2013, the German government launched the “Industrie 4.0” plat-
form (Scheremet 2015), which has been followed by different initiatives
promoted by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs
(Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales 2015) and by the Minister
of Economic Affairs and Energy (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und
Energie et al. 2015).
IG Metall—the main German trade union representing workers of
manufacturing—has been strictly involved in the aforementioned processes.

L ifelong Learning and “New Normal” to Win

the Digitization Struggle

In 2014, IG Metall launched a survey concerning the effects of digitiza-

tion of the industrial sector (IG Metall 2016). The results underlined the
key issues brought by the rising of Industry 4.0 and allowed the union to
elaborate first solutions.
178 M. Avogaro

In general, IG Metall emphasizes that the increased role of robots and

informatics in manufacturing will augment productivity, which will
entail a significant growth in the capability of industries to obtain value
from work and raw materials, maintaining the same workforce. Bitkom
and the Fraunhofer Institute for Labor and Organization forecast a
growth of the gross value of the German economy, as an effect of Industry
4.0 combined with other elements, between 2015 and 2025, of 78 bil-
lion euros, corresponding to an increase of 1.7% per year (Van Ackeren
and Schröder 2016, pp. 22–23). This economic development will inter-
est six sectors in particular: machinery and plant engineering, electrical
engineering, automotive industry, chemical industry, agriculture, and
information and communication technology (IG Metall 2016, p. 6).
Despite the optimistic economic predictions, IG Metall underlines
that the effect of Industry 4.0 on German employment levels is open to
discussion. The incumbent modification of the labour market will no
doubt have an impact on the kind of jobs and on the skills demanded to
workers, while risks concerning the increase of unemployment seem to
be connected to the capability of workers to adapt to the new
environment.
According to the survey of the German trade union, 42% of local
employees are working in sectors that will be reasonably automatized in
upcoming years. Therefore, the replacement risk rate corresponds to
45–46% for helpers and skilled employees, 33.4% for specialists, and
18.8% for experts with the highest levels of knowledge (IG Metall 2016,
p. 10). The risk is strictly connected to the ability of workers, social part-
ners and institutions to improve employees’ education in order to allow
them to be competitive in the new context. With reference to this aspect,
by 2025, IG Metall shows an estimated diminution of employment rates
in the areas of machine and plant control and maintenance (about −13%)
and a lower diminution in metal construction, installation, assembly and
electrical work (about −5%) and in other sectors involved in processing
raw materials and repair (−3%). Meanwhile, the augmentation of the
workers’ request will be mainly in the areas of IT and natural science
(+4%), law, management and economics (+3%) and media, arts and
social sciences (+2%). Consequently, the need to arrange instruments for
a possible shift of employees from the declining sectors to the rising ones
 Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry 4.0: A German… 179

urges the enactment of policies to provide them with fundamental knowl-

edge concerning the new working fields. The company considers that the
workers of the future will have to reply to two main requirements: high
skills and the ability to relate with complexity (IG Metall 2016,
pp. 10–11).
In light of the above, the first issue to be addressed concerns the national
educational landscape, which IG Metall does not consider advanced
enough for the requirements of digitization, soliciting its renovation.
New education opportunities, for people who already work, could be
provided by collective bargaining. In this field, the workers’ organization
is requesting that the current collective agreements are updated with a list
of key elements: (i) the arrangement of qualification plans based on the
upcoming technical and organizational changes and (ii) the introduction
of the right, for every employee, to a regular meeting with the employer
in order to determine whether and which qualification is required and to
reach a periodical agreement on the necessary qualification measures
(see “The Training Model of Baden-Württemberg: From 2001 to 2015”
section below).
Following the aforementioned plan, workplaces should be gradually
transformed into learning places. As an example, digital devices, such as
tablets, could acquire the double function of means to increase produc-
tivity and of new didactic tools. Furthermore, specific attention should
be paid to small and medium enterprises in order not to exclude them
from this process (on this point, see Bundesagentur für Arbeit 2016).
Meanwhile, for young trainees, notions of digital technology and prac-
tical lessons to apprehend how to adapt themselves to the working meth-
ods of tomorrow are considered to be fundamental in a work context
where a good educational background is no longer sufficient.
Analysing the results of its survey, IG Metall highlights the positive
and negative effects of digitization of manufacturing in employees’ ordi-
nary working life.
Industry 4.0 has the potential to remedy some critical traits generally
characterizing work in the industrial sector: most stressful activities will be
delegated to robots and hence reduced; ergonomic solutions could be
introduced in the workplace, especially to alleviate the labour of older
people; and new intellectual tasks will make several activities less routine.
180 M. Avogaro

On the other side of the fence, Industry 4.0 involves a series of critical
aspects that could jeopardize the condition of workers, partially deriving
from the new context and in some measure caused by an increase of the
typical employer’s power of control by mean of automatic and operating
at a distance machinery. With reference to the above, IG Metall focuses
attention on the ones concerning mobile working and the organization
of work in smart factories.
Smart working is considered an opportunity to improve the quality of
the work–life balance, implementing activities, such as maintenance ser-
vices, directly from a place selected by the worker. Conversely, it could
cause a worsening of the workers’ condition: the inability to be totally
disconnected from work could be the reason for stress, burnout or worka-
holism or, in any case, produce a substantial lengthening of the working
time.
A limitless flexibility in work processes, fostered by new instruments
brought by robotics and informatics, could lead to an augmented inten-
sity of working cycles and an increase of workers’ pressure and conse-
quently an augmented risk to develop related diseases (Hofmann 2015,
pp. 13–14).
The reply elaborated by IG Metall deals with a “new normal” working
relationship, shaped in the digital environment. The key factors individu-
ated by the German trade union are the following: to develop and rein-
force new methods of employee participation in the decisions concerning
the work environment, to extend to smart factories the co-determination
rights already recognized in normal production plants, and to enact new
and specific protection rights. A particularly critical issue, as in Italy, is
referred to the regulation of remote work, in order to prevent it to aug-
ment the precariousness and jeopardize a correct work–life balance (IG
Metall 2015b).
Finally, the evolution of work also concerns the structure of trade
unions. The position of IG Metall is that digitization of work is compat-
ible with workers’ organized representation but requests a different
approach. Innovation is not always unfavourable: therefore, the task of
employee organizations will be to single out the opportunities, for work-
ers, represented by technological progress and to use them to improve
 Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry 4.0: A German… 181

salaries or working conditions. The starting point is a positive approach:

not only attempt to resist to change but join the challenge represented by
Work 4.0.

 ollective Bargaining: Work–Life Balance

C
and an Improved Education System

With reference to Germany, the social partners revealed themselves to be

very active in introducing to collective bargaining some relevant elements
in light of Industry 4.0. The most important areas addressed by this process
are work–life balance and instruments to improve workers’ education.

 e BMW Agreement of 2014: A Way to Combine Private Life

Th
and Working-Time Flexibility?

In relation to time conciliation, it is worth underlining that, in recent

years, most companies, such as Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW, experi-
mented with strategies to allow workers to reach a better work–life bal-
ance and to protect workers’ health from illnesses, stress and other
psychological diseases, strictly related to the abuse of technology.
While Volkswagen attempted to solve the problem switching off e-mail
servers half an hour after the end of the working day and turning them on
half an hour before the opening of offices the next morning (Oberwetter
2015, 1 ff.) and Daimler introduced a tool that permitted the automatic
elimination of e-mails sent to the workers’ addresses while they were out
of office (Kaufmann 2014, 1 ff.), BMW tried to reach an ambitious agree-
ment with trade unions to protect employees and increase productivity.
Reference is made to the collective agreement executed in 2014, applied
to about half of the 79,000 BMW employees in the German boundar-
ies, which confers to workers the right to agree with their managers if
the employee can be contacted or not by the employer outside the ordi-
nary working time and in which part of the day these solicitations are
potentially admitted. In addition, according to the agreement, the
periods that the employee spends working at a distance are counted as
182 M. Avogaro

ordinary business hours in order to reduce the stay in the office the fol-
lowing days (IG Metall 2014; Grindt 2014). The results of the afore-
mentioned agreement, analysed two years after its introduction, are
therefore ambivalent. Workers and trade unions appreciated it as a flex-
ible and planned way to organize the working time, one that also rep-
resented an important example of the increasing independence of
employees in the age of Industry 4.0. Conversely, the described solu-
tion was criticised, because it seems not to discourage enough employ-
ees to continue their activity beyond the ordinary working time,
increasing the risks for their healt.

The Training Model of Baden-Württemberg: From 2001 to 2015

As far as means to improve workers’ lifelong vocational training are con-

cerned, according to IG Metall, one of the main examples is the qualifica-
tion system of employees of metal and electric industries, elaborated
through several collective agreements in Baden-Württemberg, between
2001 and 2015 (Bahnmüller and Fischbach 2004, 182 ff.; Huber and
Hofmann 2001, 464 ff.).
The core innovation of the agreement of 2001—the Qualifizier­
ungstarifvertrag—was the introduction of an individual right to educa-
tion for workers.
With reference to in-job education, each worker had been given the
right to an interview with the company, to be held at least once a year, to
single out training needs and the responding measures. The purpose was
to make it easier for workers to pursue a lifelong education programme
and to allow them to obtain the education needed to advance to higher
professional levels.
In regard to the employee’s right to personal education, the agreement
also ensured, in any case, the possibility to abstain from work after five
years from the date of hiring and the right to return to the workplace
within three years.
The Hans Blöcker Foundation observed the positive impact of the
Qualifizierungstarifvertrag. In 2003, the perception that tools provided to
 Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry 4.0: A German… 183

ensure continuous vocational training were insufficient dropped to about

50% among workers (69% in 1992) and to 12% in relation to managers’
opinion (42% in 1992). At the same time, the system of identification of
training needs, based on annual interviews, was promoted by 42% of
employees and 71% of managers (Bahnmüller and Fischbach 2004,
pp. 184–186).
In 2015, a further update of the Qualifizierungstarifvertrag agreement
provided for relevant innovations (IG Metall 2017a): first of all, the social
partners individuated part-time as the main tool to allow workers to
profit from their education rights.
In particular, the aforementioned kind of part-time work, functional
to training activities, allowed, in general, the employees to reduce his or
her business hours for a maximum period of seven years for educational
purposes, maintaining the right to return, afterwards, to his or her origi-
nal workplace or in an equivalent position (IG Metall 2017b).
Furthermore, the 2015 agreement introduces means to sustain the
wage of workers passed to part-time to increase their qualification:
employees continue to perceive, in general, 50% of their original income
and they can increase this rate until 70% by means of monetization of
extra-time hours or other bonuses accumulated in a personal account (IG
Metall 2017b).
Finally, the right to change to part-time for educational reasons is
strengthened by the introduction, due to the agreement reached by
social partners in 2015, of a joint committee composed of representa-
tives of both parties. The committee is charged to smooth out conflicts
between employer and employee when the part-time right is contested
and attempt to solve the dispute where the clash is irreconcilable (IG
Metall 2017b).
The introduction of the aforementioned tools could also yield reliable
results in Italy, especially with reference to the new requests of con-
tinuous update in education that Industry 4.0 will entail. Therefore,
the measures taken by the considered social partners to improve and
correct the education system introduced in the mechanical engineer-
ing industry of Baden-Württemberg should also be considered in the
Italian perspective, even to implement and ameliorate the education
184 M. Avogaro

rights initially provided by the collective agreement of the same indus-

trial category executed in 2016.

 dditional Best Practices and Prospective Solutions to Enhance

A
Workers’ Conditions

As indicated above, Industry 4.0 means for employees, according to its

supporters, more independence in performing tasks, an augmented flex-
ibility in organizing the working time, and a new centrality of the figures
of the (qualified) workers in the organizational plans of the companies.
IG Metall underlines that all of the opportunities reported above
should be concretized in workplaces and transformed in rights receivable
by workers. Collective bargaining is the main way to reach these goals.
In addition, the above-mentioned trade union individuated a list of
best practices that could enhance working conditions in the work envi-
ronment of Industry 4.0.
Reference is made, firstly, to policies to train workers in handling tech-
nology—in particular, online devices. This matter is also important to
prevent illnesses and diseases that could relate to Work 4.0. At this point,
some German companies promoted policies of sensitization of employees
in relation to risks hidden behind an excessive utilization of online devices
to work remotely or during rest periods. In particular, E.on expressly
invited its workforce not to send or reply to e-mails outside the ordinary
business hours except for emergencies, and Bayer experimented with
“days without e-mail” in the office to encourage people to enhance human
relations with colleagues (Kaufmann 2014, 1 ff.).
The new concept of factory, analysed jointly with novel issues raised by
the demographic changes that occurred in some developed countries in
the two last decades, could also lead to the implementation of new instru-
ments to support and protect ageing people who are not yet retired. On
this point, a valid example is represented by ThyssenKrupp Rasselstein
GmbH, which introduced among its premises a fitness studio, nutri-
tional advice and a stress management structure, all financed by the
­company, to provide older workers with all of the functional services to
protect their health and allow them to work in the best conditions (IG
Metall 2015b).
 Evolution of Trade Unions in Industry 4.0: A German… 185

Conclusions
Industry 4.0 seems to be the technical innovation that could concretely
modify and possibly improve and relaunch manufacturing and conse-
quently the economic growth in Italy and Germany.
The possibility—thanks to the development of robotics and informat-
ics—to increase the productivity and bring back industrial sectors off-
shored in the preceding decades could be a remarkable opportunity for
European weak labour markets.
As for industrial relations, the analysis of the Italian and German
debate highlights some common positions.
In both countries, attention is focused mainly on the mutation of skills
demanded of workers in the new scenario. Lifelong training is considered
a key element to allow people to remain competitive in the labour market
and to protect less-skilled workers from the concurrence of robots. On
the other hand, flexibility on the job, the augmentation of opportunities
to work remotely or with a non-standardized working time, and the dif-
ferent representation models requested by multitasking workers will be
issues that trade unions of the future will have to address.
Whereas FIM-CISL seems, at the moment, more concentrated on
forthcoming effects of Industry 4.0, and in particular on the modifica-
tions that it will provoke in the organization of work, concerning profes-
sional levels, time conciliation and the structure of labour agreements, IG
Metall appears to be focused on the current protection of employed peo-
ple and to reinforce education, considered the main instrument to defend
workers from the concurrence of robots and intelligent machinery.
With reference to practice, the results of the debate highlight the role
of collective bargaining as a fundamental instrument to conjugate tech-
nological evolution and the protection of workers’ rights. Moreover, bar-
gaining is seen as a tool that allows social partners to introduce relevant
innovations in factories, such as the qualification system of the
­Baden-­Württemberg agreements or the WCM production system of the
Pomigliano agreement executed in 2010.
Therefore, collective agreements and dialogue between social partners
remain, in the modified scenario, the main instruments to balance the
186 M. Avogaro

workers’ requests and the employers’ need to innovation: this outcome, in

any case, seems not to be destined to soothe the conflicting role of work-
ers’ organizations. Continuous vocational education, work–life balance
and new rights and protections identified under the label of “new normal”
are essential elements to ensure the protection of employees’ conditions
and employment rates in the future. Thus, trade unions seem to be ready
to revitalize their conflicting role to obtain results in this domain if the
way of dialogue fails. Consequently, it would be advisable that social part-
ners would continue in the current positive effort to satisfy the new
demands through “win-win” collective agreements, where technological
improvement of production is paired with the increase of workers’ condi-
tion, also to prevent the risk to have to find an equilibrium between oppo-
site interests in the new digitized scenario through a period of conflicts.

References
Armaroli, Ilaria. 2016. Rinnovo metalmeccanica: i punti qualificanti. Bollettino
ADAPT Speciale 12: 1–4.
Bahnmüller, Reinhard, and Reinhard Fischbach. 2004. Der
Qualifizierungstarifvertrag für die Metall-und Elektroindustrie in Baden-­
Württemberg. WSI-Mitteilungen 4: 182–186.
Bentivogli, Marco. 2015. Sindacato futuro nell’era dei big data e Industry 4.0.
In #SindacatoFuturo in Industry 4.0, ed. Marco Bentivogli, Dario Di Vico,
Luciano Pero, Gianluigi Viscardi, Giorgio B. Navaretti, and Franco Mosconi,
3–21, ADAPT University Press.
———. 2016. Abbiamo rovinato l’Italia? Perché non si può fare a meno del sinda­
cato. Roma: Castelvecchi Editore.
Brollo, Marina. 2016. La mobilità professionale dei lavoratori dopo il Jobs Act:
spunti sul caso Fiat/FCA. Rivista Italiana di Diritto del Lavoro 3 (1): 307–320.
Bundesagentur für Arbeit. 2016. Program WeGebAU. http://www3.arbeit-
sagentur.de/web/content/DE/BuergerinnenUndBuerger/Weiterbildung/
Foerdermoeglichkeiten/Beschaeftigtenfoerderung/index.htm. Accessed 15
Dec 2017.
Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales. 2015. Re-imagining Work. Green
Paper Work 4.0. Berlin: Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs,
Directorate-General for Basic Issues of the Social State, the Working World
and the Social Market Economy.