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Annette Mühlberg works for the United Services Union (ver.di) in Berlin. With more than 2 million members - both regular employees and freelancers - ver.di is one of the largest independent trade unions in the world. She is head of the ver.di-working-group on digitalization and responsible for digital labor, net-politics and e-government. She was member of the Enquête „Internet and Digital Society“ of the German Bundestag, a commission of experts and parliamentarians advising the German Federal Parliament. For 15 years she has been focusing on the challenges of digitalization in respect to democracy, civil rights and a co-determined world of work and she developed model company agreements in the field of e-government to strengthen public interest and good working conditions.
Guidelines for good digital labor
“Dignity, self-determination, solidarity and good work in the digital society!“ was the title of our recent ver.di conference in June 2015. As trade unionists we want to shape new forms of working and influence the political framework, ensuring a decent life for everyone – be it a regular employee with a stable working contract or a freelancer.
We fight on to establish a collective agreement for Amazon as well as to implement trade union achievements like co-determination, freedom of association, minimum wages, employee data protection, occupational health and safety and social security to the new field of online platform work.
We will use the German model of social partnership to shape this technology-driven social change and to abandon precarious work and poverty among the elderly. We will not leave the figuration of our living and working conditions to multinational companies.
Therefore, we cooperate with the German Federal Ministry of Labor to develop new forms of social insurances for freelancers such as platform workers a new right to further training for all employees. ver.di created guidelines for good digital work that became the official resolution of the Confederation of German Trade Unions. In her presentation she will address these guidelines and present new ways of innovative trade union work.