Cohort: ESOL 39

Topic of the thesis: The influence of the digital transition on the workforce in the automotive sector and the answer of trade unions in a comparative perspective

Abstract: Advanced operational technologies have been introduced in all the economic sectors in the last years and are expected to have a significant impact on the socio-economic systems. Research includes in this group different tools and solutions such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, cloud, robotics, artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing, all elements and instruments shaping the so called "Industry 4.0" (if not even an actual Fourth Industrial Revolution). Investments in new technologies are crucial to survive and be competitive in the post-Covid era and the impact that the so called "general-purpose" and "enabling" technologies are having on the world of work must not be ignored. The present study aims at providing new insights concerning the consequences of Industry 4.0 on employment, workplace organisation, job quality and the level of inequality among workers, in the attempt to overcome the black-and-white picture of the new technologies as driver of growth and a potential engine for the creation of new, highly skilled jobs on one hand, and the progressive extinction of medium and low-skilled jobs due to a substitution of capital to labour on the other. Moreover, the study will also examine the eventual reaction and strategies adopted by the most relevant trade unions and workers' representatives to support, adapt to or oppose the technological innovation. The research will concern the automotive sector, at the forefront of adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies, and will be carried out as a comparative analysis between Italy and at least another European country, taking into account both similarities and differences in their economic and industrial relation systems and comparing the different outcomes.

Research interests: Labour Studies, Employment Relations, Comparative Industrial Relations, Labour Law

Graduated from: University of Bologna (BA); University of Milan (MA)

Degrees obtained: BA in Philosophy; MA in Global Politics and Society

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