New technologies, organizational changes, and labour: a multidisciplinary approach

Technological innovation has undergone great development leading to the era of the digitization of the economy. We are facing new technological advances and the disruptive transformation of the logic and patterns of work. The possibilities offered by technological innovations make it possible to highlight the widespread incidence of this process in all economical sectors and in all the tasks carried out in them and, therefore, in the discipline that regulates work, the Labor law.

Technological innovation has impacted both the quantity of employment and its quality. To this end, robotics, office automation, telematics, digitization, big data, artificial intelligence, the internet of things. etc., have led to the destruction of a few jobs (technological unemployment) and, at the same time, have generated new job opportunities (product innovation).

Beyond the incidence of new technologies in the volume of employment, they affect all areas of Labor Law. To this end, technological innovation has collaborated decisively to blur the contours of the subjects of the employment relationship, that is, workers and employers. The possibilities that new technologies introduced in the provision of services have accentuated the already widespread tendency to configure relations of productive activity not subjected in whole or part to the rules of Labor Law. These situations of flight from Labor Law include the identification of the worker, which is revealed by the proliferation of new forms of autonomous and para-subordinate work. Thus, new technologies enable new ways of working collectively through virtual platforms, creating an actual explosion of the collaborative economy.

In this context, this multidisciplinary research considers the challenges posed by technological innovations in business organizations and in the field of labour in general. The aim is to put forward proposals that make it possible to reconcile the necessary flexibility so that companies can adapt to technological changes with the maintenance of fair and dignified working conditions in all forms of employment.