Open Letter: Algorithmic Management and the Future of Work in Europe

The EU’s new focus on algorithmic management could safeguard workers’ rights in a tech-driven workplace.

On 17 September 2024, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen published the Mission Letter for Roxana Mînzatu, Executive Vice-President-designate for People, Skills and Preparedness. Building on the European Pillar of Social Rights, the letter directs the Commissioner-designate ‘to focus on the impact of digitalisation in the world of work’, including notably ‘an initiative on algorithmic management’.

This focus on algorithmic management — the increasing automation of traditional employer functions, from hiring to firing workers — is to be welcomed: it builds on the Union’s success in setting out the world’s first comprehensive framework for governing platform-based work, and the explicit recognition in the AI Act that automated decision-making in the workplace poses significant risks to decent working conditions and fundamental rights.

Important gaps remain: algorithmic management has long outgrown its origins in platform work, and has come to workplaces across the socio-economic spectrum, from factories and warehouses to professional service firms and universities. The AI Act fails to confer meaningful rights on individuals, and leaves little space for context-specific regulatory approaches, notably collective avenues for social dialogue.

Only a dedicated, legally binding, instrument can fill these gaps. Building on the Platform Work Directive, the Union should enact a Directive on Algorithmic Management, including prohibitions of particularly harmful practices; transparency obligations; rights to challenge, monitor, and rectify automated decision-making at work; and information and consultation rights for worker representatives.

This will secure a future in which workers’ fundamental rights are protected and socially beneficial innovation ensured. With confirmation hearings due to begin imminently, the European Parliament has a unique opportunity to clarify the expectations surrounding Vice-President-designate Mînzatu’s mandate: nothing less than a Directive will be able to provide Europe’s workers and employers with the clarity needed to ensure wide-spread adoption of genuinely productivity-enhancing technology.

Signatories:

Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Oxford University

Halefom Abraha, Utrecht School of Law

Antonio Aloisi, IE University

Diego Álvarez Alonso, Universidad de Oviedo

Alberto Barrio Fernandez, Copenhagen University

Joanna Bronowicka, European University Viadrina

Philippa Collins, Bristol University

Nicola Countouris, University College London

Valerio De Stefano, Osgoode Hall Law School

Isabelle Ferreras, University of Louvain

Giovanni Gaudio, Università degli studi di Torino

Elena Gramano, Bocconi University

Martin Gruber- Risak, University of Vienna

Piotr Grzebyk, University of Warsaw

Tamás Gyulavári, Pázmány Péter Catholic University Budapest

Ann-Christine Hartzén, Lund University

Frank Hendrickx, KU Leuven

Christina Hiessl, KU Leuven

Jorn Kloostra, Radboud Universiteit

Eva Kocher, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

Miriam Kullmann, Utrecht School of Law

Marta Lasek-Markey, Trinity College Dublin

David Mangan, Maynooth University

Claire Marzo, Université Paris Est – Créteil

Marta Otto, University of Warsaw

Vincenzo Pietrogiovanni, University of Southern Denmark

Nastazja Potocka-Sionek, University of Luxembourg

Valeria Pulignano, KU Leuven

Luca Ratti, University of Luxembourg

Iván Antonio Rodríguez Cardo, Universidad de Oviedo

Six Silberman, Oxford University

Bernadett Solymosi-Szekeres, University of Miskolc

Simon Taes, KU Leuven

Annamaria Westregård, Lund University

Raphaële Xenidis, Sciences Po Law School