Michael Schwemmle, Peter Wedde DIREKT 03/ 2019 SHIFT OF POWER IN THE DIGITAL WORK ENVIRONMENT – THE GERMAN CASE Employees need new rights! OVERVIEW As part of the digital revolution, it becomes ever more clear that the balance of power in work environments is shifting at the expense of labour. There have been calls for years for new policies and regulations, but so far with very little success. Without them, the risks mount of an increasing loss of security and collective coherence, and disempowerment of human workers. In order to bring the power structure in the digital work environment back into balance, law­makers need to enact appropriate and innovative measures without delay to strengthen the position of workers. Regardless of their differing assessments of individual aspects of the digital shift in the work environment, the abundance of academic, journalistic, and political publications on the sub­ject all come to the same conclusion – if we want to exploit the potential of digitisation and keep its negative consequences in check, we need policies to shape its structure. In reality, the intense discussions of the last few years about how to shape the digital working world have resulted in very few legislative initiatives. The question of whether, how, and when labour policy and legal reforms will actually be implemented has be­come increasingly urgent. 1 But what would happen if those policy measures are never enacted? If the digital revolution in the work environment is shaped only by issues of corporate efficiency and financial considerations? That would have grave consequences. Without a policy framework, there is no chance of fully exploiting the oppor­­tunity for better and, above all, more self-determined wor­king practices that arise from digital flexibility in the space-time structure of the work world and the expanded scope for auto­nomy it offers workers. 2 In addition – and this development has profound consequences across society – digitisation increasingly changes the power structure in the employment sphere. Even now, the influence of management is growing amid the digital upheaval. Without a policy and legislative framework, those who control the digital machinery would be able to further skew the already asymmetrical power balance between capital and labour to their advantage. Without politi­cal regulations, the digital revolution fosters a loss of security and collective coherence, and a disempowerment of human labour. Those developments, both on their own and together, strengthen the dominance of capital, and weaken, individu­ally and collectively, the power resources of the labour force. DIGITAL LOSS OF SECURITY The tendency towards less job security is not a something that has appeared just recently, and neither can it be attri­buted exclusively to the digital revolution. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that digital technology and its application have accelerated the loss of security in two ways in the service of streamlining business management practices. First of all, all prognoses predict an increase in ways to replace human labour with technology. We do not need to evoke an“end of all work” scenario to reach the conclusion that the digital revolution poses a danger to the jobs, or at least the skill set, of many workers. Even if not directly threatened with temporary unemployment, they will be confronted with un­stable employment situations, the danger of their knowledge and skills becoming obsolete, and the necessity of complete pro­fessional re-orientation in a turbulent work environment. Without a political framework, the possibility alone of threa­tening workers with being(digitally) replaced strengthens the position of management. As a result, individual employees, unions, and works representatives, whose power derives largely from shortages of labour, could find their negotiating positions weakened. >