Global and Regional Trade Unions and the Future of Work Regulation

Debate on the ‘future of work’ is ubiquitous but such discourses are also a debate over policy settings and regulatory institutions. Many policy challenges or domains for labour regulation – environmental protection and the impacts of climate change, precarious and platform based work, labour migration, the governance of global value chains, gender based violence at work – transcend national boundaries and involve global policy networks, public campaigns, and labour mobilisation. Emerging forms of regulation are characterised by interaction between public and private regulatory mechanisms and the power, interests and agendas of state, business and labour organisations. The supranational character of policy debates and regulatory initiatives means there is potential for global and/or regional trade unions to drive or shape them. Yet their resources, strategies, organisational logics and impacts on policy and regulation remain understudied. This session will consider questions such as:

• What are the impacts of global/regional union campaigns on policy debates and regulation?
• Do global or regional unions merely exercise influence or do they play an agenda-setting role?
• What is distinctive about global or regional unions that informs their approach and impact?
• What impact do global/regional unions have in policy and regulatory domains like labour migration, environment, gender at work, precarious and platform based work, or the governance of global value chains?
• What is their relationship with international organisations in policy and regulatory domains, for example, the ILO and other UN agencies or regional trade or supranational authorities?