Broadening the spectrum of employee voice in workplace innovation

ended

In current workplace developmental processes where the emphasis on direct employee voice is growing, the role of trade unionists and worker representatives can be theoretically questioned and so are the instruments they traditionally put in place (i.e., collective bargaining, co-determination, information and consultation procedure), now in competition with the direct and informal channels of worker voice, increasingly made available by employers. However, these mainstream narratives and theoretical assumptions appear to be rather simplistic since they do not shed light on the various shades of worker representatives’ approaches and behaviours towards employee-driven innovation, which in turn may depend on the different power resources and institutional frameworks; and even more importantly, they end up overlooking the concrete possibilities for expansion of worker voice and workplace democracy and evolution of industrial relations actors and practices, spurred by their engagement in workplace innovation. Therefore, to make a step forward into these dynamics and give a substantial contribution to some cross-cutting priorities of the European Commission (The European Green Deal, A Europe fit for the digital age, An economy that works for people), BroadVoice is aimed at investigating (thus helping foster) the role of worker representatives and industrial relations (i.e. collective bargaining, co-determination, consultation) in promoting, regulating and implementing workplace innovation via direct employee voice. To achieve this goal, BroadVoice gathers research institutes with experience in both industrial relations and work organisation from 6 EU countries, responsible for conducting in-depth qualitative research and developing stakeholder engagement activities and empowerment tools. BroadVoice also involves 14 national and EU-level social partners as APs and each partner’s network supporting data collection and dissemination of main project outputs.