Challenges for Labour

The challenges for automotive workers and their organisations in the transition to the electric vehicle are multifaceted. There is not only the restructuring of vehicle production and engine assembly sites, with the reductions in labour requirements that this implies, but also the conversion of workers' skills and qualifications, or more generally the change in working and employment conditions. This stream also aims to interrogate the way in which trade unions negotiate and deal with electrification. How do they manage to negotiate or impose a 'just transition'? What alternative plans do they develop in the face of those of the automotive firms? What mobilisations and conflicts does electrification provoke? Electrification is presented as a guarantee for maintaining automotive employment in countries that have experienced a decline in their workforce. This stream also aims to study what electrification implies in terms of investments in new battery and vehicle production sites, and the emergence of a workforce along the battery value chain.