BTX3117 Global regulation against the dehumanisation of work

In this unit, you will explore a different way of thinking about workplace regulation, with the starting point that workers are not just economic actors, but people with digital and environmental footprints as well as personal lives and responsibilities. You will examine regulatory responses to real-world challenges that affect you and others as workers, including AI-driven management and automation, climate-related risks, and increasingly diverse and fragmented working and personal lives. You will engage with global regulatory developments to understand how different regulatory systems within countries, industries and firms are responding to these challenges. You will also consider the limitations of these approaches and be invited to imagine alternative futures for workplace regulation. By the end of the unit, you will be able to critically assess whether existing regulatory interventions adequately protect workers’ dignity, safety, security and wellbeing in a technologically evolving, climate-affected, and insecure and atomised labour market, and to explain how workplace regulation might be redesigned to better respect workers' humanity.