Valencia has celebrated the last 23 and 24 days the international seminar “Challenges and Opportunities in Work Scenarios in the 21st Century”.
The organization CEAT (Spanish Center for Workers’ Affairs) brought together different European organizations belonging to EZA (Europäisches Zentrum Für Arbeitnehmerfragen), which includes more than 70 organizations across Europe, to discuss and make proposals regarding the transformation of jobs and the digital economy. A variety of officers representing political parties, trade unions, universities and different European Union countries participated.
The main topics of the debate focused on technology as an element of change, the incorporation of artificial intelligence to maintain and improve the well-being society and the risks we also assume with regard to the lack of privacy and security in digital environments. The conversation also focused on the need to adapt vocational training to the real needs of the market and to directly link STEM to these studies due to the high number of jobs that exist and will arise in these subjects.
Some of the discussed approaches were put on the table by Salomé Pradas, during the opening session, highlighting the diversity of existing professions and their adaptation to the new digital space. Not all can include 100% scanning. He stressed the need to take care of the typical professions of the region such as the tile, and to protect the workers and employees of the sector, underlining the importance of actively participating in Europe and proposing alternatives to promote the employment, basically among the youngest.
Piergorgio Sciaqua, co-president of EZA, also underlined during the inauguration the importance of social dialogue between all European actors and the necessary collaboration between member countries to continue building Europe and the Europe of the future. where technology is an added value to maintain and improve quality of life and well-being.
The rural environment was also one of the issues on which the need to take measures to reactivate the exodus from cities to cities was established. This return to rural areas has been favored by the COVID pandemic, reappearing as places of first and second residence. This has been possible thanks to telework, this rebalancing is something that we must take advantage of and follow lines that guarantee quality work and real connectivity everywhere. It was pointed out that this repopulation of the rural environment facilitates the possibility of maintaining and taking care of the environment, of avoiding fires and that the animals can develop in a suitable environment. For this, the incorporation of technologies, sensors and drones, among others, can facilitate the maintenance and control measures of these spaces.
Miguel Barrachina pointed out that just as large corporations acquire CO2 emission rights and pay for them, farmers should charge for the profit they make from upkeep of the countryside and the upkeep and conservation of trees. which limit pollution, for example in the fields of orange trees. One of the most applauded ideas was that it was easier for farmers and ranchers to do their job without too much bureaucracy and be allowed to do what they know about the environment. The approach is to enhance hunting, pruning, preventive maintenance of the forest through a serious plan based on knowledge of the environment, using surveillance with drones, cameras and technologies, being able to anticipate the various problems that may arise. In Barrachina’s words, when the land is abandoned and no longer tended, a fire is fueled within 10 years.
José Seco, President of Education of the CSIF of the Valencian Community, facilitated through the titles the importance of lifelong learning. Education is an essential part of life, the feeling that teachers, parents and students have with legislative changes is one of chaos. There is a lack of adequate support for students so that they know how to achieve their goals and that families know that there are always several ways to achieve it. The system must offer the necessary opportunities so that everyone can, through regulated, unregulated, mixed, face-to-face training or any other modality, access a job once their training and specialization have been completed. From his long experience in the field of education, he raised questions such that we live in a liquid society and learning must serve so that society continues to evolve and in this, digital and technological are a guaranteed because these skills are implicit in our company. It makes no sense that after years in the education system, students arrive at jobs and cannot perform them competently due to a lack of preparation that companies have to provide. Seco, also raised as criticism, the latest changes that the educational legislation proposes due to the reduction of the effort necessary to pass courses without demonstrating a minimum and explained that the only thing that interests the government is to obtain good results by modifying the data at a statistical level, but it is a deception because the students come out less educated. The law of minimum effort prevails.
The professor of economics, Javier Morillas, energized the table in which different organizations presented the vision of the future of work in their respective countries, Poland, Portugal and Italy and also the representative of the USO union showed the actions and work they are currently carrying out. Participation Pedro Estevao Researcher at the University Institute of Lisbon (CFTL-BASE-FUT) – Portugal, Dª. Agata Dziubińska-Gawlik, president of Europejski Dom Spotkań – Fundacja Nowy Staw – Poland, José Manuel Pessanha, president Federação dos Trabalhadores Democrata-Cristãos (FTDC) – Portugal, Sheila Rosauro of USO Jovenes and María Reina Martin vice-president of EZA . Without a doubt, artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the crucial elements that generates a great transformation of work, but it also has a direct application in maintaining and improving the current state of well-being. José Luis Fernández, Director of the USO Design Office, explained the importance of applying these technologies in daily work, highlighting the risks of lack of privacy that teleworking can cause and the security breach that is inherent, as well as the importance of the individual self-management of the employee not to be permanently connected and to run the risk of not being disconnected.
Another of the elements discussed throughout the conference is the need to promote STEM studies and more specifically in the field of vocational training, Vicente Marchante, President of USIE, Union of Education Inspectors of the Community of Valencia, presented the current legislative changes implemented at national level and in the Valencian Community itself and the need to link these vocational training studies to STEM due to the large number of emerging professions and those that will be created in the years to come for which there are not yet defined professional profiles.
The debates and conversations of the seminar continued with a boat tour of the Albufera Valenciana where participants from the different Autonomous Communities and participating European countries were able to discover first-hand the environmental richness of this protected environment and the processes related to Culture. , marketing and export of rice.
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