New Technology

The risk

Digitalisation, automation and algorithmic management are transforming all modes of transport and logistics, changing how work is organised, supervised, controlled and performed across global supply chains.

While technological change can improve efficiency and safety, human and labour rights risks arise when technology is deployed without meaningful worker involvement. Across transport, algorithmic management systems, data-driven performance monitoring, and data-driven management and operating models increasingly determine work allocation, routes, workloads, pay and access to work. These systems can intensify work, reduce autonomy and create constant surveillance, shifting operational and commercial risk onto workers.

Platform-based transport represents the most advanced form of algorithmic management. Workers may be managed entirely through digital interfaces that control task allocation, pricing, rating and deactivations with little to no transparency or human oversight. This compounded by the misclassification of employment status that exclude workers from labour protections, collective bargaining and social security, increase platform transport workers’ exposure to excessive working hours, income instability and safety risks.

Automation also redistributes and can increase risk. ITF research on technological change in airports shows that technology is frequently introduced alongside workforce reductions, increasing physical and mental strain, intensifying work and increasing safety pressures when operational realities are overlooked. Where worker expertise is excluded from system design, safety margins can be reduced and critical operational knowledge lost, creating new and often less visible safety risks. 

Similar patterns are emerging in ports and logistics, where AI systems and automated operations are intensifying work, expanding surveillance and introducing new systemic safety risks. Where human oversight is reduced or frontline worker experience is excluded from system design, likelihood of serious incidents increases. In complex and high-risk environments such as ports, the introduction of new technology can compound risks when commercial pressures override safety.

In some cases, automation and digitisation have also been used to weaken trade unions and collective bargaining by fragmenting workforces, reclassifying workers or removing positions traditionally covered by negotiated agreements. Weakening this representation undermines one of the most effective mechanisms for identifying and preventing risk. When workers cannot raise concerns, refuse unsafe work, participate in operational decision-marking or bargain collectively, companies face heightened legal liability, regulatory scrutiny and reputational damage and risk and undermining effective HRDD. 

Women transport workers – often concentrated in customer-facing and lower-paid roles – and young workers in non-standard employment face heightened risk of job displacement, unsafe work intensification and exclusion from secure employment as a result of digitalisation, automation and opaque algorithmic management systems.

Responsible technological transition therefore requires companies and supply chain actors to ensure automation strengthens, rather than bypasses, social dialogue and collective bargaining.

Women are often at the sharp end of automation as their jobs may be particularly at risk. 


 

What companies and supply chain actors must do

Companies and supply chain actors must examine how technological change is harnessed to strengthen rather than weaken risk across their transport supply chains.

As part of HRDD, how digitalisation, automation and algorithmic management affect workload intensity, safety outcomes, income security, employment status and worker autonomy. Risk and impact assessments must be robust, ongoing and explicitly analyse gender-impacts and impacts on young workers.

Algorithmic management must be transparent, accountable and subject to meaningful human oversight. Technology must not incentivise excessive hours, unsafe speeds or income dependency through opaque rating or deactivation systems. Platform and gig models must align with the ITF Gig Economy Principles. Platform business models must not be used to misclassify workers, weaken collective bargaining or circumvent labour protections. All workers, regardless of contractual status, must retain access to occupational safety and health protections, social protection and trade union representation.

Automation, digitalisation and major technological change must not be introduced unilaterally. Companies should engage in early and meaningful negotiation with workers and their trade union representatives before implementation, ensuring that safety, job security, working conditions and rights protections are fully assessed and safeguarded.

Effective governance of technological change requires ongoing engagement with workers and their trade union representatives, including cooperation with the ITF and its affiliated unions, to identify risks, participate in system design and implementation, monitor impacts, and ensure that protections are applied consistently across transport supply chains.

Technological transition must strengthen social dialogue. Failure to manage technological risk exposes companies to legal liability, regulatory scrutiny, operational disruption and reputational damage.