20514: Re-Imagining Algorithms, Data, and Democracy at Work: A Symposium on Data-Driven Labor Organizing

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

08:30 - 10:00 CEST (GMT+2)

Location: Bella Center: Hall A- A2-m1

Session Type: Symposium (panel)
Orientation: Practice,International,Research
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/nR6zJD

Organizer(s)

SN

Stig Nyman

Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Panelist(s)

EM

Eric Monteiro

-, Norway
NM

Naja Holten Møller

University of Copenhagen, Denmark
SJ

Sirkka Jarvenpaa

U. of Texas at Austin, United States
SK

Sonja Koehne

Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Germany
JP

José Parra-Moyano

IMD - International Institute for Management Development, Switzerland

The increasing datafication of the workplace is often cast as a source of organizational and managerial control of workers. This panel symposium moves beyond this view by exploring how the proliferation of data at work not only implies a reshaping of organizational control but may also support labor organizing. Building on a growing body of scholarly work and activist projects that recast data and algorithms at work as a matter of democracy and a repertoire for collective action, this symposium explores counternarratives to the currently dominant management-centric discourse on workplace datafication and addresses the dilemmas and (research) opportunities that such counternarratives may introduce. The panel members, consisting of research pioneers of data-driven labor organizing and experts in datafication, will discuss how to navigate (and research) the politics, polemics, and practical challenges of representing worker interests through data.