Governments should evaluate the extent to which psychometric testing—the use of questionnaires aimed at psychologically profiling job candidates—provides accurate insights about whether someone is qualified for a job. Decision-makers should consider regulating or limiting employers' use of these tools to make employment decisions based on their potential to create discriminatory outcomes.

Governments should rigorously evaluate, and consider regulating, employers' use of predictive algorithmic software to make decisions about job recruitment, hiring, compensation, and employee evaluation. In light of the growing prevalence of these tools, which create the potential for unfair profiling and discrimination, decision-makers should have accurate information about what inputs and functionalities produce these outcomes.

Governments should create and enforce provisions to prevent platform economy companies (such as food delivery services) from retaining tips meant for workers.

Governments should take steps to address the recent proliferation of noncompete and similar provisions in employment contracts. Creating and enforcing provisions against the improper use of noncompetes and no-poach/no-hire agreements can improve working people's wages and job mobility.

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Governments should support the expansion of worker-owned and -controlled job-matching services, which would give workers power in the job-matching process and allow them to establish floors for wages and benefits and otherwise improve workplace standards, all while creating an empowered worker community.

A Worker Organization Administration should be established  to provide technical assistance and counseling to workers interested in starting worker organizations and organizations interested in initiating organizing campaigns. In addition, the WOA could contract with worker organizations to train workers participating in works councils, serving as workplace monitors, and serving on corporate boards.

Governments should create partnership with unions, worker centers, and other worker organizations to enforce labor standards and proactively address issues in the work environment. A partnership with a government agency can play a legitimizing role for a worker organization, encouraging workers to take the organization more seriously and encourage support for collective organizing.

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Governments should pass laws to create mechanisms for digital picket lines, requiring employers to allow workers to mirror in-person collective action in online transactions. Functioning essentially as a disclosure regime, the digital picket line would require employers to allow workers to inform online customers about strikes occurring at the employer’s physical site.

Governments should allow workers to express their desire for collective representation by signing a card or petition, whether physical or digital, without the need for a formal election process administered by an external review board. Cards or petitions would be presumed valid and would trigger bargaining obligations until they are actually declared invalid by the board.

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Governments should pass statutes mandating that workplaces of a predetermined size have a worker-elected workplace monitor. In workplaces with 500 or fewer workers, there would be a single workplace monitor; in workplaces with more than 500 workers, the workers would elect 1 workplace monitor for every 500 workers. The monitors would be empowered to help ensure the workplace’s compliance with all state, federal, and local employment and labor laws and receive paid time off for their monitoring work.

Governments should expressly protect the right to collectively bargain among any independent contractors who: (1) do not employ any employees; (2) who make little capital investment—roughly defined as investment that is limited to the needs of the independent contractor personally (e.g., one car, one set of tools, one computer, etc.)—in their “businesses”; and (3)who share the same economic relationship with a single company.

Governments should require employers to facilitate workers’ communication by providing workers (and/or worker organizations) with a way to contact their coworkers. This obligation could run either to everyone in the organization, a default that many companies currently use (e.g., because their internal email address books include everyone in the organization); to all of the workers in an organization who are covered by labor law; or to subsets of workers who do similar jobs. This requirement could be as straightforward as requiring employers to provide workers with a list of company email addresses or other contact information, but a communications-facilitation requirement could be more effective if workers had a private forum for online communication.

Governments should significantly increase employer penalties for intervening in organizing campaigns, including making punitive damages available. For example, if an employee is discharged or suffers other serious economic harm in violation of the substantive rights to organize provided by labor law, the new statute should require that the employee be awarded backpay (without any reduction for interim earnings) and an additional award in damages.

Governments should expand access to skills training by making workers who lose their jobs eligible for a Dislocation Reskilling Account. The account would provide public funds to invest in training through an apprenticeship or other training program, with a community organization or at a community or technical college, to prepare workers who lose their jobs for new jobs created as a result of technological shifts in the workplace.

Governments should allocate funding for rigorous professional development to prepare teachers from diverse backgrounds to integrate technology into their teaching.

As the number of middle-skilled and middle-paying jobs decline in the years ahead, other jobs like home health aides and personal care aides are projected to grow at an even faster pace. Despite their growth in number, care jobs rank very poorly on various important job quality markers, such as flexibility and safe working conditions. Policy makers can enact steps to improve the quality of these jobs, such as addressing wages, regulating to improve working conditions and safety, and enhancing opportunities for upward mobility and training.

Given the difficulties identified by workers in transition of changing careers, internal pathways to management provide an accessible path toward greater economic stability and resilience to automation. However, women are much less likely to desire and pursue these internal promotions, due to factors such as less scheduling flexibility, greater presumed childcare and family responsibilities, and bad experiences in more demanding roles. Employers should address these concerns directly via scheduling and management changes to make management opportunities attractive and possible for women.

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Labor unions should include wage coordination and sectoral agreements in their collective bargaining strategies to help companies and workers adapt to the new world of work. Governments should also intervene to provide better access to collective bargaining rights and to make these changes possible. Ideal outcomes for employment, productivity and wages are measurably reached when sectoral agreements set broad conditions for worker's rights, and when social partners negotiating for different groups of workers establish common wage targets.

Policymakers should consider the “ABC Test” as a legal standard for evaluating whether workers must be classified as employees (as opposed to independent contractors or other non-standard arrangements). Under this test, the default assumption is that workers are employees unless certain conditions are satisfied. Wide adoption of the ABC test for determining employee status would lead to greater compliance and would benefit workers, employers, and enforcers alike. The test would provide a more clear and comprehensible method for all parties to determine status, in contrast to the plethora of overlapping yet distinct tests that exist in many jurisdictions.

Government agencies should collaborate and share data where possible to locate violators of worker misclassification laws. In many states, individual agencies often operate in silos, each with its own internal culture and method. Because most misclassification and payroll fraud violations consist of multiple infractions – wage and hour, unemployment, tax and insurance fraud – enforcement will be that much more effective if the appropriate agencies share information and strategies.

Lawmakers should provide an express legal designation for the misclassification of workers who should be employees as independent contractors. In many states, there is no express prohibition on misclassification, but the issue arises through the enforcement and case law development under wage and hour, unemployment, and other laws. Creating this designation can streamline enforcement efforts and allow jurisdictions to impose specific penalties for misclassification.

Governments and educational institutions should prioritize the development, validation, and promotion of a broader ecosystem of stackable skills-oriented credentials, such as microcredentials, badges, and short-term certificates. Stackable skills-oriented certifications can fill the signaling problem for workers without diplomas or degrees by capturing employability skills and other noncognitive skills. They also benefit students by not penalizing program noncompletion as harshly and offering credit and certifications for obtaining intermediate skills.

Unions can experiment with a form of membership or affiliation founded on ideological alignment rather than provision of services—an organization of people who want to learn about and support unions but are not currently represented by a union—similar to the American Civil Liberties Union, Sierra Club or National Rifle Association. These diffuse supporters could be a source of leaders and support for efforts by working people to come together in a union or to bargain a fair contract, as well as for pro-worker policy initiatives.

Governments should create “transportation workforce funds” paid for by mileage-based user fees on highly automated vehicles. Eligibility for the use of these funds should include but not be strictly limited to wage supplements, health care premiums, retirement benefits, extension of unemployment insurance benefits, and training or retraining programs. These funds will ease job transitions and bolster economic security for workers as automated transit and ride-hailing services enter communities.

Governments should broadly define the joint employers liable for compliance with labor and employment laws. This includes penalizing lead companies when their contractors violate labor and employment laws; regulating temp and staffing agencies and raising standards for their workers; and holding global corporations and governments accountable for labor standards in their supply chains, including public procurement. Employers, joint employers, and lead firms all must be held accountable for ensuring decent work.

Governments should expand occupational licensing to include lower-skilled jobs. By allowing workers to signal their level of skill, they could raise their status and potentially charge higher prices for their work. There is evidence to suggest that the introduction of occupational licenses for security guards and nursery assistants could potentially raise their earning power.

State governments should incentive job creation in the care economy via voucher based work solutions. An employer would receive a voucher from a public authority to be used as payment for a worker’s service. This would help to legalize undeclared work in casual work industries such as agriculture and household services.

Companies should adjust their management models to be more collaborative and to give workers more autonomy and flexibility at work. In contrast to command-and-control models of the past, workers of today favor collaborative management patterns that allow them greater control over how they allocate their working time. Successful management models would be built on a collaborative, trusty-based, and transparent flat hierarchy. This would benefit businesses by allowing them to attract and retain talented workers while allowing workers the autonomy to best leverage their skills.

Governments should recognize the wide variety of forms of modern self-employment and consider the potential of digital platforms to offer support to self-employed people. While self-employment is growing in popularity, this group of the labor force lacks access to the benefits of employed workers and is less likely to have savings for retirement. Government-supported digital platforms could make it easier for workers to make the correct tax payments, pay into pensions, and give self-employed workers a stronger voice.

Government should implement a right for workers on a zero-hour contract to request a fixed-hour contract after a certain period of time. This would provide workers a consistent set of hours, beginning, for instance, at the average weekly hours worked over the past 12 months. Such a policy would provide workers better income security and allow them to better plan for their future.

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Policymakers should develop legislation that makes it easier for workers to receive basic details about their employment relationship up front, such as requiring employers to provide a written statement of terms to the employee upon hiring. as well as updating the rules on continuous employment to make it easier to accrue service. This would include basic information about the workers' weekly hours and wages, sick pay, pension, healthcare benefits, and whether the employee begins receiving these on day one or must first work for a period of time. Such a notice should be written in simple language that is understandable and not filled with legalese, such that there is little chance for misunderstanding between the worker and employer about what the terms and expectations of employment are.

The state government should consider a higher minimum wage for hours worked that are not guaranteed in a workers' contract. While this would allow employers to offer zero-hour contracts to workers who want them, employers would be incentivized to schedule more of workers' guaranteed hours in advance. If set at a proper rate to accomplish this, with consideration for the effect on minimum wage law compliance, such a policy would provide additional compensation to workers for the flexibility demanded of them.

Government should reform the tax system to make it easier for self-employed workers to understand. As employment taxes are often handled by employers, including income tax withholding, the tax system can be difficult for self-employed workers to navigate and plan for. Digital tools and payment systems could help workers to comply with tax laws by helping them to determine the proper amounts owed.

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Governments should create regulations that require companies of a certain size to report on their contractual agreements with workers. Companies would be required to report the number of zero-hour contract workers who request and obtain fixed hour contracts, as well as the number of temporary employment agency workers who request and are granted permanent positions. This would make public company policies for outside observers that would otherwise be kept behind closed doors.

Unions should broaden their mandate in recognition of the ways that employers and labor markets influence workers' lives outside of the workplace. Unions should apply techniques such as collective action and collective bargaining to the problems that workers encounter as "taxpayers, renters, mortgage-holders, consumers, students, student-loan debtors, and citizens of an endangered biosphere." This will help unions to achieve better outcomes for workers that go beyond the simple employee-employer relationship.

Governments can enact legislation to develop and oversee the establishment of a portable benefits system.  With a portable system, essential benefits would be tied to the individual worker rather than the employer. A wide range of benefits could be made portable, including health insurance, retirement, training programs, and childcare allowances. These "portable, prorated, and universal" benefits would provide more financial security to formal and informal workers alike.

Employers should create broader ownership opportunities for their workers. This could include expanding executive stock and profit-sharing compensation systems to all workers; making stock compensation tax-free; deferring taxes on stock options; further limiting the deduction for executive compensation for companies that do not offer broad-based ownership options; and establishing a social insurance program to protect workers who own company stock from extreme losses. With an ownership stake, workers may be more supportive of automation. Worker ownership is associated with greater employment stability, as well as higher firm productivity, profitability, and longevity.

Policymakers should create worker-elected work councils and require a certain level of worker representation on corporate boards. Employers should be pushed to give workers a greater voice in decision-making that affects them, and workers need to be part of strategizing how to ensure automation decisions are made to benefit not only shareholders, but also workers and communities.

Governments should expand paid leave programs for self-employed, part-time, independent, and gig workers as part of a plan for universal access to paid family and medical leave. Benefits should be portable—not tied to any particular job, but rather linked to the worker who can take the benefit from job to job or project to project—to accommodate for the frequency of changes in employment and alternative work arrangements.

Governments should promote policies encouraging employers to reduce working hours, which would grant workers additional leisure time and redistribute productivity gains more equitably. More leisure time, combined with increased income and purchasing power, generates demand for new activities and products and grows the economy.

Technological workers should organize to form a dedicated union so that they are empowered to address labor issues that affect them uniquely. Such a union could result in technology agreements that create minimum standards for the introduction of new machines in the workplace, as well as a greater influence over which technologies are developed and who they are sold to.

Governments should pass legislation clarifying the classification of emerging types of employees, as well as the enforcement of workers' rights for currently unprotected employees. Legislators should focus on a clearer outline of the tests for employment status, setting out key principles in primary legislation and using secondary legislation and guidance to provide more detail.

Governments could look to consumers to play a more active role in supporting and funding portable benefits. The government could create legislation that holds consumers responsible for funding benefits to self-employed workers. For example, passengers of self-employed car services could be required to pay a percentage fee on every journey to contribute to funding benefits for these workers.

Governments should partner with big firms to provide workers with some ownership of company assets to supplement their wages. This might be achieved via taxation or with an "inclusive ownership fund" formed by taking a percentage of shares from large companies. Asset equity offers a means to ensure that workers share in the benefits of new technology, and that they stand to gain a larger share of the economic growth driven by higher productivity.

Unions can develop and offer financial services like, portable benefits, directly to their members.

Few traditional unions serve the needs of atypical workers. Union leaders need to adapt their models to include the growing number of self-employed and non-standard workers. To do this, they could consider partnering with and potentially funding co-working spaces and other organizations that house and represent such workers.

Worker networks and labor organizations can establish worker centers to help workers organize and more effectively engage in collective bargaining. Workers centers are nonprofit, community-based organizations that provide social services and labor resources. They help fill a void in sectors where non-standard forms of employment predominate and in industries where workers face barriers to formal unionization.

Governments should raise the minimum wage and subsequently make targeted minimum wage increases consistent with local conditions. A higher minimum wage boosts earnings for workers with little effect on overall employment.

Employers should extend benefits frequently enjoyed by full-time employees to their part-time and contingent workers.These workers are often ineligible for many taxpayer-supported programs that are designed to provide them with basic protections on the job and in retirement, and they have limited prospects for career advancement. If workers were eligible for benefits on a prorated basis, the incentive for businesses to expand the use of contingent work would also be reduced or eliminated.

Employers should ensure that their workers are getting decent wages, employment benefits, predictable scheduling, and training and advancement because this will lead to a more productive workforce.

Unions should advocate in new ways for workers through legal means, alliance formation, and regulatory reform, taking into account the potential impacts of automation on their fields. The authors advocate for decentralized and/or innovative collective bargaining structures to include more isolated groups of workers, particularly in light of the rise of flexible work arrangements. Non-standard employment in fields vulnerable to automation creates substantial opportunities for membership, since more and more individuals are in need of the services and support that workers’ organizations offer.