Thursday, September 25, 2025
Friday, September 26, 2025
U of T: Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus
108 College Street Toronto, ON M5G 0C6
University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC)
Miller Lash House, 130 Old Kingston Rd
About the event
On September 25–26, 2025, researchers, organizers, and practitioners from Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, and the United States gathered at the University of Toronto for Workers Governing Digital Technologies: Collective Strategies Across Contexts.
The two-day workshop explored how workers and their organizations are shaping the governance of digital technologies — including platforms, data, and AI — through collective bargaining, co-operative formation, and policy reform. Participants shared case studies and experiences across sectors such as culture, technology, delivery, and media, focusing on worker-led approaches to ensure technologies serve the public good.
Co-organized by Professor Rafael Grohmann and Professor M.E. Luca, the event was supported by the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) along with a network of partners: the SSHRC Connection Program, the Creative Labour and Critical Futures project (UTSC), the Brazilian Institute of Science and Technology / Informational Sovereignty and Disputes (INCT/DSI), the Institute for Inclusive Economies and Sustainable Livelihoods (IIESL/UTSC), and the Centre for Learning, Social Economy & Work (CLSEW/OISE).
The workshop facilitated dialogue among worker organizations and academics engaged in reimagining how technologies are designed, deployed, and governed. Discussions emphasized the value of worker-centered perspectives — approaches that foreground the experiences, agency, and priorities of workers themselves. These included examples of AI governance in collective agreements in the United States, policy innovations in Spain, platform co-operative movements in Brazil and Argentina, and emerging co-operative and union initiatives in Canada.
To learn more about the initiative and stay tuned for upcoming publications and video stories:
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About the Organizers
Rafael Grohmann is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies (Critical Platform Studies) at the University of Toronto. He is research associate at the University of Oxford, founding editor of Platforms & Society journal and leader of DigiLabour initiative. His research focuses on digital labour, AI and work, AI in the cultural sector, workers’ organizing, platform cooperativism and digital solidarity economy, especially in Latin America. He is also a Faculty Affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, a Senior Fellow at Massey College and an Advisory Board Member at the Centre for Culture and Technology. His previous affiliations include Weizenbaum Institute and University of Sao Paulo. Rafael published in academic outlets such as Big Data & Society, New Media & Society, International Journal of Communication, Information, Communication & Society, and Social Media + Society. He is an editorial board member of Communication, Culture and Critique and Big Data & Society.
Greig de Peuter researches the political economy of digital media and cultural production, with a focus on work, employment, and collective organizing. He is coauthor, with Nicole Cohen, of New Media Unions: Organizing Digital Journalists and, with Nick Dyer-Witheford, of Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games.
His current research documents collective responses to exploitation, precarity, and inequalities within media, art, and other cultural sectors. The primary framework for this research is Cultural Workers Organize, a SSHRC-funded collaboration with Enda Brophy, Nicole Cohen, Kate Oakley, and Marisol Sandoval. Cultural Workers Organize has published on alternative worker organizations, union drives, policy reform proposals, worker co-operatives, and coworking spaces, among other infrastructures of mutual aid.
Alongside his research, Greig has frequently worked collaboratively on alternative education, public scholarship, and curatorial projects. He was a cofounder of Critical U, the Toronto School of Creativity & Inquiry, and Letters & Handshakes. In these and other collective contexts, he has co-organized several public forums, symposiums, and exhibitions.
