A new book, "Where the Rubber Hits the Road: Labour and the Struggle for a Just Transition to Electric Vehicles", offers an important insight into the transformation of the automotive industry.

Is the shift to electric vehicles delivering a fairer world of work, or are workers across Europe and the rest of the world being left behind?

A new book, "Where the Rubber Hits the Road: Labour and the Struggle for a Just Transition to Electric Vehicles", offers an important insight into the transformation of the automotive industry, its global trajectories, and what the shift means for workers and labour relations.

Edited by Mathieu Dupuis, Ian Greer, Harry Katz, and Anja Kirsch, and forthcoming from Bristol University Press early next year, the book offers a global comparative view of the electric vehicle transition across Europe, North America, Asia, and the Global South.

The authors examine why the transition is delayed and why workers so often find themselves in a precarious position — regardless of how strong their institutional protections are.

CELSI researchers Patrik Gažo, Monika Martišková, and Tibor T. Meszmann are among the co-authors of Chapter 6, "Employee Representatives of Automotive Suppliers on the Transition to Electric Mobility: A Comparative Analysis of Germany and Central and South-Eastern Europe".

The chapter was prepared together with researchers led by Martin Krzywdzinski (Weizenbaum Institute / WZB Berlin / Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg) - Ştefan Guga (Syndex Romania), and Katarzyna Rakowska (University of Warsaw).

Drawing on the experiences of nearly 300 employee representatives from Germany, Central and South-Eastern Europe, the chapter reveals that German plants are more active in developing new products for electric mobility, and that early worker involvement is linked to greater innovation efforts.

In Central and South-Eastern Europe, such involvement remains rare — due to weak institutional rights and low union presence — with trade unions in both regions resorting to concession bargaining to protect jobs.

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