J.L. (José Luis) Gallegos

José Luis is a PhD candidate in the Department of People and Organisations at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam.

His research is guided by a simple but increasingly urgent question: who gets to shape what technologies do at work? José Luis studies how automation, AI, and digital systems affect workers’ jobs, skills, and ability to exercise voice in organisations. He is especially interested in settings where these changes are highly visible and contested, such as ports, logistics, and telecommunications. His work combines qualitative fieldwork, archival research, and comparative institutional analysis.

His dissertation consists of three studies. The first examines how dockworker unions in the Port of Rotterdam shape technological outcomes through collective action and bargaining. The second analyses how contested technology projects maintain legitimacy over time. The third studies how self-service technologies externalise labour to consumers in the telecommunications sector. Together, these projects develop a broader research agenda on how technological change redistributes tasks, authority, and the boundaries of recognised work.

José Luis also works closely with labour organisations and policy actors to connect research with practice. He has collaborated with unions and the International Transport Workers’ Federation on projects related to negotiating AI through collective bargaining. Before coming to RSM, he completed a Master of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and worked in the Mexican Congress. He also teaches courses on negotiation, qualitative methods, and social change.