President Shuler: Workers Need a Seat at the AI Table

The labor movement is not anti-technology. We’re pro-worker.

That’s why we’re fighting for workers to have a seat at the table on the big innovations that are changing the future of work to make sure they meet the needs and interests of workers and working families.

In a Politico article published this week, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler gave her insight into how unions are a big part of the answer to navigating the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

Read the full Politico article here.

The article discusses how the issue of AI has been a key issue in high-profile contract negotiations where workers came out on top. SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) all dealt with issues related to technology and automation.

Liz explained how these highly visible strikes served as a kind of wakeup call:

“The Writers’ Guild got everyone’s attention because they were talking about the dumbing down or gig-ifying of their work based on AI…”

“They were being asked to just plus-up what ChatGPT writes for Hollywood. That is not only dehumanizing, but it’s taking away the creativity and the craft and dumbing it down to ones and zeroes. And it’s sort of woken up the entire country around the potential for this kind of technology and how it’s going to impact work.”

These concerns aren’t unique to Detroit autoworkers or Hollywood screenwriters. From Amazon warehouse workers and delivery truck drivers to fast-food and hospitality workers, technology plays a huge role in the future of work for all of us.

That’s why the AFL-CIO launched our Technology Institute in 2021 to serve as the labor movement’s think tank and help us solve issues created by technology, such as algorithm bias, worker privacy, and training and reskilling. Our goal is to ensure technology benefits everyone, not just the wealthy and powerful.

Last December, the AFL-CIO and our Tech Institute put that goal into motion with a historic new partnership with tech giant Microsoft that provides a neutrality framework for worker organizing by AFL-CIO unions and an open dialogue to discuss how AI must anticipate the needs of workers and include their voices in its development and implementation.

As Liz explained in the article:

“Instead of [corporations] saying, ‘OK, we’re going to tell you how the technology is going to be implemented,’ we need to actually be upstream in the development of the technology and have workers’ voices in those labs shaping what happens.”

“Unless you have the ability to come together with your co-workers and shape [technology], put guardrails around it, negotiate what your role is in it, then it’s not going to benefit us all in the way that it needs to…”

Read the full Politico article here.

Learn more about AI and labor.

In Solidarity,

AFL-CIO

(Source) AFL-CIO