Unions are winning protections as AI-powered workplaces grow
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As AI begins powering workplaces from ports to casinos, labor unions are notching substantial contract wins and beginning to piece together an AI-focused safety net.
Why it matters: Workers say they're open to AI that improves job outcomes and safety, but around half of American adults tell an Axios Morning Consult poll they're worried that AI will cost them or their loved ones their jobs.
- American workers in global industries face competition from increasingly automated workplaces in Asia, but those workers still lack rights and protections that will be offered to Europeans under the new EU AI Act.
Driving the news: Microsoft and the AFL-CIO struck a deal, announced Monday, to train labor leaders in aspects of AI and make it easier for workers at Microsoft to unionize.
- In a related move, Microsoft also agreed to include AI protections in a contract at the company's ZeniMax game studio, covering several hundred staff.
Zoom out: Microsoft's push for AI dialogue comes in the context of an increasing number of workplace disputes about AI rollouts.
- Unions have used contract negotiations to win rights to transparency, consultation and compensation — as workers across industries and skill levels fear their jobs being eliminated, or that they'll be forced to retrain with little or no support from employers.
Zoom in: Then there's the question of who owns the virtual version of you — and the answer may have decades of economic consequences.
- Companies are developing computer-simulated versions of employees' likenesses and treasuries of their knowledge faster than laws are developing ways to make sure the employees aren't being exploited.
- Striking actors won the right to compensation and limits on the use of digital replicas. Writers won protections against AI rewriting their material.
- Hotel and casino workers in Las Vegas have been winning expanded technology rights from big employers, including advanced warning of new tech rollouts that impact jobs, training for jobs altered by AI and freedom from certain types of surveillance.
Yes, but: Unions are winning battles, but may not be ready to win a war around increasing automation.
- China is moving towards fully automated ports and leading European ports are following suit.
- Workers at 29 West Coast ports sealed a new six-year contract in August, but focused on pay rather than automation, even as advanced automation expands at ports like Long Beach.
- A new Teamster contract covering 340,000 UPS drivers won impressive salary increases but no system for managing a UPS fleet transition to autonomous vehicles that's already underway.
What they're saying: "Bring workers in early in the process," AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler argued earlier this month at a Harvard University event. "Use our expertise to brainstorm, develop and implement new ideas."
- Microsoft President Brad Smith wants AI designed with workers in mind, and told Axios' Maria Curi on Monday that he expects that the EU's AI Act will lead to "a lot of the existing protections that workers have in Europe applied in the context of AI."
- As manufacturing jobs were offshored from the 1980s onwards, many workers missed out on effective retraining, or ended up replacing one solid job with several precarious ones.
- We need "to learn from that experience and really incorporate workers and unions in the solutions to how to deploy this new technology," Amanda Ballantyne, director of the AFL-CIO Technology Institute, tells Axios.
What's next: Shuler tells Axios that she's meeting with EU and U.K. counterparts this week to "compare notes" and coordinate a global approach to worker-centered AI policy.
- Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is preparing an AI education bill to expand AI-themed training in technical education institutions.
