On Wednesday, the largest US group of unions called on employers and policymakers to join the effort in what it is calling “workers’ first initiative on AI.” functionally, Effort In addition, an education campaign by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) aims to strengthen collective bargaining in the workplace and advocate for regulations to limit the negative impact of AI on workers.
“We reject the false choice between American competitiveness on the world stage and workers’ rights and dignity,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in the press release. The AFL-CIO’s membership includes 63 unions and approximately 15 million workers, ranging from pro hockey players to nurses to merchant sailors.
The AFL-CIO released a list of top priorities for a “worker-centered tech future.” These priorities include, inter alia, AI-powered workplace surveillance or stronger enforcement of labor rights against layoffs; protection against copyright infringement; retraining programs for workers to enter the AI workforce; and transparency into AI systems purchased with taxpayer money.
While the AFL-CIO’s priorities are clear, the group does not specify what “serious consequences” employers will face “for using technology to undermine democracy and civil rights.” However, Ed Witkind, interim director of the AFL-CIO’s Technology Institute, points out The Verge Potential measures that have been used for decades to protect workers include court cases, fines or criminal charges.
Witkind calls collective bargaining “one of the best tools available to manage this transition” for a future with AI. He explains how the UAW worked with car manufacturers to automate the auto sector in the 1950s. “That’s why you have state-of-the-art equipment in some transportation sectors and workers work quite well with that equipment,” he says.
The group also says it will use collective bargaining power to fight against AI-powered workplace surveillance. Witkind says contract negotiations are a tried-and-true method of preventing employers from hiding video cameras around the workplace or other surveillance issues that dates back to the 1980s. (Now, however, most office technologies can survey workers, he says.)
The AFL-CIO also says workers need to be involved in the AI development process. This is a big question for tech companies, but the AFL-CIO points to government-funded AI research as a place for workers and unions to have their say. “Including workers’ voices and unions in these research initiatives must be a necessity and a national priority,” the AFL-CIO says. In practice, Witkind says employees can help companies save money by avoiding purchasing useless or unsafe technology.
In addition to labor efforts, the AFL-CIO is focused on state and national bills to regulate AI. “There are ways to put a requirement into laws and regulations that you have employees involved in the future of new technologies,” Witkind says.
Regulating AI has been an uphill battle at both the state and federal levels. When bipartisan efforts came together to cut the AI moratorium on state-level regulation from President Trump’s Big Beautiful bill, it was an action. AFL-CIO endorsedTrump revived the idea in his AI action plan. In California, the legislature passed an AFL-CIO-backed senate bill 7Humans are needed to monitor AI-enabled firings and any workplace discipline. California Governor Gavin Newsom then vetoed the “No Robo Boss Act”. on 13th October,
Witkind called Newsom’s veto a disappointment but not a deterrent. The AFL-CIO “will continue to bring strong, common-sense guardrail policies to state legislatures — and, by the way, this is one of those issues that unites Republicans and Democrats in a way that we don’t see in almost any other issue area,” Witkind says.
The AFL-CIO faces wealthy opponents. AI Super PACs are in vogue this year. Meta created its own pro-AI California super PAC in August to funnel money into ads promoting the company’s own political agenda. According to the latest data available, the California chapter of the AFL-CIO spent more than $2 million in political donations to California elected officials in 2024. CalMatters Digital Democracy DatabaseThat’s 30 times more than the $70,000 the group spent in California in 2023.
Witkind says the AFL-CIO has never passed such a unified technology agenda before. Earlier technology agendas generally focused more on one sector or type of worker than others. Not with AI, says Weitkind. “You can’t point to a single sector of the economy or public services that won’t be impacted by AI, at least moderately, if not heavily.”
