Fearing AI Will Take Their Jobs, Workers Strategize for a Long Battle Against Tech

The current frenzy surrounding artificial intelligence has spread like a shockwave.

It started among engineers inspired by a 2017 Research Paper. Later venture capitalists were eager to profit from the new boom. Government officials ran after them Imposition of regulations.

Now it’s time to work.

More than 200 trade union members and technologists gathered in Sacramento this week for a first-of-its-kind conference to discuss how AI and other technologies threaten workers and strategize for upcoming fights and possible strikes.

The Making Tech Work for Workers event was convened by the University of California’s labor center, unions and worker advocates and drew people representing dock workers, home care workers, teachers, nurses, actors, state office workers and many other professions.

A key takeaway from the proceedings: Workers of all stripes are determined to fight — during contract negotiations and in day-to-day operations — for the right to negotiate more control over how AI is deployed within companies. Union representatives detailed how AI threatens jobs, from writing screenplays to driving taxis to calling people as cashiers.

When technology tracks your every move, it affects your physical and mental health, said Lewis, an Amazon worker in California’s Inland Empire, who asked CalMatters not to use his last name for fear of retaliation. He felt that he could not stop moving or get help from colleagues when lifting heavy objects. This leads to back pain that makes it difficult to sleep at night, and feelings of depression and reduced self-worth.

“I just couldn’t deal with being a robot,” he said, describing why he quit. Later he returned to the job as there was no other opportunity.

Amazon spokesman Steve Kelly responded that “Employees are encouraged to work with purpose, not speed, and can take short breaks at any time to use the restroom, grab water, stretch, or step away from their screens. Additionally, employee safety, inventory quality There’s nothing unusual about using cameras to confirm or protect against theft—it’s common practice at nearly every major retailer in the world. Employees who have questions or concerns about this technology or any aspect of their job are not usually allowed to, but routinely They are encouraged to bring it up to managers and are provided with a number of tools to support them in that process.”

President-elect Donald Trump prepares to begin his second administration and the rally comes shortly before the California Legislature’s Feb. 21 deadline to propose bills for the current session. It’s unclear how Trump will respond to technical and personnel issues. He has made some promises that seem favorable to big tech, such as regulations he sees as harmful to innovation and vowing to rescind an executive order signed by his predecessor that provided protections for AI.

But he’s also positioned himself as an advocate for blue-collar workers left behind by the tech elite: just last month He called automation harmful to workers. Observers have also wondered where, exactly, the incoming president stands on issues like H-1B visas for foreign tech talent or how he might be swayed by high-profile adviser Elon Musk, the ubiquitous tech billionaire.

Conference attendees didn’t focus much on Trump. Instead, they focused the discussion on how to protect workers from technology that could exploit them or automate discrimination. Union representatives unanimously urged workers to discuss how AI and other technologies are used in the workplace during bargaining. Many called for workers to become more involved in technology issues, such as how to use tech to form committees or push for committees where management must discuss technology with workers before implementation.

About 150,000 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union — people who work at stores like Kroger and Albertsons — and 100,000 National Nurses Union members Both will face key battles over automation this year as they negotiate new contracts. Grocery workers will challenge the role of self-checkout stands while nurses contest AI tools they say could affect their duty of care and prioritize health care and insurance company profits over patient health.

Corporations have long marketed AI to consumers and investors as a technology that will change the world for the better. But gatherings like the conference in Sacramento show that unions are using AI as a way to galvanize workers to organize their workplaces.

Unions have a steep hill to climb Increase membership and workforce power, said Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of the AFL-CIO Tech Institute, but including AI in collective bargaining negotiations is key because AI has so many uses in the workplace and workers have strong opinions about them because they are experts. Know better the security impact of a new tool on their own job.

A number of union representatives argued at the conference that workers must gain and exercise power to push back against the rollout of technologies that have the potential to exploit them, show contempt for them, or take their jobs.

A Report The UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute revealed earlier this year that 4.5 million Californians are in 20 industries labeled at high risk of job loss due to automation, and more than half of high-risk workers are Latino. Automation that takes away jobs is a major concern for three out of four Americans, according to a Gallup poll taken last yearBut AI that predicts employees, manages employees or Try to track and measure their every move said Annette Bernhardt, director of the UC Berkeley Labor Center. he As CalMatters previously said He is less concerned about AI taking over jobs than he is about algorithms used in the workplace that treat humans like machines.

AI has the potential to reduce inequality and improve worker health and safety, but it also has the potential to cause job losses, suppress worker organizing efforts, and intensify the demands placed on workers, a phenomenon that Amazon warehouses have high injury rates.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s executive director and chief negotiator, said AI illustrates why organizing workers is important, as it forces employers to discuss the use of AI during contract negotiations rather than unilaterally deciding to introduce technology into the workplace. can . But obtaining such contract clauses requires the foresight of union leaders, who must craft a message that can resonate with workers and the public.

“We’re up against the biggest corporate interests and the biggest political interests you can imagine, and working together in unity is where our strength comes from,” he said. “Especially because we’re going to face a lot of challenges at the federal level, in California, we can use public policy to advance collective bargaining and use collective bargaining to advance public policy.”

A lot of the technology introduced in the workplace is simply employee surveillance, advocates say, and that’s nothing new. “It’s old bosses with new tools,” said Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Labor Federation. Three years ago, as an assembly member, Gonzalez introduced a law Prevents the algorithm from denying workers break time or personnel safety violations.

Amid uncertainty over how the Trump administration will address union concerns about the technology, Gonzalez told CalmMatters last week that he is working with counterparts in Oregon, Massachusetts and other states, including Washington and Wisconsin, to pass legislation to protect workers’ privacy in the spaces. Break out rooms and bathrooms and make sure they know when an employer is collecting data about them or monitoring work performance.

Currently the California Privacy Protection Agency Drafting rules that would require businesses to inform job applicants and employees when AI is in use and allow them to opt out of job data collection without consequence. California would become the first state to enact such a rule, but that regulation is still under discussion. Also the California Department of Civil Rights Drafting rules to protect workers from AI that could automate discrimination.

Gonzalez said he doesn’t like relying on such rules because they can take a long time to finalize and implement, indicating Fight to keep workers safe from hot workplacesA battle that has gone on for the better part of a decade.

Meanwhile, people like Amba Kak see opportunities for gains by activists against technological threats but say it may require picking the right battles strategically. Kak previously advised the Federal Trade Commission and is executive director of the AI ​​Now Institute, a nonprofit that researches the human rights implications of technology.

Seizing these opportunities requires attention to issues that can build bridges between labor and other actors in the technological justice movement. For example, activities in data centers can bring together people concerned about climate and labor and local communities that visit data centers Use plenty of water and energy.

Kak told Calmmatters that he plans to focus more on the activities of state legislatures in places like California and New York, where Lawmakers are already considering A bill that protects humans from AI, similar to California’s Senate Bill 1047, A controversial bill requiring AI protections that Newsom vetoed last year.

“Labor is at the forefront of defending the rebalancing of power and insisting that people have a say in determining how and under what circumstances this technology is used,” he said.

This article was Originally published in The Markup and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives License