Artificial Intelligence: Workers’ unions must shape deployment and regulation

The report, Artificial Intelligence: What are the implications for trade unions?, brings together research on the effects of AI deployment on job quality and fundamental labour rights. It also explores wider societal challenges related to AI, including its influence on public service delivery, social protection, the environment and development.

It warns of the risks posed by unregulated AI and algorithmic management and outlines the essential role of trade unions in ensuring a just digital transition.

Key insights from the report include:

• AI systems are accelerating job fragmentation and intensification.
• Algorithmic systems are increasingly used to manage work schedules, pay and even dismissals, often lacking transparency or accountability.
• These systems are frequently deployed without consulting workers, undermining labour rights, increasing psychosocial risks and eroding privacy.
• Although often promoted as drivers of efficiency, evidence shows that such technologies are far from perfect and productivity gains are frequently overstated.
• AI is reinforcing labour market inequalities, with low-skilled and women workers more exposed to the risks of automation.
• The development and use of AI are creating poorly paid, precarious and intensive working conditions for workers, especially in the global south, who work on these technologies.

Trade unions in action

Trade unions are already responding. Examples cited in the ITUC report include collective agreements in Europe with Just Eat/Takeaway, sectoral standards from the Federation of Trade Unions of the Republic of Kazakhstan (FPRK) in Kazakhstan and organising initiatives like African Tech Workers Rising.

The report also highlights key developments in AI regulation, while calling for stronger enforcement of labour and anti-discrimination laws and union rights in the digital era.

Luc Triangle, ITUC General Secretary, stressed: “The rapid development and deployment of AI must be accompanied by sufficient regulation, with workers included in this process. The ITUC demands that all governments, employers and international institutions ensure that workers and their unions play a central role in shaping the AI-driven future of work. By ensuring that trade unions can actively engage in the digital transformation, we can create a just future of work.”