The AFL-CIO, to which the SIU is affiliated, has issued the following news release:
Politico Magazine: Can AI Bring the Labor Movement New Power?
Technological change has a way of marginalizing workers. Liz Shuler hopes this time will be different.
Washington, D.C., April 1, 2024—Politico Magazine published a comprehensive profile Sunday on AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler’s strategy around emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). Shuler, who represents more than 12.5 million union members, views unions as a stabilizing force in the face of AI, which will touch nearly every sector of the economy in the coming years. While previous industrial and technological shifts have too often left working people behind, she believes unions can answer this transformational moment by centering workers as decision-makers in both the development of AI and the gains it will produce.
Read excerpts below detailing the labor movement’s leadership within the cutting-edge arena of AI and find the full Politico Magazine piece here.
“[T]he labor movement, after a decadeslong fallow period, suddenly seems to be having a moment, at least in part due to all that AI anxiety. The Writers Guild of America got much of what it wanted in its monthslong strike against Hollywood producers last summer. Union autoworkers not only won the support of Joe Biden in their walkout against U.S. car manufacturers last year, but scored historic contract gains that could ripple across other industries. And overall support for organized labor is at a 60-year high, with more than 70 percent of Americans saying they approve of unions….
“Thanks in part to rising trepidation about AI, Shuler believes workers — including professionals who’ve traditionally stood outside the labor movement — need unions more than ever. And she’s determined not only to return organized labor to a place in American life that it hasn’t occupied for decades, but for labor to help shape our technological future….
“Of course, in some respects what Shuler is pushing for symbolizes something even deeper. Two of the most disruptive events in American life over the past 40 years — deindustrialization and the rise of digital technology — were more or less imposed on the American public without average people having much say in what happened. When it comes to the AI revolution that’s now upon us — a revolution that could be very good or very bad — Shuler wants to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
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