Unions must become technology leaders, not just responders

This week I found myself in an unusual position - serving as the warm-up act for a Nobel laureate. UNI Global Union was hosting what I believe to be the first large trade union conference focused specifically on generative AI, and I was there to introduce the new Centre for Responsible Union AI and talk about how unions can use.

Next on the agenda after me? 2024 Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu.

I won't lie - my nerves were shot. 🫣

Setting the scene: AI in our daily lives

I opened my presentation with a simple exercise that revealed a powerful truth: I asked everyone to stand up, then stay standing if they'd used AI in the past month, week, and day. Nearly everyone remained standing. Then we dug deeper - from email spam filters to fraud detection in credit cards, from streaming recommendations to traffic management systems - AI is already woven into the fabric of our daily lives.

This wasn't just an icebreaker. It illustrated a crucial point: AI isn't coming - it's here. And unions need to engage with it now.

Three important challenges and solutions for AI in the union movement

At the Centre for Responsible Union AI we've identified three fundamental challenges facing unions in the AI age – and offer three solutions to these.

1. While unions are rightly focused on how other organisations use AI, many haven't looked inward at how AI affects their own operations and staff. To counter this, we’re building a community of union staff to understand the impacts of AI and researching where / if / how AI can help unions work better.

2. Union staff are already using AI tools in their daily work, often without training or guidance on risks and best practices. Here, we’re training union staff to use AI safely (our next AI fundamentals courses are open for booking) and testing different ways to use AI in safe and responsible ways.

3. Unlike other sectors, unions lack access to AI experts who understand their unique needs and values. We’ll be creating guides and tools for unions, finding trusted AI experts who understand unions and supporting unions to choose the right AI tools.

Learning from pioneer unions

I shared several examples with the Conference of unions already experimenting with AI, including:

• A union that doubled their ballot turnout using AI-powered member engagement.

• Staff testing AI to analyse complex workplace policies in minutes instead of hours.

• Organisers reaching more members in their preferred languages through AI translation.

• Research teams spotting trends in member feedback that would have been impossible to find manually.

Other sessions in the conference also highlighted other powerful examples of unions leading on AI, particularly in creative industries. The Writers Guild of America and IATSE showed how deep technical understanding enabled them to secure meaningful protections. For instance:

• WGA negotiated specific protections around AI-generated content because they understood both the creative process and the technology's capabilities

• IATSE developed comprehensive definitions of AI terms and protected their jurisdiction regardless of tools used

• Both unions demonstrated how technical expertise enabled them to move beyond simple opposition to finding workable solutions

Acemoglu's validation

When Professor Acemoglu spoke after me, he reinforced exactly why we need initiatives like the Centre. His key message was crystal clear: unions must become technology leaders, not just responders. They need to develop deep expertise to shape how AI is implemented.

He argued that unions need to negotiate on both wages AND technology - finding ways to use AI that benefit both workers and businesses. This perfectly aligns with our mission at the Centre: helping unions develop the expertise to ensure AI serves working people, not the other way around.

A stark choice for unions

I believe we’re at a critical juncture where unions can either shape how AI is implemented, or be shaped by it.

Our choice is to develop AI expertise or risk irrelevance. As one speaker noted, we're seeing rapidly increasing AI adoption - with 28% of workers already using it daily. Unions can't afford to simply react to these changes. They need the expertise to shape them.

This reinforces why the Centre's three-pronged approach of growing understanding, skills, and support is so crucial. We're not just helping unions understand AI - we're helping them develop the expertise to lead on it.

As I said in my presentation: Our movement was born in one era of technological change. We find ourselves in another today. Let's learn how to use AI responsibly - together.