New Database Helps Labor Unions Navigate AI And Digital Technologies

Forbes

28-07-2025

LOS ANGELES, CA - Hollywood writers go on strike outside of FOX Studios on the first day of the ... More Hollywood writers strike on May 2, 2023 in Los Angeles.
The University of California-Berkeley's Labor Center has announced a new data tool to help labor union negotiators, researchers, media, and policymakers better understand the state of play of union negotiations around the digital economy. The searchable inventor, developed by researcher Lisa Kresege, offers insights into how labor unions are responding to responding to AI, electronic monitoring and surveillance, and other emerging technologies.
Researchers created the database using the U.S. Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards and the Office of Personnel Management's Collective Bargaining Agreements database. They augmented those data with contracts pulled from union and employer websites and direct contributions from union leaders.
The inventory draws on a multi-decade analysis of more than 500 union contracts and collective bargaining provisions related to digital workplace technologies, covering over 175 union agreements. It references over 950 technology-related contract provisions.
The database offers users insights into the range of strategies unions have been undertaking in recent years to strengthen their negotiation position around technology use in workplaces ranging from securing worker protections to supporting upskilling and reskilling to shaping how new technologies are introduced and used in workplaces.
The inventory is organized into six sections that focus on different areas of workplace technology provisions negotiated by unions. Each section contains information about how unions' bargaining strategies, technology functions, and patterns in contract language
However, the authors caution that the database should be used as a research tool and not as an indication of best practices or recommended language for unions.
Workers Seek a Say Around AI, Tech, at Work
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and Microsoft President Brad Smith sign the new 'tech-labor ... More partnership' agreement.
In recent years, labor unions have taken aim at shaping AI and other digital technologies' impact on workers, including to improve job quality and working conditions. Liz Shuler, President of the AFL-CIO, the largest labor union federation in the United States, has seen the AI zeitgeist as an opportunity to reinvigorate the labor movement.
In 2023, the AFL-CIO inked a deal with Microsoft around worker voice and AI development, and last year the federation signed a historic agreement with the U.S. National Science Foundation, one of the largest federal funders of scientific R&D, around engaging labor around tech development.
Individual labor unions such as the Writers Guild of America and the Communication Workers of America have been especially active in ensuring that their members have a say in the implementation of AI at work. During a web panel hosted by the think-tank New America, Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, President of Writers Guild of America-East, emphasized that Hollywood's famous strike around AI was never about banning the technology in the industry but ensuring workers have a voice around its implementation.
Workers are generally more worried than hopeful about AI at work. A Pew poll from last August that show that among all the concerns American adults have regarding AI, there is no greater gap between what AI experts and the public think than how people do their jobs and the economy. While the share of American workers belonging to labor unions has declined in recent years, Gallup has found that public support for unions is at its highest point since the 1960s, reaching 70% in 2024.
With more employers seeking to accelerate the implementation of AI and other digital technologies in workplaces, workers are poised to continue to see ways to negotiate their uses. Resources like the UC Labor Center's inventory can help workers and labor leaders stay current on the sector's collective negotiations and response to the digital technologies.