Workers and Technology

The AFL-CIO certainly agrees with the ideas that Amanda Ballantyne, Jodi Forlizzi, and Crystal Weise present in “A Vision for Centering Workers in Technology Development” (Issues, Fall 2024).

Seven years ago, the AFL-CIO convened our affiliate unions to study the impacts of technology on workers, and to understand how unions can develop strategies to help workers navigate technology-driven change in the US economy. The AFL-CIO represents 60 national and international labor unions, and nearly 13 million workers in every sector of the economy. We learned from that study that workers are, and always have been, among the most important stakeholders in technology research and development because they are the end-users of most new technologies. Workers know whether new technologies make jobs better or worse, safer or more dangerous, more or less efficient. They also know whether technology makes work more or less fair.

It was this study that led me to create the AFL-CIO Technology Institute, which is a hub for partnerships and strategies to center working people as experts in the design and deployment of new technology. For the labor movement, this is a new approach to advance a long-standing goal: to make public investments in R&D work for everyone, and benefit everyone. Our Technology Institute partners with unions, community organizations, businesses, universities, and governments to research and educate about the impacts of technology on business and workers, to develop strategies for technology development and deployment, to assess workforce impacts and training programs, and, most fundamentally, to ensure workers a seat at the table in tech R&D.

We believe that centering workers in today’s data-driven economy is an essential strategy for the nation’s global competitiveness, and also for ensuring shared prosperity from our investments. When workers succeed, we all succeed. I am delighted to share this vision for centering workers at the ground level, as core experts, who can help design and deploy the technologies that will make our economy both competitive and equitable—an essential recipe for a thriving economy and democracy.

Liz Shuler

Amanda Ballantyne, Jodi Forlizzi, and Crystal Weise present a compelling argument for elevating workers’ voices in the federal research and technology development enterprise through labor union collaborations. The authors argue that doing so will help optimize the usefulness of applied research, boost trust and buy-in of technology development, and mitigate risks and unintended consequences of emerging technologies funded by taxpayer dollars.

To some people in the science, technology, and innovation policy community, this argument may seem drastic—but, in fact, it aligns well with the community’s efforts to accomplish all of those goals. After all, in all grant proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation, the “Broader Impacts” discussion is a critical component. It answers the question: How does your research benefit society?

That question has become only more timely. In recent years, myriad researchers, policy professionals, and organizations in the “public engagement in science” and “public interest technology” communities, along with many other fields, have been exploring tactics researchers and technologists can use to engage end users and the public to improve the quality of their work, its usefulness and responsiveness to societal needs, and its likelihood of boosting public trust and acceptance in the science and technology produced—critical areas that have seen a decline in recent years.

Tactics to engage the public in the research and technology enterprise include public deliberation forums and citizen assemblies, collaborative design approaches, and participatory technology assessments, among other efforts. Collaborations with labor unions to include worker perspectives, especially regarding such fields as artificial intelligence, would, as the authors suggest, augment the research community’s growing toolbox for public engagement and help realize the promise of a robust science and technology enterprise that maximally serves the public good.

However, such work is likely to encounter the same roadblocks as all preceding efforts have. Researchers and technology development units at universities, companies, national laboratories, and other research entities are not equipped with the skills, incentives, and resources to collaborate with the public, or in this case workers, to inform the design and direction of their research and technology development.

The authors’ idea of establishing a funding program within the National Science Foundation to build the capacity of research entities to partner with labor unions, worker centers, and worker advocacy organizations on this goal is sensible. If successful, this effort could bolster the research enterprise’s grasp of the broader tools available to support science and technology in the public interest.

Models exist. In September 2024, New America joined NSF to launch a first-of-its-kind capacity-building initiative to support community colleges in navigating science- and technology-based economic development activities catalyzed by NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines program, created under the CHIPS and Science Act. A part of our work will focus on equipping community college leaders with the resources needed to partner with labor unions around workforce development, including upskilling and reskilling workers, relating to emerging technologies, including AI.

NSF itself has established funding programs that could be adapted to such capacity-building. These include, for example, the Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity (EPIIC) program, the Growing Research Access for Nationally Transformative Equity and Diversity (GRANTED) program, and the Innovation in Two-Year College STEM Education (ITYC) program.

The objective the authors laid out is worth exploring, but without the right set of capacity-building investments, the proposed collaborations are difficult to see implemented. Pilots of these investments will be a good first step to test the art of the possible in labor-researcher collaborations around technology development.

Shalin Jyotishi