Research from the UC Berkeley Labor Center inventory of union contracts shows that collective bargaining is already being used as a tool to give workers a voice over how automated management systems improve jobs rather than degrade them

A 2018 study from UC Berkeley Labor Center concerning the prospective automation of truck driving pointed out that a driver’s job is only partially about keeping a vehicle moving ahead between two white lines. If that were all there is to it, lorries would already be empty of humans. In reality, close ethnographic observation showed that truck drivers don’t just navigate the roads, but in fact act as complex problem-solvers in haphazard physical environments.

“Having the union and workers at the table to even have this discussion is absolutely critical, if there’s a chance that we can ensure that the technology is benefiting society as a whole,” said Lisa Kresge, of discussions of worker safeguards around burgeoning AI technology.

Many workers, especially tech workers, are not in unions. Lisa Kresge detailed how non-unionized workers are often kept in the dark about the technology their employer is using or rolling out, or may not even know what technologies are being deployed behind the scenes.

“I’m hopeful about the opportunity for technology to lift up some of the issues that have been under way in our economy for decades … in terms of how workers are treated and how we are distributing the rewards of productivity,” said Lisa Kresge.

This year I will be watching for progress in legislation to establish guardrails around electronic monitoring and algorithmic management, addressing harms such as automated firing, discrimination, invasive surveillance and profiling of union organizers.

“The topic of AI and other digital technologies are showing up in contract fights and organizing campaigns, increasingly in public policy debates across a variety of sectors,” Lisa Kresge, senior researcher at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center, told NPQ.

With Congress largely absent from the debate, 2025 has become a “watershed moment” for state-level labor tech policy, according to an analysis by the UC Berkeley Labor Center. More than 350 bills now target harms ranging from automated firing to invasive surveillance and AI-driven deskilling of workers.

“People want guardrails, they want the technology to be responsible,” said Kung Feng. “We saw a lot of cohesion around worker voice, that workers and communities who are impacted should be involved in the design and the deployment of technology.”

“This is such a lost opportunity,” said Bernhardt, director of technology and work programs at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. “California had the chance to lead the country in protecting workers in the age of algorithmic management.”