Lessons from education unions building power on AI
Action learning programme from Connected by Data and the TUC
A key leverage point to steer the technologies and governance of AI to be more purposeful, fair and effective is to build the countervailing power of workers and their unions to participate, shape and contest technology at work. In partnership with nine unions, Connected by Data and the TUC worked across 7 months on an ‘action learning’ programme to test how to catalyse the movement’s capacity to understand, negotiate and advocate on AI from worker’s perspectives.
We sought to foster collaboration between education unions and other actors, and to gain clarity on key union issues on AI. Education was selected given its high political salience, contested policy environment and momentum already underway from education unions.
By the end of the programme, the unions had produced a joint public statement on AI in education, establishing a common platform that fed directly into government consultations and external engagement. Individual officers reported significant gains in knowledge and confidence. Several unions restructured internally as a direct result, creating dedicated AI leads and breaking down siloes between policy and workplace-organising focused teams. All nine ended the project with substantive work underway.
Along with articulating specific challenges for unions in the public sector, we identified three considerations for building union capacity on AI. First, programme design involves a trade-off between breadth and depth. For example a deep focus on collective bargaining produces momentum, while a wider spread of issues helps unions develop a more comprehensive approach but with less immediate impact. Second, whereas a diversity of participating union roles can add a range of perspectives it can be tricky to translate discussion into shared goals and actions. Most importantly, the programme affirmed that a context-driven approach to AI can help unions scope out the noise that surrounds the topic and focus work on the specific issues that AI presents for their members.
