Work
Giving workers a powerful say
The most essential purpose of work is the means to sustain ourselves. At its best, work can help us find meaning, community and dignity. With so much at stake, how data and AI technologies may affect work is an important concern for millions.
A key strategic focus for Connected by Data has been on how to build worker power on data and AI so that the rules, choices and processes of technology protect and enhance our livelihoods and wellbeing day in and day out.
Through a series of projects and events, we’re working in collaboration with workers and unions, from picket lines to Parliament, to amplify voices, create policy and develop strategies to take the initiative on data and AI across the world of work, including in the civil service, education and logistics.
This report summarises key themes from research conducted by Wales TUC on how trade unionists in Wales understand and are engaging with Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their workplaces.
The research found that there is a high degree of general awareness by workers that AI is already impacting or will impact their working lives. However, the level of engagement with AI is specific to context, technology and sector. There are cross-cutting concerns spanning this varied experience, including implications for equalities.
You can read a web-based version of the report here. An English version of the PDF format report is also available as is a Welsh version.
Our lives have become digitised. Data about who we are, what we do and the environment we live and work in is collected about us constantly, whether we realise it or not. Whoever controls that data, be that big corporations or governments, has incredible power.
Yet, amid the hype and worry about the data-driven transformation of our world, there is often something conspicuously missing: personal stories. They ground our understanding that this change is not a remote future, but is a reality in progress that is affecting every relationship and interaction we have, as workers, family members, consumers and as citizens.
By hearing the voices of individuals we can better see the impacts of a datafied society. How we are affected is dependent on our individual circumstances, but the power of data is on a societal level. Whether at school, at work or in the justice system, there is a need to bring in this collective voice.
Through these stories, we aim to not only illustrate the reality of the impact of data on our lives, but to point the way towards a different approach, including:
- a focus on the wider impact of the collection and use of data
- rights for all those affected by data-driven decisions
- processes of participation for the public to help shape a datafied society
Our first data stories focus on people at work. Over time, we aim to add more, about people in education; interacting with health services; and within the justice system.
The labour movement has long been a shaper of technology and innovation. Connected by Data is proud to have contributed to that tradition as a special advisor to the Trades Union Congress’s groundbreaking AI and Employment Bill initiative.
Wales has been central to the UK labour movement, and now unions in Wales and TUC Cymru are grappling with how to shape AI. Connected by Data has been working in partnership with TUC Cymru on a series of initiatives, ranging from research on how workers in Wales are experiencing and engaging with AI and developing training materials. Connected by Data has also been advising TUC Cymru as part of an AI reference group for trade union members of the Workforce Partnership Group, part of the Welsh government’s social partnership approach to working with unions.
Building on this, we’re delivering a project with TUC Cymru on how worker voice can be embedded into emerging processes and policy on procurement of data and AI systems in the public sector in Wales.
CONNECTED BY DATA collaborated with the TUC to develop a comprehensive strategic framework for building labour movement capacity on AI. With a focus on sectors, movement building and interventions through the AI value chain, this ambitious strategic approach charts a path for the TUC to ensure the technology is in the service of workers.
Across industries, companies are seeking to exploit content generated by their workers past and present to create customised generative AI. The same pattern is appearing across journalism, education, creative industries, the legal profession, public sector, research and consultancy: wherever people write documents, the organisations that own the rights to that text – often their employers – are aiming to reuse it to build or customise AI language models.
As AI is increasingly rolled out in the workplace, a key need is for effective training and learning for trade unionists to shape, resist or use AI and related digital technologies.
In particular, as found in the Wales TUC and Connected by Data report ‘A snapshot of workers in Wales’ understanding and experience of AI’, trade union training and education on AI should be tailored to the needs and experience of workers. This includes introductory, sector and technology specific materials and training on how AI and digital intersect with familiar means of negotiation, for example equalities, health and safety, pay and conditions.
Adam will be supporting one of the sessions at CADA’s Tech Transformed festival. Adam will be speaking alongside Mary from TUC on on how the labour movement must adapt to meet the challenges of our new digital era.
Adam spoke on panel at the Wales TUC Annual Congress focusing on how trade unions are engaging with digitalisation and AI. Hosted by law firm Watkins and Gunn, Adam appeared alongside Tom Hoyle, President-elect of Wales TUC, Chloe Rees organising and development officer at Wales TUC and John James of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union.
At the Congress, a motion was passed on AI citing the Wales TUC and Connected by Data report ‘A snapshot of workers in Wales’ understanding and experience of AI’.
With the use of AI and data driven tools increasing in the civil service and by public servants, Adam spoke on a panel at the annual conference of the FDA, the union representing public service managers and professionals.
Appearing alongside a colleague from the TUC and in conversation with the FDA’s General Secretary, Adam discussed Connected by Data’s work with TUC Cymru and the implications of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill for public service workers.
Not a day goes by where data and AI isn’t in the news. Yet the most prominent voices tend to be tech CEOs, often overly focused on remote and extreme threats.
Wales TUC are looking into how AI is affecting workers across different sectors, and how trade unionists are managing the increasing roll out of data-driven technologies
Wales TUC - supported by Dr Juan Grigera from Kings College London and Adam Cantwell-Corn from Connected by Data - are investigating how workers in a range of sectors are responding to digitalisation and AI at work. This write up is intended to capture the key comments by the workers, which will later inform a full report.
Artificial intelligence is having a dehumanising effect on workers as they are continuously monitored. What’s more, it’s leading to workers being deskilled, their tasks restructured and sometimes managed out of their jobs.
New technology is being forced on workers without consent. But trade union members are determined to resist the negative aspects of artificial intelligence.
Wales TUC are looking into how AI is affecting workers across different sectors, and how trade unionists are managing the increasing roll out of data-driven technologies.
Wales TUC - supported by Dr Juan Grigera from Kings College London and Adam Cantwell-Corn from Connected by Data - are investigating how workers in a range of sectors are responding to digitalisation and AI at work. This write up is from the second workshop in the project. The first write up is available here.
Amid the hype and worry about the data-driven transformation of our world, there is often something conspicuously missing: personal stories. They ground our understanding that this change is not a remote future, but is a reality in progress that is affecting every relationship and interaction we have, as workers, family members, consumers and as citizens.
In an effort to address this and build on these case studies, Connected by Data worked with Mary Towers of the TUC’s AI project and affiliate unions to support three workers with direct experience of AI to be in conversation with MPs. On the 20th June, in the grand setting of Committee Room 9 of the House of Commons, a packed audience of trade unionists, policy professionals, politicians and journalists heard first hand how AI is affecting workers in the here and now.
On 5th December 2022, CONNECTED BY DATA organised an event in parliament, hosted and chaired by Lord Tim Clement-Jones, to explore three key areas around the future of data governance: automated decision-making, data at work and data in schools.
These are all areas that could be affected by the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, expected to return to parliament for its second reading at some point in 2023. We think the Bill represents an opportunity to influence how data is governed in a more democratic and participatory way, but worry that – in its present form – it undermines existing safeguards and misses the chance to extend democratic data governance.
The three areas under discussion also represent domains where growing data collection and use could have both significant benefits and harms in the future, regardless of what happens to the Bill. The event invited opening contributions from civil society and academic experts on each topic before opening up to a wider discussion. The experts were on the record unless they requested otherwise, with everyone else being unattributed under the Chatham House Rule.
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We were pleased to support the research and writing of the Wales’ TUC report entitled “A snapshot of workers in Wales’ understanding and experience of AI”.