California labor unions urge Gov. Newsom to sign AI workplace protections

As Californians prepare to celebrate Labor Day and the contributions of American workers, labor unions are raising alarms about what they see as a growing threat to the future of human work: artificial intelligence.

Union leaders gathered in downtown San Francisco on Friday to urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign nine bills aimed at regulating the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace.

Labor leaders said the rapid expansion of AI and automation is unprecedented and are warning that without safeguards, workers could face job displacement, increased surveillance and workplace decisions made by algorithms.

For Nicolle Pillion, a longtime healthcare worker, the concerns are already personal.

Pillion works as a teleservice representative for a major hospital, answering calls from patients reporting urgent symptoms and helping schedule appointments. About eight months ago, she said her hospital began using what she described as “emotion recognition software” to monitor her interactions with patients.

“This software repeatedly tells me that I lack emotional empathy during my calls and gives me real-time pop-ups as I’m working, telling me how to change the way that I sound,” Pillion said. “When you’re focused on a patient, the last thing you need is an AI program judging your voice in real time.”

She worried the technology could distract workers from more important responsibilities, including recognizing emergency symptoms from patients.

“It is frustrating, distracting, and to me, discriminatory,” she said.

Union leaders pointed to cases like Pillion’s as examples of how they believe AI can harm workers when companies introduce the technology without sufficient safeguards.

“Big tech is rolling out AI in a manner that focuses on automation, displacing workers,” said Peter Finn, president of the Teamsters Joint Council 7 and Teamsters California.

The rapid growth of AI has fueled concerns among workers in a wide range of industries that automation could eventually replace human employees and eliminate jobs.

“We feel that this is an existential crisis. And AI, chatbots are out of control. There needs to be a halt to it,” said Steve Zeltzer, who held a “Stop AI” rally with a small group of people in front of a San Francisco Kaiser Permanente hospital.

But Michael Bernick, a former chief of California’s Employment Development Department and now counsel at the Duane Morris law firm, said workers should focus on adapting to the changing technology.

“The important thing is not to worry about it, as much as get the skills,” Bernick said.

Bernick, who has monitored the job market for nearly half a century, said he has never seen a technological transformation advance as quickly as artificial intelligence.

In a relatively short period, AI has gone from a developing technology to a tool being adopted by companies across nearly every industry. Bernick said that speed is contributing to much of the anxiety surrounding its impact on workers.

For now, he said, employment data does not show that AI is significantly affecting overall job creation or job losses.

“The labor force data over the past couple of months shows really no significant impacts overall in California in terms of job creation [or] destruction,” Bernick said.

Still, union leaders said they do not want to wait until workers begin losing jobs before regulations are put in place.

Nine AI-related bills are currently awaiting action from Newsom, including proposed protections governing the use of AI in employment decisions.

“We also put on bills that said no AI boss, if you will, no non-humans should be able to fire you or discipline you,” said Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO.

For Pillion, the debate is about preserving the role of human workers in professions where personal interaction can have serious consequences.

“We cannot sit around for someone else to fix this,” she said. “As healthcare workers, we see what is happening and we know what it is at stake.”

Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto legislation on his desk.