CWA Hosts Artificial Intelligence Town Hall

On Tuesday, over 200 CWA members and retirees joined union leadership for an in-depth look at artificial intelligence (AI) and its impacts on our work and daily lives. Participants from across the United States and Canada heard from CWA Vice Presidents Trainor (CWA District 1), Honeycutt (CWA District 3), Osobase (CWA District 6), McAllister (CWA District 7), and Arce (CWA District 9), as well as NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss and CWA Public, Healthcare and Education Workers Vice President Margaret Cook. CWA District 1 Area Director for Legislation & Politics Rebecca Miller hosted the virtual town hall.

Other speakers included members representing CWA’s telecommunications, airline, healthcare, and medical industries, elaborating on the many abuses and misuses of AI that members currently face. CWA Local 7799 President Jade Kelly described medical professionals being forced to use AI for patient notes even though AI often makes errors that can be fatal if not caught, thereby creating unsustainable workloads as workers try to correct the generated content. Said Kelly, “AI is a shop floor issue—a working-class issue that is deeply felt by workers everywhere.”

Mike Davis, a media worker at The New York Times (TNG-CWA Local 31003) shared CWA victories in regulating AI through the power of a union contract and plans to roll out “AI Rights” cards, much like the “Weingarten Rights” cards CWA has distributed for years. NewsGuild-CWA President Schleuss shared that 90 contracts have been forged with language protecting workers from AI abuses by management.

CWA National Political Field Director Curtis Hierro provided details of our CWA legislative agenda as we push for bills, including the No Robot Bosses Act, to install important guardrails protecting workers and job applicants from the harms of automated decision systems. This legislative work is made possible by contributions from members and retirees to our Political Action Fund. Hierro also spoke about our ongoing “Fighting Oligarchy” trainings happening right now and the rollout of virtual versions of those trainings.

Click here to learn more about virtual Fighting Oligarchy trainings!

Participants also received several useful links, including one to our CWA AI Resource Hub as well as a GoFundMe link to help our CWA siblings (represented by TNG-CWA Local 37082) at Skagit News as they strike for AI protections.

CWA District 9 Vice President Arce helped wrap up the call, saying, “The future will either be like Star Trek or The Terminator. It’s up to us to decide which we are fighting for.”

---

This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.