Power In A Union is a website edited by Tony Burke designed to provide information, news, views and comment on UK, European and Worldwide trade union and political issues, and to provide a forum for debate and discussion.
The TUCs special task force report on Artificial intelligence and Employment Rights Bill was launched at the TUC Congress House in London on April 18th. Comprising of the TUC, the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, unions academics and employment rights specialists the task force was set up to try to secure proper regulation of AI and algorithmic management in order to halt the UKs tech sector from becoming the ‘wild west’ of the economy.
You can download the full report with the draft bill here.
The report makes a number of key recommendations including a legal requirement on employers to consult unions on the use of ‘high risk’ and intrusive forms of AI in the workplace; a legal right for job seekers and workers to have a human review of decisions made by AI systems so they can challenge AI decisions that are unfair and discriminatory; amendments to the Equality Act to guard against discriminatory algorithms; protections against unfair dismissal by AI; a prohibition on some uses of emotion recognition technology and a right to a personalised explanation of high-risk risk decisions made by AI Workers in the UKs media, digital and tech sector, accounting for over 2 million jobs will be on the AI frontline.
One of the key problems is that union membership in the tech sector remains stubbornly low in many countries, with a diverse employment base – from large corporations to small start ups – many with precarious and third party employment.
From the 1980s onwards unions tried to recruit new members in tech areas by setting up specialist ‘associations’ to attract tech workers or using high profile campaigns imported from USA where ‘start up unions’ such alliance@ibm (which joined the Communication Workers of America) in global companies. What sounded good failed to achieve mass union membership after years of grinding management opposition, and ‘re-balancing the workforce’.
But maybe things have turned the corner.
In 2023 workers at the Swedish fin-tech company Klarna workers demanded representation and collective bargaining by joining Unionen. The company told the workforce collective bargaining ‘did not fit their business model’. The Unionen union organised immediate strike action and 5000 workers in Stockholm won union recognition and a collective agreement.
In the USA workers in the video gaming company Sega of America followed Raven Software, Blizzard Albany, ZeniMax, and game developer Tender Claws in winning union recognition. AEGIS-CWA (Allied Employees Guild Improving SEGA – Communication Workers Of America) organised across Sega facilities including workers in marketing, product development and sales to build membership and making it now the largest video game union in the USA.
In Romania Sindicatul IT Timișoara (SITT the Romanian IT Union) now represents 3,000 tech and outsourced workers at Alcatel-Lucent, Wipro, Accenture and Alto and were helped in organising by the European union federation Uni Europa.
In the UK the CWU via the United Tech and Allied Workers Union Branch are organising workers in Apple stores; the white collar union Prospect (who’s General Secretary Mike Clancy is the TUC’s lead spokesperson on AI) has launched a tech sector and Unite’s London Digital and Tech branch has seen a membership boost since 2023.
In January of this year Unite members employed at Seagate, the Springtown (Derry, Northern Ireland) manufacturer of external hard drives voted overwhelmingly for trade union recognition with Unite. 540 workers at the company were involved in multi-year campaign at the company and Unite’s organising department.
The ballot followed a long battle – the statutory process for workers voting on union recognition took over a year.
In the run up to the ballot, the company brought in union busters one of whom had previously been engaged by Amazon in union-busting campaigns in the USA. The company eventually negotiated a recognition agreement with Unite.
James Bowen the secretary of Unite London Digital and Tech branch told me: “The branch had doubled in size over due to organising in ‘big tech’ firms such as Google. We’ve also grown at firms where we were well-established, such as Voyix and Atleos thanks to the work of our reps during pay negotiations. We are recruiting members from a diverse range of companies such as Accenture, the BBC, Cap Gemini and Computacenter.”
The branch organised protests at Google at their Kings Cross HQ in London over redundancies which gained a national profile – and increased union membership. 2023 was a pivitol year with over a quarter of a million workers in tech industries globally laid off. So far in 2024 there have been lay offs at Pixar, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and TikTok among others. Microsoft’s 1,900 global layoffs which began in early 2023 has made tech workers ‘union conscious’ The fact is they are no different to other workers – they join unions for protection and representation, and to find collective and just solutions to problems.” And the good news Bowen says is “that members are keeping up their membership even when the threat of lay off’s recedes.”
He says AI will be a major challenge: “AI can replace a real person and workers become concerned for their jobs. Service desk, first line roles which are heavily scripted can be replaced by an online chat bot. AI can be used to write code, reducing the number of software developers required so there are fears over job security.” And there are fears over AI discrimination: “People have biases and this impacts the many choices that are made when building and training an AI whose purpose is to make decisions which impacts people’s lives. There’s a good argument to be made that AI should not make any management decisions.”
The branch are also running meetings for tech workers on AI with speakers from Equity, the performing arts and entertainment union, on the impact of AI on voice-over artists.
“Clare Vernade an ex-member of ours who now teaches ‘machine learning’ has done a session and were are happy to share our experiences and the video of Clare’s presentation is available on our site. Other Unite reps have been in touch with us wanting to discuss how we are handling AI”.
On April 25th Unite National Officer for the print, media, digital and tech sector Louisa Bull along with the NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stannistreet will debate ‘AI: Threats And Opportunities For The Media’ in partnership with Media North on line at The Festival Of Debate. See festivalofdebate.com to book your place.
Tony Burke Speech April 13th, Labour & Palestine, Bedford PSC Trade Union Officer
Hundreds of thousands of people have been demonstrating in London every two weeks including many from Bedfordshire and our trade unions.
Without those demonstrations the genocide now taking place in Gaza everyday many people would have looked have looked the other way – so we can be proud of the work of the PSC and others and of local groups like we have in Bedford for campaigning to bring justice and an end to this war in Gaza.
Nobody condones the attacks by Hamas on October 7th last year – but total war against the people of Palestine including the deliberate targeting of aid workers, civilians, women and children, hospitals and the infrastructure of Gaza is barbaric and a crime against humanity – as is deliberate starvation and famine.
Friends, the international pressure on the United Nations Security Council to finally got them to vote for a ceasefire.
And now the pressure has also building to stop the UK government providing arms export licenses to Israel and to suspend trade agreements with them as an apartheid state.
With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on the brink of famine, and Israel making clear it will ignore the UN, action is needed now to enforce the will of the international community.
It is the clear duty of the UK government to end its complicity in Israel’s genocide and to ensure Netanyahu’s government be treated as war criminals.
Netanyahu’s government can no longer ‘win the war’ instead they are being condemned worldwide for genocide, for creating famine and economic disaster.
Those of us in trade unions and who suppport Labour Palestine and who have many friends in the Palestinian trade union movement have seen their Palestinian union offices deliberately blown up – we will not be looking the other way – we have always been here for them we always will be.
So Labour & Palestine calls upon the Labour Party to demand a permanent ceasefire, to ban on arms export licenses and to support the suspension of trade with Isreal until the Palestinian people get justice and to end to the war in Gaza, self determination and freedom for Palestine.
The Mexico Solidarity Forum in the UK has condemned the assault on the Mexican Embassy in Quito after heavily armed special military and police officers (The Security Bloc) forcibly broke through the premises of the embassy of Mexico in Quito, Ecuador’s capital on April 5th.
The purpose of this brutal aggression was the arrest of the former Ecuadorian vice-president, Jorge Glas who had been allowed into the embassy premises requesting political asylum. The order for this criminal attack seems to have been prompted after Mexico made public its decision to grant diplomatic asylum to Glas.
Television screens around the world showed the extraordinary spectacle of military officers climbing the embassy building’s walls, bulldozing their way through the building, and assaulting Mexico’s ambassador, Roberto Canseco, who physically tried to stop them.
They also assaulted embassy staff. They brutally got hold of Glas, who was beaten up – it was reported by onlookers that he could hardly walk – and dragged outside the embassy to a car and then taken away. This was nothing more than a kidnapping.
Glas is now being held in a maximum-security prison and there are reports that he is in a parlous state, and there is growing concern for his life.
There is not enough space in this brief statement to list the number of national, Latin American and international conventions, norms and laws, including its own domestic laws and constitution, that the government of president Daniel Noboa has violated. This aggression is a grotesque violation of Mexico’s sovereignty but also of international law, including the stipulations in art. 29 of the Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Missions.
This is a very grave and flagrant violation of international law that has no precedent in Latin America, not even under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile; when hundreds of left-wing activists sought and obtained protection in many embassies in Santiago, the military were not ordered to assault a foreign embassy. In short, it sets a grave precedent.
Worse, Ecuador’s foreign minister, Gabriela Sommerfield, sought to justify the assault at a press conference arguing the assault was launched because of a supposed escape attempt by Jorge Glas, and besides, she went on, “it was president Noboa who gave the order.”
Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) immediately took the decision to recall his ambassador and broke diplomatic relations with Ecuador. And the Nicaraguan government, in solidarity with Mexico, has also broken diplomatic relations with Ecuador. Many social movements, political parties, and all kind of organisations have issued condemnatory statements.
Mexico’s foreign minister, Alicia Bárcena, announced that her government will take this very grave violation of its sovereignty and international law to the International Court of Justice. Noboa’s aggression against Mexico has been roundly condemned by the whole of Latin America – Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Antigua and Barbuda, Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras, even Milei of Argentina and the OAS have joined the condemnation chorus. Ecuador has also been condemned by ALBA-TCP. Some European countries such as Ireland and Norway have joined in the condemnation.
This aggression sets an extremely grave precedent; it is a barbaric act and is completely unacceptable.
The Mexico Solidarity Forum unreservedly condemn and reject president Noboa’s decision to launch a military-police aggression perpetrated against Mexico’s sovereignty, the illegal arrest of an asylum seeker in a foreign embassy, and condemn the use of brutal force against him, and the assault against Mexico’s ambassador.
We also express our full solidarity with the government and the people of Mexico for the egregious assault they have endured caused by a government that runs roughshod over international law, attacking Mexico for defending the human rights of the persecuted. We call upon other organisations and individuals to join in the condemnation.
The TUC has written to Tory Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch in response to the news that the UK is set to continue active trade talks with Israel.
The Tory government concluded the latest round at the end of February.
The TUC which has a longstanding policy on Palestinian rights says trade negotiations must be used to ensure respect for human rights and international law.
Since the UK launched trade talks on an updated trade agreement with Israel in March 2022, the TUC has consistently stated it does not believe the government should engage in these negotiations, given Israel’s persistent violation of international law, UN resolutions and systematic violations of Palestinian labour and human rights.
In light of the Israeli government’s military operations in Gaza in recent months where these violations have intensified.
The TUC letter calls for the government to:
End trade talks with Israel
End arms sales and military collaboration
End UK trade in good from the Occupied Palestinian Territories
On 26th January the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found it ‘plausible’ that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and issued binding provisional measures.
The UK government also has an obligation as a party to the Genocide Convention to take measures to prevent genocide. It is therefore incumbent on the government to ensure Israel acts in accordance with the ICJ ruling.
The TUC letter follows the TUC’s General Council statement unequivocally condemning the shocking attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas, calling for the immediate, unconditional release of all hostages unharmed, and calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
In February the TUC wrote to the Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron calling for an immediate ceasefire accompanied by a political process. It expressed disappointment the UK government had so far failed to support such a ceasefire.
The TUC has called on the government to support genuine efforts towards a just, lasting and comprehensive peace that is consistent with international law, and is based on a two-state solution, which promotes equality, democracy and respect for human and labour rights.
Bedford Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) will be demonstrating outside Barclays in Bedford High Street this Saturday 23rd March to draw attention to the role the bank is playing in arming Israel.
Financial institutions in the UK provide investment, loans, and other financial services to companies supplying Israel with weapons and military technology used to oppress Palestinians.
The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign has uncovered that Barclays Bank holds over £1 billion in shares, and provides over £3 billion in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components, and military technology have been used in Israel’s armed violence against Palestinians.
By providing investment and financial services to these arms companies, Barclays facilitates the provision of weapons and technology for Israel’s militarised repression of Palestinians.
Bedford PSC Chair Rosie Newbigging said: “We urge all fellow Bedfordians who are horrified by what is happening to innocent people in Gaza, to join us on Saturday at 11.30am outside Barclays Bank in the High Street”.
Register now for the South Yorkshire Festival Of Debate (in partnership with Media North) panel debate on the Threats & Opportunities for media & digital workers of Artificial Intelligence.
‘AI – Threats & Opportunities For The Media’
Thanks to Matt Kenyon for use of this graphic
Free online event: April 25th 6pm – 7.30pm.
The disruptive power of artificial intelligence worries people working in the media. Threats to the media from AI hit the headlines with two long-running strikes in Hollywood last year. Now the New York Times has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, two of the most prominent names in the AI industry, accusing them of using its articles without permission to train their artificial intelligence systems.
This event will explore, with an expert panel of speakers, exactly what AI is, the ways it will impact the media and the challenges posed for media workers.
SPEAKERS INCLUDE: Louisa Bull, National Officer Unite’s Print, Graphical, Media and IT Sector. Louisa has spoken on AI at national and international events and on organising workers in the digital and tech industries.
Nabila Cruz de Carvalho is a PhD researcher at the University of Sheffield. Her research is focused on how generative artificial intelligence may affect the trust of young audiences in digital news media. She wrote ‘AI Is What We Make It’ in Now Then.
Alexis Gunderson a leading member of the US National Writers Union’s Generative AI working group that produced their policy on AI.
Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists. The union is running a campaign: Artificial Intelligence: Journalism Before Algorithms.
By Linda Jack, Chair of Unite Health and Local Government Branch
Over 200 supporters of the people of Palestine joined a march and rally from Bedford Park to Castle Mound to call for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza.
With International Women’s Day and Mothers’ Day this week the focus was on the impact of this war on women and children. All our speakers were women, all passionate about doing what they can to demand a ceasefire, raise awareness of the horror that is unfolding in Gaza – and make their voices heard.
Rosie Newbigging Chair of the newly formed Bedford PSC reminded us: “We must keep marching. We march in peace. This rally, our 7th in the last few months shows our humanity and peace. We are appalled at the rise in anti semitism. We are appalled at the rise in islamaphobia. We are appalled at the hate speech of certain politicians. And we continued to be be horrified and outraged by the UK government complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people. Not in our name. It’s not those of us who call for peace who are extreme or a mob. We need to keep marching, don’t stop talking about Palestine. Keep making your voice heard”.
Rosie also read a message from the National Education Union who said: “We condemn the Israeli state’s campaign of collective punishment of the people of Gaza and call for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip and the urgent delivery of aid to the people of Gaza.”
Cathrine Ward of Upenyu Nerwamagwana has just returned from South Africa and reminded us of how important the Anti-Apartheid movement was in challenging injustice and how that related to the importance of us continuing to challenge what is happening in Gaza.
As chair of Unite’s Health and Local Government Branch I, Linda Jack, spoke about theexperience of women in Gaza trying to protect their children with two mothers being killed every hour, with mothers being the last to eat and children being the first to die.
Cllr Lucy Bywater reminded us of how women bear a huge burden in times of violence, war and displacement and are more likely to bear the emotional and physical cost of caring for others – children, the sick, elderly relatives. She called for an end to the sale of weapons to Israel by our government, condemned IDF action against civilians and called for moral leadereship at home. She ended by reminding us that this is about basic human rights and basic humanity which should have “No Borders”. As Virgina Woolf said, “As a woman, my country is the whole world…”
Lara Philips local businesswoman who led her school, Mark Rutherford, out in protest at the war in Iraq over 20 years ago, spoke emotionally of how she felt every time she looked at her children, imagining how she would feel if she was a mother in Gaza at the moment. She said: “the last time I stood and spoke publicly was at the Stop the War protest for Iraq over 20 years ago. And I really find so difficult that in all the time that has passed it is somehow still acceptable that one group of people in the world can be slaughtered in the most inhumane, barbaric, cruel, evil evil way, whilst other groups of people around the world are able to sit and turn their chair the other way.”
Dr Helen Connolly Chair of Remembering Srebenica, an expert in children, youth and forced migration highlighted the devastating circumstances for Palestinian children in Gaza where one child is killed every 15 minutes and 10 children a day lose one or more limbs. She highlighted the grave human rights violations children are being forced to endure as the main casualties of the atrocities. In so doing she said: “in situations of mass atrocities, the vulnerability of children makes them an easy target. The killing and harms committed against them deliberately inflicts mental harm on communities and families as they grieve and try to apprehend the cruelty of what their children are being forced to endure.”
Dalia El-Saleh a Palestinian living in Bedford, spoke powerfully of our shared humanity said: “We will channel the power, resilience and love for our Palestinian brothers and sister in Gaza because we want to see peace born of justice and we will keep filling the streets until that happens. We will not allow them to divide us – we will keep coming together, regardless of our ethnicity, our colour, our faith – we will keep calling for a ceasefire and we will keep calling “Free Palestine, Free Palestine” until Palestine is Free!”
Palestine in 2024 – What the World should be doing
For the first time since the war on Gaza began there was a “Labour Members for Palestine” bloc on the march last Saturday, January 13th.
The bloc was organised by Labour & Palestine, CLPD, Arise and Momentum amongst others.
Hopefully it represents a long-overdue willingness by Labour Party members to be identified as supporters of Palestine and a ceasefire. Apart from the supporting organisations there were constituency and Labour Councillor banners. The intention will be to organise the bloc again on the next national march in February.
We need to translate the support on the marches into political organisation – to make Palestine a ballot box issue.
Hugh Lanning Labour & Palestine
To quote Desmond Tutu: “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in”. Instead, Labour has watched the bodies float by, endorsing Israel’s war objectives. With over 20,000 dead Labour has effectively gone to war on Palestine – just as it has in the Yemen.
In so doing, Labour has morally lost the plot with hundreds of thousands of marchers, with a whole generation of people now committed to supporting Palestine.
This issue is going to haunt Labour before, during and after the next election. It will not go away with the election of a Labour Government.
We have seen where the arms and money the West gives Israel are going – we see it every night on the television. They are going to kill Palestinians – whether the ICJ concurs that this is genocide or not, the reality is Israel is trying to literally demolish any serious prospect of a Palestinian state.
This will require Labour to commit to global pressure on Israel to comply with international law. This will not be easy – but Netanyahu gives us the clue in saying he needs 3 things:” munitions, munitions, munitions”.
As with South Africa, sanctions will be the key – Labour needs to call for an arms embargo and commit to immediate recognition – not backtrack from its established policy. It also should publicly state it will repeal the anti-boycott bill should it become law.
A ceasefire will not be enough to create peace, it will only be a beginning. To establish the conditions for peace it will be necessary to dismantle the Israeli apartheid regime from Gaza to Jericho – that means bringing down the Wall ‘brick by brick’, removing the settlements and settlers, getting the troops out – it means ending the illegal military occupation.
Palestine needs a Labour bloc for Palestine at every level inside and outside the party making sure that the Palestinian voice is heard. As a democratic party we cannot be deaf to the calls for justice or we will come to regret ignoring the calls of hundreds of thousands of Labour Party supporters who are uniting in action for a “ceasefire now” and a Free Palestine.
The air strikes on Yemen and continued support for Israel exposes the Party. We need to not just march and protest, we need to organise.
Take part on in marches on January 20th – get involved, join the bloc on next national march in February.
The newspaper and magazine industry is gearing up for a battle over the use of AI in information harvesting and the use of artificial intelligence to create fake articles, fake writer profiles and photos.
The New York Times is to sue OpenAI and Microsoft accusing them of using millions of the newspaper’s articles without permission to help train chatbots to provide information to readers.
The New York Times said it is the first major U.S. media organisation to sue OpenAI, creator of the artificial-intelligence platform ChatGPT, and Microsoft, an OpenAI investor and creator of the AI platform now known as Copilot, over copyright issues associated with its works.
Writers and others have also sued to limit the automatic collection of data by AI services of their online content without compensation.
The newspaper’s complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court, accused OpenAI and Microsoft of trying to “free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalism” by using it to provide alternative means to deliver information to readers. “There is nothing ‘transformative’ about using The Times’s content without payment to create products that substitute for The Times and steal audiences away from it,” the Times said.
OpenAI and Microsoft have said that using copyrighted works to train AI products amounts to “fair use,” a legal doctrine governing the unlicensed use of copyrighted material. On its website, the U.S. Copyright Office says “transformative” uses add “something new, with a further purpose or character” and are “more likely to be considered fair.”
The New York Times is not seeking a specific amount of damages, but estimated damages in the “billions of dollars.” It also wants OpenAI and Microsoft to destroy chatbot models and training sets that incorporate its material.
Meanwhile the prestigious U.S. magazine Sports Illustrated recently sacked its CEO Ross Levinsohn for using Artificial Intelligence to produce articles and headshot photos generated by AI.
The company also fired its chief operating officer, media president and corporate counsel after revelations that the magazine had published articles by non-existent authors with AI generated biographies and headshots.
The magazine’s publisher Arena Group said the removal of Levinsohn had been decided after a meeting on actions to “improve the operational efficiency and the revenue of the company”.
The AI articles were unveiled by an online magazine Futurism, which discovered that articles supposedly written by ‘Sora Tanaka’, a fitness guru was found to be fictitious. Similarly, an article about volleyball by ‘Drew Ortiz’ who Futurism says has no social media presence, no publishing history and who’s profile photo on Sports Illustrated was for sale on a website that sells AI-generated headshots, where he’s described as “neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes.”
Arena denied the allegations, stating the content was from AdVon Commerce, an advertiser, which used ‘pen names’. The group has now severed ties with AdVon.
Levinsohn was replaced by Manoj Bhargava as interim chief executive. Bhargava is the founder of the energy drink ‘5-hour Energy’ who outlawed his staff using Powerpoint presentations telling them to “stop doing dumb stuff” and said the “amount of useless stuff you guys do is staggering”.
This YouTube film and song about the genocide now happening in Gaza has been produced by Unite activist and construction section member from Merseyside Jamie Bramwell who releases his songs with his band Coalhouse. Please share widely.
The TUCs special task force report on Artificial intelligence and Employment Rights Bill was launched at the TUC Congress House in London on April 18th. Comprising of the TUC, the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, unions academics and employment rights specialists the task force was set up to try to secure proper regulation of AI and algorithmic management in order to halt the UKs tech sector from becoming the ‘wild west’ of the economy.
