CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. Advises Senate on AI Regulation Efforts

Yesterday, CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. joined labor leaders and workers to speak before the bipartisan Senate AI Insight Forum on Workforce, convened by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

As artificial intelligence programs are widely adopted in the workplace, CWA has led efforts to regulate AI and ensure that new technologies contribute to improved services and shared prosperity. Our union has centered our response to AI on the voices and experiences of our members, which is why CWA’s Executive Board established a Committee on Artificial Intelligence, a group of members from across our union who meet weekly to study the impact of AI on our workplaces and draft recommendations on how to address the challenges AI presents.

President Cummings told the senators that government policy should recognize collective bargaining as an essential safeguard in managing the changes and challenges that AI will bring to America’s jobs and workplaces. Collective bargaining and a union contract give workers a voice in how AI is implemented within their jobs and serves as a counterbalance to corporate control over technology.

Government policy can further bolster the voice of workers by setting standards for safe and ethical adoption and use of AI systems by prohibiting abusive surveillance in the workplace, protecting worker privacy, and ensuring that decisions made by AI systems can be appealed to a human.

By bringing the voices and experiences of CWA members in his testimony before the Senate forum, President Cummings made a powerful case for how AI regulation that is guided by the voices of America’s workers can promote American innovation that builds on workers’ expertise and protects rights and dignity in the workplace.

President Cummings confers with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) at the Senate AI Insight Forum in Washington, D.C.