Policy Snapshot
Giving citizens a direct ownership stakes in AI infrastructure via equity stakes
Rate of Disruption
Gradual
All Scenarios
Rapid
Risk Horizon
Near Term
Medium Term
Long Term
Governance
Subnational
National
International
Target
Entrepreneurs
Displaced Workers
Primary Actor
Governments
Private Actors
Union & Bargaining Rights
Strengthened collective bargaining frameworks that give workers a formal voice in AI adoption decisions and a share of the resulting productivity gains.
What it is:
Union and bargaining rights are the legal and institutional tools that let workers organize and negotiate binding agreements over pay, conditions, job security, and workplace governance. In an AI transition, they function as an ex ante adjustment mechanism, letting workers bargain over how AI is deployed (notice, retraining, limits on surveillance and automated decisions) and how productivity gains are shared (wages, shorter hours, profit-sharing). Reforms to union and bargaining rights might include mandatory advance notice requirements before AI deployment, joint labor-management technology review committees with ongoing oversight authority, required disclosure of algorithmic decision-making logic, and negotiated data-stewardship agreements that compensate workers when their performance data trains AI systems.
Recommended Reading:
International Labour Organization
July 2025
This study examines how negotiation and consultation at national, sectoral, and company levels can drive a “high road” approach to AI investments and uses. It outlines three critical “action fields” for unions: shifting AI from labor-replacing to labor-complementing, moving from labor-controlling to labor-empowering management, and embedding precarious AI value-chain jobs into social protections. It concludes that collective bargaining is most effective when supported by legal constraints on employer exit and inclusive strategies of labor solidarity.
UC Berkeley Labor Center
September 2025
This Labor Center resource synthesizes “recent statements” of labor priorities on AI, effectively mapping an emerging union agenda for how AI should be governed at work. It aggregates positions across a wide cross-section of unions, making it a useful reference point for where organized labor is already converging and fragmenting on AI workplace demands.
European Trade Union Confederation
December 2025
ETUC is explicitly pushing for binding, cross-sector rules on AI at work, with a focus on worker protections against algorithmic management and enforceable rights in deployment. Its position aligns with the broader EU debate about ensuring “human control” and meaningful safeguards when AI systems shape working conditions and employment outcomes.
Real-world precedents:
In 2023, Hollywood writers and actors won a 148-day strike that secured consent and compensation requirements for any use of their digital likenesses. The Writers Guild of America secured contract language establishing that AI cannot be considered a "writer" and cannot replace human-written material as source material, that writers retain full credit and compensation even when AI tools are used, and that studios must disclose if AI-generated material is provided to a writer.
SAG-AFTRA negotiated similar protections requiring informed consent and fair compensation for the use of actors' digital replicas, while prohibiting studios from using AI to circumvent minimum compensation requirements.
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