The Role of Unions in the Digital Age
Unions, in varying forms, have been around since around 1768 when tailors in New York, but they didn’t really start to become truly organised until the mid-1800’s. Unions have as long and sordid a history as corporations and governments. And like industry and government, they are deeply entrenched bureaucracies. Today, they represent less than 10% of workers in developed nations.
But there has been an uptick in interest of late. Why and what role might unions play in our high-tech, hyper-connected digital world? Do they need to be reshaped to adapt to new technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence? Are they adapting?
I’ll not be delving into the history of unions. A quick online search or a ChatGPT dive can get you caught up. I used ChatGPT to get some summarisations and concepts, but I wrote this article, a human. From a digital anthropologists’ perspective.
While the power, influence and overall memberships in unions has been in decline for the past few decades, unions play an integral role in Western society. There have been some increases in African and Latin American countries, but they are as fragile as democracy and the Rule of Law is in those nations. They are inextricably woven through industry and government and general society.
When it comes to unions, it is almost impossible to avoid politics. Especially in our current, polarised environment. The other factors impacting the role and activities of unions is geopolitics in a world where globalisation is still happening, but is becoming increasingly polarised as well. Then of course is our increasingly technological societies.
University of Bremen professor, Dr. Jelle Visser sees four possible outcomes for unions; marginalisation, dualization, replacement and revitalisation. Most unions are keenly aware that they are in a battle for their very existence. To become relevant again and to revitalise themselves. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), a specialised body of the United Nations is looking ahead. Many other unions may not be.
I argue that there may well be a case for unions. Especially as we go through a massive, almost unprecedented degree of change in the coming two to three decades.
Looking at the primary messaging on websites and social media accounts of several larger unions in Canada, the United States and Britain, one doesn’t get the sense of organisations that are truly aware of what impacts technology is having on society and how they might help.
Unions are bureaucracies, but they are also social justice movements. They play a part in a healthy, functioning democracy and capitalist system. All of these systems have become more complex and are undergoing significant changes.
While the ILO gives a nod to the gig economy and the need to help those workers, few other unions even understand what a gig worker is. They may seem them as freelancers and they’re operating methods are not designed to deal with self-employed people. How do you organise them? How do you enforce employer requirements when they’re both boss and employee? How can you go after the contractor? How would contracts be structured and would a contractor just ignore a union represented gig worker? Tough issues.
Then of course, there’s Artificial Intelligence tools like Generative AI (GAI) that will probably impact white collar knowledge workers more than blue collar skilled trades. Unions are born of the trades. It is the language they speak. Unions are not often seen as intellectual bodies (they are though), but as rough and tumble, the every-man trope. There have been few forays by tech workers to get unionised.
If, and it is a very big if right now, AI does lead to increased job losses, many unions may suddenly find themselves called upon to jump in and help save the day. Most are not in a place to do this. Unions understand how to use social media, they do not understand the implications of AI or digital technologies as a whole or how to extract insights from social media to help them evolve.
Unions are woefully unprepared for the social changes occurring as a result of the rapid advancement of digital technologies. They need to be. These technologies, like AI and robotics are whole-of-society issues and unions are part of the whole-of-society. There’s going to be a whole new group of workers that come knocking on their doors. Will they be able to open them or will they shut them, unable to adapt?
If they shut their doors, new social justice organisations will arise and unions will face further decline, that’s marginalisation. For now, that’s where most are headed.
How Can Unions Evolve in the Digital Age?
Unions, like governments, need to catch up to the impacts of technology. Fast. But like governments, they’re lagging. Some thoughts on what they might think about:
Increase Understanding: Basically; research. Here they might work together and could pull from insights embedded in unions that work with knowledge workers like CUPE in Canada. They can help trade unions and together, research into the impacts of digital technologies could help inform them as to what lies ahead. That takes some initiative and a greater willingness to collaborate for the greater good. If they truly are social justice movements, then they would set aside politics and take this on.
Cryptocurrency: While there may be a crypto winter right now and the technology needs regulating, there may be opportunities here. UnionCoin anyone? It may be a path to compensation methods that give employers of gig workers greater comfort in risk mitigation and help with fair compensation methods.
Blockchain: An opportunity to manage contracts and ensure performance metrics and secure identities for workers and that employers fuflill promises. Unions don’t understand blockchain, but then again, neither do most corporations and governments.
Generative AI: It’s quite impressive what ChatGPT understands about unions and how it pulls together some ideas on how unions might adapt. I’ll share that in another post. Unions don’t get it. It takes resources to learn and see how it applies and how jobs may change. GAI could threaten union jobs as well. Unions have to manage budgets as well after all.
Social Media Imaginariums: For the most part, unions monitor social media for the same reasons brands do; to understand reach and reputation. But social media is where citizens imagine their futures. This is an imaginarium in anthropology terms. Unions could learn a lot if they listened differently. They could learn how to engage a younger generation, where to meet them and how.
Data and Privacy: So far, unions haven’t had to delve too much into the areas of personal data and privacy beyond protecting their members. In the near future, they will find themselves more embroiled in this than they thought. As new privacy laws come into play (although unlikely in America where there are no privacy laws beyond HIPPA), they’ll have to adapt. It is fast becoming a major social justice issue.
Technology’s Diversity Bias: The digital floor is littered with cases of bias from AI against non-white populations. It is a social justice issue. As we see increasingly diverse workforces, unions will need to better understand how AI and other technologies impact workplace diversity. They face significant risks in avoiding this issue.
There are other ways unions can prepare for the Digital Age, but, like government, how fast will they move? It’s not easy when massive systemic changes come around. Unions were born of a time of huge systemic change during the early and middle part of the first industrial revolution, in many ways, like some corporations and governments, they remain entrenched in those models.
The changes underway in our macro sociocultural systems however, are about to place immense pressures on them. If they fail to adapt, history teaches us that new systems will evolve to take their place. Unions have an opportunity tio actors for change. Will they do so?
