The (ongoing) fight against workplace AI surveillance

The artificial intelligence boom of 2023 inspired more fear about how employers might use tech sophistication to monitor their employees further. "From algorithms firing staff without human intervention to software keeping tabs on bathroom breaks," The Guardian wrote, these technologies are "already upsetting workers and unsettling workplaces."

AI surveillance and spying software

Companies have long used technology to monitor productivity, surveil their employees and as a screening tool for potential future employees. A shift to virtual work during the pandemic and recent advancements in AI technology have led to worries about increased surveillance, with very few guidelines on how companies deploy the technology. The technology also isn't foolproof, which can be problematic. 

At some call centers, AI systems are used to "record and grade how workers handle calls," The Guardian explained, "often giving failing grades for not sticking to the script." Corporate software also monitors whether employees use the word "union" in their emails. As this type of corporate surveillance technology becomes more sophisticated, "many workplace experts say U.S. businesses, labor unions and government are not doing nearly enough to protect workers from tech's downsides," the outlet added. 

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Employees are under constant surveillance, and these tools "can make mistakes that can translate into unfair pay cuts or firings," Virginia Doellgast, professor of employment relations at Cornell, told The Guardian. Transparency isn't always forthcoming, so workers don't always know "what data the tools are collecting or how that data is used to evaluate their performance,” Doellgast added. 

Employees worry about how AI and monitoring technologies in the workplace "may be negatively related to their psychological well-being and lead them to feel less valued," according to a 2023 survey from the American Psychological Association. About half of the workers surveyed, 51%, said they knew their employer was using monitoring technology. Of those who reported being monitored, 46% said they felt uncomfortable with how their employer tracked them with technology, compared to 23% of workers who did not report being monitored. 

How unions and lawmakers are preventing a 'dystopian workplace'

In terms of union intervention, Europe is ahead of the curve, where, unlike the U.S. and Canada, "many unions have been pushing for years for protections against some of the more intrusive ways that AI tools track and manage workers," The Guardian reported. The issue has yet to be as high a priority for North American unions, Valerio De Stefano, a labor law professor at York University in Toronto, told the outlet. "Unions in Europe are more aware of the uses of technologies from the surveillance standpoint." 

Europeans have "stronger rights to obtain information and participate in decision-making," Doellgast added. If they have no union in the U.S., "workers have no information rights, and all they see is the effects of the technologies on them."

With the downsides of "AI and algorithmic management" in mind, some U.S. labor unions are prioritizing a push for more protections, per The Guardian. The Communications Workers of America union, which represents some call centers, has secured policies that require employers to notify workers when their calls are being monitored, while guaranteeing that "management will only record calls for training purposes to help improve employee performance" and not for punitive measures. 

"Our goal is not to stop new technologies," Dan Reynolds, the Communications Workers' assistant research director, told the outlet, "but to make sure the gains of these new technologies are broadly and equitably shared."

The rise in AI tracking and evaluating tools has prompted "some lawmakers to act to curb its power in the workplace," Bloomberg Law reported. Last year, lawmakers on the federal level and in states such as California, New York and Washington have introduced measures to limit how large warehouse operators like Amazon use technology to "monitor and enforce productivity quotas."

In July, New York City passed a "first-in-the-nation" law targeting AI's role in hiring and promotions by requiring employers to "conduct an independent bias audit of their automated tools," Bloomberg Law continued. "AI observers say it's a blueprint for additional efforts at the state and federal level." The District of Columbia and New Jersey also have pending bills targeting discriminatory algorithms used in hiring and firing. Massachusetts has a bill called "An act preventing a dystopian work environment" that targets similar tech and limits how companies electronically monitor their employees. 

Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. Bob Casey has also been pushing for regulation on the federal level with his Stop Spying Bosses Act and No Robot Bosses Act. The bills require employers to disclose their monitoring and "prohibit data collection during employees' off-duty time," Bloomberg Law explained.