Calls for stricter UK oversight of workplace AI amid fears for staff rights
Campaigners, trade unions and MPs are calling for stricter oversight of the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace, amid growing concerns about its effect on staff rights.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is holding a half-day conference on Tuesday to highlight the challenges of ensuring workers are treated fairly, as what it calls “management by algorithm” becomes increasingly prevalent.
“Making work more rewarding, making it more satisfying, and crucially making it safer and fairer: these are all the possibilities that AI offers us,” said Mary Towers, an employment lawyer who runs a TUC project on AI at work.
“But what we’re saying is, we’re at a really important juncture, where the technology is developing so rapidly, and what we have to ask ourselves is, what direction do we want that to take, and how can we ensure that everyone’s voice is heard?”
The TUC has highlighted the growing use of employee surveillance. The Royal Mail chief executive, Simon Thompson, recently conceded some postal workers’ movements were minutely tracked using handheld devices, with the data sused for performance management, for example. However, speaking to MPs in February, Thompson blamed rogue managers for breaching the company’s policy.
Striking staff at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse have described a tough regime of ever-changing targets they believe are set by AI. Amazon says these performance goals are “regularly evaluated and built on benchmarks based on actual attainable employee performance history”.
An operations manager who had worked at several retail distribution centres told academics compiling a recent piece of TUC research: “At some point warehouses will be expecting the efficiency of robots from humans.”
Matt Buckley, the
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