“Automation is a critical issue of concern confronting the labor movement. In recent years the business press and right-wing organizations have routinely heralded the new era of automation as the death knell for unions, and the long standing confrontation between auto workers and company executives over automation in the automobile industry during the 20th century is legendary. One area where union jobs are currently being threatened by automation involves ports. Dockworkers in Australia and other countries have recently gone on strike to preserve jobs in the emerging era of port automation, and the U.S. Labor Secretary has called on US unions to assist in the process of automating US ports to stay competitive with foreign rivals.

“U.S. unions—which were never strong compared to other advanced economies—have declined significantly from their post-war peak of around 34.7 percent of the workforce to 11.1 percent (and just 6.7 percent in the private sector). They are also under siege in numerous states, including traditional heartlands such as Wisconsin and Michigan (currently controlled by Republican legislatures and governors). Such pressures have led some in the labor movement to re-evaluate their traditional stance on workplace organization and control. For instance, in recent years the United Steelworkers have entered into an agreement with the Mondragón cooperative network in the Basque region of Spain to develop a new union-cooperative worker ownership model which is currently being experimented with in Cincinnati, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Several other unions have become involved with other forms of worker owned firms such as democratic ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans).

“In the short-term, worker ownership, could serve as a partial barrier to the dislocations from automation induced job reductions in vulnerable industries (evidence suggests that worker owned firms will often cut jobs only as a last resort after all other options have been exhausted). In the longer-term worker-owned firms with union involvement could embrace automation and distribute the productivity gains in the form of increased dividends, reduced work hours, or increased flexibility rather than layoffs.” —Gar Alperovitz, Co-chair of the Next System Project and Co-founder of The Democracy Collaborative.

“Trade unions will resist automation, and in some sectors, where competition is weak, they will succeed for a while. But the iron hand of economics always prevails in the end.”—Calum Chace, author of The Economic Singularity

“They certainly should be. Labor has been losing its place at the table in our society for decades and these trends are only poised to accelerate. Since most of us only have our labor to participate in the economy, this is going to become a larger issue. If we don't want to see catastrophic breakdowns in our social structure, we need to make sure that we're not leaving people behind. I think that is very much one of the most pressing issues that we face today.”—Mike Johnston, Co-Host, Robot Overlordz Podcast

“The threat of increased automation has already been used to deter workers from fighting for higher wages, with many conservative commentators threatening that iPads will soon replace fast food workers, if they achieve a wage of $15/hour. While this rhetoric fails to take into account the fact that fast food workers in countries like the Netherlands or Australia routinely make wages that high—or higher, it is still the case that some jobs will no doubt be lost to automation. US employers have always used the threat of wage competition to drive wedges between different groups of workers. It seems likely that the next iteration of that will be humans versus robots.”—Kati Sipp, editor of Hack The Union

“Automation should be of huge interest to labor leaders. Former president of the SEIU Andy Stern is one of the few labor leaders out ahead on this issue, and more need to follow suit if they have any real concerns about the bargaining power of human workers in a world of increasing ability to replace those workers with capital itself in the form of robots and software. For labor to have any real power in the future, they must fight for bargaining power outside of labor. That is, organized labor must push for universal basic income, so that everyone as an individual has the power to say no to insufficient wages and working conditions by having the actual ability to go on strike without end.”—Scott Santens, Writer & Basic Income Advocate

“Automation is on the agenda for the smarter leaders of labour unions. I have argued that what they need to understand is that this wave is going to be difficult to oppose, and more importantly, offers real advantages. For example the potential ability for everyone to work less, and for prosperity to no longer be so closely tied to human suffering in the workplace. That requires, in turn, a transformation in how unions operate, and their entire agenda, which historically has become closely tied to wanting good jobs for all. Effective organised labour in the future will be about making a world which is liveable for ordinary people, and creating the political conditions in which automation can be embraced for its socially useful effects.”—Alex Williams, author (with Nick Srnicek) of Inventing the Future: Post-Capitalism and a World Without Work

“By far, the biggest and most immediate threat to USW members' job security is unfair trade. That's our focus. Unless the U.S. takes steps to stem the tide of manufacturing jobs leaving our country for places like China, there won't be any work left for Steelworkers to lose to automation.”—United Steelworkers (USW)