Much of the talk about the future of work fails to acknowledge what that future means for workers — and the critical need for employees to be able to shape that future.

Dramatic changes in jobs, industries, and our economy will continue — and speed up — due to external forces like climate change, demographic changes, and generative artificial intelligence (AI). AI, in particular, could eliminate, remake, and create whole categories of jobs.

It’s unavoidable and could be exponential, but it cannot be at the expense of workers already facing widening inequity in their power and pay. Wages for the lowest earners have grown since the pandemic, but still far short of creating financial stability for workers and their families. The Federal Reserve’s Economic Wellbeing of U.S. Households report found that, in 2023, one in six Americans could not afford to pay all their bills, and one in three could not cover an unexpected expense of $400 or more.

These hardships are not shared equally. Workers paid low wages are disproportionately women, people of color, and specifically women of color — reflecting longstanding gender and racial inequities that undermine the promise of the American Dream. Nationwide, “it’s basically a coin flip as to whether you’ll do better than your parents,” said Raj Chetty, a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, about his 2016 research on intergenerational economic mobility.

Workers losing faith and feeling left behind fuels the grievance politics gripping our nation. And our social compact — between employers, employees, and democratic institutions — will splinter even further if we don’t address economic inequality. AI is very much perceived as a real threat to this compact, and it’s already affecting job conditions and trust between employers and employers.  

Before ChatGPT and generative AI applications garnered attention, AI-powered tools were showing up at work. The Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School catalogs just a few AI-driven applications: real-time tracking of employee activities; measuring the time spent on tasks or deadlines missed; surveillance of workers’ communications and activities; and scoring performance and providing instant input to employees.

Algorithms are influencing decisions about hiring, firing, and worker management, yet there is rarely transparency and accountability around these decisions.

And there are implications as well for worker organizing and speaking out about workplace concerns. The risk is real, if not realized already, for AI monitoring and possible interference with unionization and other forms of worker advocacy. While some worker organizers are also experimenting with tools to aid their efforts, like chatbots, the “AI deck” is much more likely to be stacked against workers in our current trajectory.

To change that trajectory, we draw on lessons learned in our eight years of supporting organizations focused on increasing the power and prosperity of Californians paid low wages. Those trends and related needs include:

Reskilling

Training workers for the jobs of the future has been a conversation for decades, but the public and private sectors have a poor track record on this. Too often, workforce training fails to align or keep pace with the changing needs of employers — and fails to understand or meet the needs of low-income adults who need to earn a family-supporting wage. Unless things change, talk of reskilling workers displaced by AI will be just that.

So, we must get serious — and collaborative — about the education, training, and reskilling of incumbent and prospective workers. The UC Berkeley Labor Center notes the need to leverage and expand existing models like labor-management training partnerships, where unions and high-road employers work collaboratively to solve challenges in their industry.

And we have learned from grantees the value of “earn-and-learn” apprenticeship models that feature active employer involvement, skills development through classroom and on-the-job learning, and progressively higher wages commensurate with skill gain. Reskilling needs to happen on the job; outside programs and subsidies help, but employers should make sure employees gain the skills needed for the jobs of the future.

Information Gaps

We have heard from worker advocates — including labor leaders, worker centers, and community organizers — of the need to expand the technical expertise, resources, and capacity to effectively engage with and influence rapidly evolving workforce and technology landscapes.

This is a red flag, considering that regulations for AI are taking shape now nationally, internationally, and within states. It’s a critical time for ensuring that policies protect workers’ rights and well-being — not vague statements or token gestures, but actual policies and practices built into work informed by the very people who drive our economy.

Lack of transparency and the need for greater understanding among worker advocates — and policymakers — on the nuances, risks, and proactive strategies to shape AI policies and practices is a significant challenge for participating in the shaping of AI governance process.

Worker Experience at the Center

“Technology should make work safer, more productive, and increase workers’ skills, not worsen economic inequality or eliminate jobs. The best way to do that is to treat technology, including AI, as a tool for workers to control, not that controls them.”

That’s from the California Labor Federation’s principles for AI in the workplace, such as workers being able to negotiate and consent to new technologies in the workplace, have human oversight of automated processes, and ensure mechanisms to prevent use or loss of personal information, profiling, and other abuses.

We should not be naïve that workers will easily secure a seat at the table; employers do not typically engage employees in decisions about how technology is used in the workplace. But employers have a responsibility to proactively engage workers, hear their perspectives, and co-create plans for AI adoption.

Additionally, employees need collective bargaining power at the organizational and sectoral levels to demand a say in AI, as the Writers Guild of America was able to achieve through their labor action, as well as real and robust representation in the policymaking process about AI guardrails and legislation.

Ultimately, AI’s metric of success should not just be higher productivity, but rather ensuring shared prosperity, where workers also see gains in wages, working conditions, and economic security. We’ll only achieve this if workers are at the center, shaping uses of AI. One example: warehouse workers were instrumental in the passage of a warehouse quotas law in California, partially in response to AI-generated productivity quotas.

Embedding worker voice in the design, deployment, and governance of new technologies is particularly necessary for working people most excluded from economic opportunity and decision-making: low-income women, people of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ community, and more. Without their experiences at the fore, increased deployment of AI in the workplace has the potential to exacerbate existing inequalities, displace workers en masse, and concentrate economic gains in the hands of a privileged few.

What Philanthropy Can Do

We’re eager, in this moment of technologic and workplace change, to learn from and support grantees on their efforts and priorities — and are grateful to see peers do the same. The Ford, MacArthur, and Rockefeller foundations are funding important research, thinking, organizing, and advocacy work. And, in May, the Omidyar Network and Kapor and San Francisco foundations announced a $25 million commitment to support organizations that help put equity at the center of AI advancements.

We, at Irvine, also see opportunities for philanthropy to support:

• Worker advocates who can amplify the power and voice of workers on the job and inform policymakers on safer, more equitable deployment of AI technologies.
• Better on-the-job training — creating a high bar for equity, funding the initial costs of program development that governments can then deploy and subsidize.
• Pilot projects to facilitate inclusive, worker-centered approaches to AI implementation at the organization, sector, and policy levels.
• Cross-sector collaborations of diverse stakeholders, focused on developing strategies to manage risks and harness the benefits of AI for workers and society.
• Research on AI’s industry-specific impacts, potential risks, and ways to mitigate those risks for workers.

All these strategies will take time and require us to move fast. That is daunting, but we must reject a technological determinism mindset — the belief that technological change is inevitable, and results are out of our control to shape. Technology is not an autonomous force with inevitable effects; it is influenced by human choices, values, and, perhaps, most importantly, power. Workers should be at the center.

About the Author

Don J. Howard is the President and CEO of The James Irvine Foundation, a private, independent grantmaking institution that provided $180 million in 2023 to organizations working to ensure that low-income Californians have the power to advance economically. Don previously advised nonprofits and employers while at The Bridgespan Group and Booz Allen Hamilton. He holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Stanford University.

About this Series

This is part of a series called “Back to the ‘Future of Work’: Revisiting the Past and Shaping the Future,” curated by the Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative. For this series, we gather insights from labor, business, academia, philanthropy, and think tanks to take stock of the past decade and attempt to divine what the next one has in store. As the future is yet unwritten, let’s figure out what it takes to build a better future of work.