Tech Workers Say AI Is Reorganising Their Jobs For The Worse, Inquiry Finds

proposals expand upon Composite Motion 13 carried at TUC Congress 2026

 

A report by the CWU's tech workers branch, UTAW, has found that tech workers see AI as a largely negative force, one that intensifies work rather than removing it.

Participants in the inquiry described rising output expectations, shifting skills requirements, expanded monitoring, degraded expertise, blurred accountability and growing divisions between colleagues. AI applications, the report concluded, "rarely remove work; they redistribute and intensify it."

The central problem, according to the findings, is not whether AI performs well but how employers introduce, control, measure and use it. Workers said AI is useful only when they can choose whether and how to engage with it.

Flaws such as hallucinations and weak code were acknowledged, but the authors stressed that the harms do not stem from technical limits.

Employers, they said, are using AI to intensify work, justify redundancies, cut junior hiring, increase surveillance, deskill workers and shift risk onto staff.

Without enforceable worker rights, these issues would persist even as models improve.

Participants also raised wider concerns about AI's environmental impact, its use in military and state surveillance, and its effects on mental health.

The report's recommendations focus on who controls and benefits from AI rather than on its functionality. It calls for:

• Meaningful consultation and negotiation over AI deployments, as transparency alone is not enough
• No mandatory AI use, with legal protection for workers who refuse and limits on AI-driven management decisions
• Strong regulation to prevent AI harming people and the planet
• AI-free learning pathways for junior and graduate workers, to stop a "brain drain"
• Collective bargaining over AI at work, giving workers the final say

The authors warned that disclosure without consequence "only whitewashes."

CWU's composiye motion 13 at the TUC Congress 2026 in September, was reported on by Unionsafety.eu here

The UTAW report can be downloaded by clicking on the image above.

Source: CWU LTB