Workers need greater say over AI rollout, says TUC-backed report

Exclusive: IPPR thinktank calls for new measures to boost employees’ influence at ‘pivotal moment’ in history

Workers urgently need more bargaining power over the way AI is adopted in the workplace to ensure the benefits are fairly shared, according to a TUC-backed report from a leading thinktank.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) is calling for a package of measures to boost employees’ influence at what it calls a “pivotal moment in the history of work”.

Its report cites survey data showing that while 20% of workers say AI is making their working life better, 21% say it has made it worse – and 4% believe they have already lost a job because of the technology.

The IPPR distinguishes between three potential impacts of the technology: augmentation, where it complements human labour; degradation, where it undermines the experience of work, for example, by being used to monitor and manage workers; and displacement, where it replaces workers altogether.

“The question is not whether AI will disrupt working life, but who will have the power to shape that disruption – and whose interests it will ultimately serve,” the report’s authors argue.

Their recommendations include a statutory duty on employers to consult their workers over the adoption of AI and a “worker support levy”, which could be funded by companies or workers themselves.

The idea of this levy would be to create a portable “wallet” of benefits that workers could take with them from one job to another – such as union membership, insurance or training – with the broad aim of increasing their bargaining power.

Consultation on AI adoption between employers and staff could take place through existing collective bargaining arrangements with unions, the report says, or via new structures, such as worker representation on boards, or a new consultative body.

Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC who has written a foreword to the report, said: “Great technological transitions only result in meaningful social progress when they are shaped actively and decisively.

“The Industrial Revolution – often casually invoked to describe the possibilities of AI – saw 50 years of wage stagnation while profits soared. It took the difficult birth of the labour movement to tip technological gains towards workers’ interests and broader social wellbeing.

“To deliver on the promise of technology to enhance lives, inside and out of the workplace, AI must be designed, governed and negotiated by and for workers.”

The government has made clear it is enthusiastic about the adoption of AI in the UK, with Rachel Reeves highlighting it as one of three drivers of stronger economic growth, alongside closer EU relations and more regional devolution.

In her Mais lecture, the chancellor called AI “the defining technology of our era”, saying she was determined to “maximise the value added … to the wider economy and the public sector through accelerated adoption”.

Labour has already introduced a historic upgrade to workers’ rights since coming to power in July 2024, prompting some business groups to warn that alongside tax rises and chunky increases in the “national living wage”, it has pushed up the cost of employing staff.