Developing an AI policy agenda that empowers and protects workers, jobseekers, and communities
By Chris Warland, CJC Director of Policy & Advocacy
This is second in a series of blogs exploring the potential impacts of AI on jobseekers, workers, and workforce development providers, and documenting the development of Chicago Jobs Council's AI policy platform.
Generative artificial intelligence is already rapidly changing the nature of work in many occupations and sectors. The predictions about the future of work in the age of AI range from optimistic scenarios in which everyone is more productive and has more leisure time to catastrophic tales of mass unemployment and social unrest. Although we can’t predict exactly how AI will impact workers, jobseekers, and labor markets, we can be sure that the impacts will be significant. As workforce development practitioners and advocates, we must start planning our policy responses now.
As an organization dedicated to representing the interests of vulnerable jobseekers, workers, and communities, as well as the organizations that serve them, Chicago Jobs Council has identified some foundational policy priorities and objectives to guide our AI-related policy advocacy regardless of how AI ultimately shapes our labor market. These priorities are grounded in CJC’s commitment to creating an anti-racist workforce development system and our belief that both the workforce system and the broader economy should support the economic wellbeing of everyone.
When considering AI policy positions that represent the needs of jobseekers and workers who face barriers to employment and have been excluded from economic opportunity, it is important to strike a balance between leveraging the potential benefits of new technologies to improve the lives of workers, and protecting workers from the potential harms of a powerful tool in the hands of powerful actors. The policy principles described here are intended to address both priorities: equip jobseekers and workforce programs with the resources and tools they need to thrive in an AI-driven labor market, while also protecting against job loss,discrimination, declines in job quality, and environmental injustices that may arise when AI is deployed irresponsibly.
Foundational Priorities to Guide our Advocacy
CJC has identified seven priorities to guide future AI policy advocacy regardless of the specific workforce outcomes or impacts that need to be addressed. It is worth noting that these priorities are intended to apply only to public policy; there are other important considerations to be addressed with regard to how AI may impact the internal operations of workforce providers or the services provided to jobseekers that are beyond the scope of this paper.
Equitable access to the returns of technology: Prior waves of technological change have typically left many workers behind. Automation, digitization, and globalization resulted in significant hardships for many workers even as they generated economic growth. CJC will support policies that ensure that individuals and communities that have been excluded from the benefits of prior technological advancements can share in the prosperity generated by any increased productivity realized through AI.
A well-equipped and well-resourced workforce system: In order to ensure that workers and jobseekers are not excluded from the economic gains generated by AI, we will need a workforce system that has the capacity, tools, and resources to provide the AI skills that employers demand. This includes additional funding as well as access to data, appropriate curriculum development, and staff training to ensure effective, quality service delivery. CJC will advance policies that fund and support employment service providers with what they need to prepare jobseekers for new roles and functions that include AI.
Protections for jobseekers and workers subject to job insecurity and job loss: When new technologies are deployed in the workplace, some worker displacement is inevitable as old jobs disappear and new ones are created. However not all job displacement is necessary or inevitable, and some human roles are worth protecting. For example, jobs in the arts that call for the creativity and talent to reflect genuine human experience and feeling should be protected, and the intellectual property of creative workers should be respected. CJC will work to identify and advance policies that limit or mitigate the loss of jobs due to AI.
Resources and services for workers displaced by technological change: Because some amount of displacement will occur with technological change, we must anticipate the needs of displaced workers and plan to fund and deliver appropriate and effective services to mitigate harm and support reemployment in new roles. This requires that the workforce development system is equipped and adequately resourced to support reskilling, upskilling, and reemployment of displaced workers, as well as planning for more robust responses such as a universal basic income and federal job guarantees, should displacement become widespread and disruptive. CJC will support policies that increase workforce system capacity and resources to meet the needs of displaced workers, as well as responses that can address displacement at scale.
Job quality for workers impacted by AI: While many workers are already experiencing the benefits of increased productivity and effectiveness from using AI in their daily work, there are significant threats to job quality when AI is deployed in workplaces without consideration for worker wellbeing. If workers are monitored, assigned tasks, disciplined, or evaluated by AI agents without appropriate human oversight, the result could be an unforgiving or even traumatizing workplace, as unfeeling AI agents will not accommodate worker needs as a human would. CJC will support policies that ensure that the application of AI in the areas of worker supervision, performance monitoring and evaluation, determining pay, task assignments, and related functions do not diminish job quality.
Equity for jobseekers and workers: Using AI to make decisions about employment practices raises the risk of inequitable outcomes. It might seem as if automated hiring and employment processes would be free of the kinds of bias found in human decisionmaking, but bias also exists in the datasets used to train and inform AI agents. CJC will support policies that prevent the use of AI in hiring and employment decisions from perpetuating or worsening racial and gender inequities.
Alignment with climate justice: As an advocate and partner in Illinois’ transition to a clean energy economy, CJC is committed to climate justice for communities that have experienced disproportionate environmental harm. As we seek to ensure that marginalized workers and communities take part in the economic benefits of AI, we need to balance that priority with an acknowledgement of the environmental impacts of AI data centers. CJC will support policies to mitigate the environmental and climate injustices associated with AI’s water and energy consumption, even as we seek to connect marginalized workers and communities with the economic gains promised by AI.
The current economic and technological environments are changing rapidly, and it is impossible to predict what the exact implications will be for workers, jobseekers, and the workforce development field, even in the near term. Even as efforts are underway to gather data and analyze likely outcomes for the workforce, policy advocates in the workforce space need to prepare now for multiple possible scenarios with policy solutions that are well-considered and ready to deploy. CJC will continue to monitor the impacts of AI on the workforce development field and work with our coalition partners to respond with advocacy that puts workers and jobseekers first, based on a sound foundation of aligned values and priorities.