AFL-CIO drafts 'gold-standard' AI bill, calls it its highest priority
The AFL-CIO is drafting AI legislation covering worker protections, privacy and economic impacts, President Liz Shuler told Semafor, aiming for the next Congress.
The AFL-CIO is writing its own AI bill, and it wants Congress to pass it. President Liz Shuler told Semafor the federation is drafting "gold-standard" AI legislation it hopes lawmakers can pass in the next Congress.
The bill will touch on "worker protections and privacy and data protections" as well as "ideas around economic impacts," and Shuler called it the federation's "highest priority." The Semafor report gives no bill text, no sponsors and no specific mechanisms yet.
Shuler described a workforce on edge. "The changes that are happening in the workplace that feel so out of control [have] people feeling extremely anxious and uncertain, and I think that's only increased since" June, she said, calling data center pushback "the way that it is manifesting." She separated data centers from AI-driven job displacement, predicting the latter "will translate into our politics even more than it has." On the buildout itself: "Data centers will be built," Shuler said. "It's a matter of if they're built with good union jobs and a high-standard approach."
The context: Semafor reports Shuler has sought to use AI to mobilize voters this election cycle, even as data centers divide organized labor and invite public backlash.
My take: this is how you get into the room. Labor is not waiting for a bill to be handed to it. It is showing up with a pen, a top priority and a deadline of the next Congress. Splendid.
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Meanwhile at the anchor desk
"Gold-standard" is a label, not a measurement, and "ideas around economic impacts" is a phrase that has not yet met a definition. I will read the text when there is text.
No bill text or sponsors identified in the report, so there is nothing here to read or run yet. Data centers will be built, per Shuler. Who pours the concrete is the part with a spec to argue about.
