Signal AFL-CIO Workers First AI Summit / SAG-AFTRA & WGA AI Renegotiations 2026

Summary

The AFL-CIO Tech Institute hosted the Workers First AI Summit on March 26 2026, building on the federation's Workers First Initiative on AI launched October 15 2025. The initiative opposes algorithmic dismissal and surveillance, stating that letting an algorithm secretly decide hiring, promotion, discipline or firing leads to discrimination, unfairness and worse conditions. The summit featured a panel with CWA President Claude Cummings, Ford Foundation's Jose Garcia, WGA East's Jason Gordon and Amazon worker and RWDSU member Isaiah Thomas, moderated by Ed Wytkind. Cummings said the same flawed AI that surveils and manages people at work is also used to decide credit scores or mortgage approvals. Around the same period Michigan labor groups and lawmakers pushed the RAISE Act to protect workers from algorithmic surveillance, harassment and wage theft. SAG-AFTRA and the WGA separately reopened AI provisions in their own 2026 negotiations.