Five Takeaways for Professionals from CES and the Labor Innovation & Technology Summit

The Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE) attended the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to learn more about emerging technology that could impact professionals in the workplace. DPE also participated in the concurrent Labor Innovation & Technology Summit sponsored by DPE affiliates SAG-AFTRA and AFT, as well as the AFL-CIO, the AFL-CIO Technology Institute, and UNITE HERE. At the summit, leaders and members from across the labor movement strategized on ways to ensure that workers and their unions had a say in shaping the future of work and the introduction of workplace technologies.

Here are DPE’s top five takeaways from our time in Vegas thinking, talking, and breathing tech:

CES was brought to you by professionals.
CES was a display of the ingenuity and innovativeness of professionals across industries. By joining together in union, these professionals can best ensure that they will earn a fair return on their work and a say in their jobs.

In addition, CES itself was a success thanks to the members of IATSE Local 720.

Technology is never neutral or static, it’s always evolving.
With wearables, monitoring devices, data capture, automated systems, digital outsourcing and offshoring, and AI programs like ChatGPT, tech companies are creating products that could be adapted for use in the workplace, even if they are marketed differently today. Professionals should have a say in how these products get introduced into their workplaces and a clear understanding of how employers intend to use them, especially if they are used to monitor or evaluate employee performance.

When tech professionals join together in union, we all benefit.
Technology can both help and harm people in their personal and work lives. Because union tech professionals are empowered to raise concerns in their workplaces free of retaliation, they are more likely to sound the alarm about the unethical design or use of products that corporations may want to bring to market.

AI is coming to the workplace.
AI has a variety of uses, from self-regulating business operations to automatically de-aging characters or enhancing stunts on-screen. There are already clear dangers and downsides to AI, including image-based sexual abuse, misappropriation for commercial gain, and the proliferation of disinformation using known public figures without their consent. By joining together in union, professionals are in the best position to have a say in how AI gets implemented in the workplace and to push back against misuse.

Union professionals want to have a voice in decisions about tech and how it impacts their work.
DPE and our affiliate unions are unified in our goal to ensure that professionals have a seat at the table of technology development and policy. The Labor Innovation and Technology Summit showcased this commitment with affiliates like the AFT and SAG-AFTRA sharing the work they’re doing in the sectors where their members work.