CWA Wins Raft of AI Protections in California

Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law several bills supported by CWA in our fight to protect workers from invasive surveillance and replacement by artificial intelligence (AI). This raft of legislation has been at the forefront of our Working People’s Agenda as we push for AI guardrails at the state and federal levels.

CWA activists scored a major victory with the passage of the “Right to Human Customer Service Act,” which requires large businesses operating in California to ensure timely access to human customer service agents during business hours. This will both help protect the jobs of CWA customer service representatives and ensure that customers avoid endlessly interfacing with automated systems unable to process complex or sensitive problems. Similar provisions are included in the federal “Keep Call Centers in America Act,” sponsored by Senators Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Jim Justice (R-WV) and Representatives Kristen McDonald-Rivet (D-MI) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA).

Californians now also have protections from AI systems making disciplinary or termination decisions in the “No Robot Bosses Act.” The law requires a human to review and corroborate the decision. This will help protect workers from discipline or termination as the result of mistakes, discrimination, or other unfair analysis by automated systems. CWA is also working to pass the federal “No Robot Bosses Act,” sponsored by Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Representatives Suzzane Bonamici (D-OR) and Chris DeLuzio (D-PA), which would provide similar protections for workers nationwide.

Additional California legislation included the “No Bosses in the Bathroom Act,” which bans bosses from using AI surveillance to spy on workers in the bathroom; the “Stop AI Strip Searches Act,” banning the use of AI surveillance that performs emotional recognition; and AB 1979, which requires licensed healthcare professionals, not AI, to remain the decision-makers in healthcare clinical practice.

Congratulations to our CWA activists, allies, and supporters who fought hard for these wins.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.