At a pace few workforce analysts anticipated, artificial intelligence is expanding its role in the employment context, often in areas organizations had not predicted. As a result, many C-suite executives are identifying job tasks and positions in which AI can replace the humans currently performing that work.
In the years immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic, it seemed workers held most of the leverage. In many industries, employers scrambled to fill vacant positions for which employees had simply not returned after in-office work resumed. Wages in numerous fields rose dramatically, while the work-from-home option became a necessary component of many compensation packages. Companies offered unprecedented bonuses, commissions and perks to attract candidates to return to work. The leverage pendulum is, however, swinging slowly and methodically back toward the employer. A major driver to this shift has been the workplace’s swift incorporation of generative AI into its systems, processes and job tasks.
Generative AI has the capability to create new content in almost countless forms — images, audio, video, messaging and written work product. Organizations can maximize generative AI’s capability by educating it on their industry’s terminology, history, business methods and products, as well as the operation’s proprietary information and specific manners of conducting business. AI’s work product, while often not perfect, can be superior to human-generated content or at least performed at superior speed.
With AI threatening to replace entire job positions, upper-level managers and owners are once again imposing their will in the workplace, with a resulting cascade of changes to wages, job positions and perks. The unmistakable messages are that workers need to return to the office, work harder, complain less and cherish their jobs.
In a recent internal meeting, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon angrily responded to employees complaining about the company’s return to work mandate, exclaiming, “I’ve had it with this kind of stuff. … I’ve been working seven days a week since COVID, and I come into the office. Where is everybody else?” Furniture company MillerKnoll CEO Andi Owen told staffers to “leave pity city” when they skeptically confronted her about the company’s payment of future bonuses. In the wake of a recent layoff of 1,000 employees, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol threw down the gauntlet to his workforce, saying, “You need to own whether or not this place grows.” Then, a month ago, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke took these blunt messages a major step further. On a mission to make Shopify run more efficiently, Lutke criticized the online commerce’s “absurd number of meetings,” removing 12,000 events from worker calendars, then announced that AI will replace humans in many job tasks. Saying what other CEO’s have been unwilling to publicize, Lutke directed his managers, “Before asking for more headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI.”
Putting aside the benefits of humans working side by side as a collaborative team to accomplish the organization’s objectives, some of AI’s benefits are undeniable. AI does not request a pay increase or time off, and it won’t try to organize a union or talk back to managers. Plus, it does not need sick time, and it will not post anti-company commentary online.
The Department of Labor Weighs In
In March 2024, the Department of Labor issued “Best Practice” guidance on AI’s use in the workplace, its first attempt to balance AI’s workplace encroachment with worker rights. The former acting Department of Labor Secretary Julie Su commented on this guidance, “These Best Practices provide a roadmap for responsible AI in the workplace, helping businesses harness these technologies while proactively supporting and valuing their workers. … As we embrace the opportunities that AI can offer, we must ensure workers are lifted up, not left behind.”
This guidance, which does not have the force of law, outlines steps for productively incorporating AI into an organization’s processes, while urging employers to value and protect workers and their rights. The guidance encourages employers to utilize the following:
- Involve workers in the development and deployment of AI systems;
- Establish ethical standards and review processes to ensure the AI systems protect workers’ rights while also meeting performance goals;
- Create a governance team of the AI system and ensure employees are trained on its use and function;
- Keep the workforce informed on the organization’s goals in implementing AI;
- Ensure AI does not undermine or violate workers’ protected rights;
- Utilize AI to complement workers and improve overall performance;
- Retrain and reallocate workers displaced by AI when feasible; and
- Secure AI system and information collection to protect information.
At this point, the DOL knows the AI genie is out of the bottle, and it has limited ability to protect employees whose jobs AI can replace. Therefore, principal among the guidance points, the DOL encourages employers to employ AI to benefit employee productivity instead of replacing them.
Union Response to AI
Recent labor union proclamations and National Labor Relations Board policy initiatives have sought to manage employers’ use of AI by arguing management can only employ AI under terms subject to collective bargaining agreement negotiated terms. In their collective bargaining agreements, some unions are pushing for “upskilling” programs in which management agrees to train workers for higher level positions if AI replaces their job.
What does the future hold for the role of AI in the workplace?
As workers are increasingly replaced by technological tools, like AI, the DOL and the NLRB will need to walk the very fine line of balancing employee rights with management’s objectives to increase productivity while lowering labor costs. Speaking on AI’s attributes, Lutke commented with admiration, “I’ve seen many of [Shopify’s] people approach implausible tasks, ones we wouldn’t even have chosen to tackle before, with a reflexive and brilliant usage of AI to get 100 times the work done.” Weighed against AI’s benefits, upper-level managers can identify and focus on those jobs in which AI cannot replace the human elements of ingenuity, creativity and customer engagement in furthering an organization’s mission.
At many levels, organizations cannot replace the human inspiration that makes what once seemed impossible, possible. Contrary to some doomsayers, robots will not inherit the earth.
Jay M. Wallace is a labor and employment partner with Bell Nunnally & Martin LLP based in Dallas. He can be reached at jwallace@bellnunnally.com.
Sydnie A. Shimkus is a Bell Nunnally partner focused on commercial litigation and labor and employment matters. She can be reached at sshimkus@bellnunnally.com.