Workers First: Labor’s AI Strategy for the Future of Work

Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant concept for tech conferences. It is a workplace force already reshaping how goods move, how services are delivered and how decisions are made. On today’s episode of the America’s Work Force Union Podcast, United Labor Agency Executive Director Dave Megenhardt described why labor leaders are treating AI as an economic turning point that could compress a century of disruption into a decade.

His message was not panicked. It focused on the need for preparation. Workers need a voice in how AI is deployed, unions must bargain for protections and workforce institutions must help people navigate an economy that is speeding up, he said.

• AI could disrupt multiple industries at once, compressing job loss and job redesign into a much shorter timeline than past technology shifts.
• Labor is pushing for a seat at the table so AI adoption includes guardrails, community protections and bargaining standards.
• Workers can respond through skills building and organizing, using workforce agencies like ULA to plan career moves in a fast-changing market.

A Workers First summit signals labor’s next big fight

The labor movement has seen technology change work before. Mechanization altered manufacturing. Computers reshaped offices. Logistics systems rewired supply chains. What makes artificial intelligence different, Dave Megenhardt said, is speed and scope.

Megenhardt joined America’s Work Force to discuss a Northeast Ohio event that put those concerns on the table: the Workers First Summit on Artificial Intelligence, hosted Feb. 20 by the North Shore Federation of Labor. The conference, he explained, grew out of a national initiative launched by the AFL-CIO last fall. The goal is to move the AI conversation from speculation to strategy.

In Megenhardt’s view, the country is approaching a new industrial revolution, one that could arrive faster than previous waves of change. Historically, when technology eliminated certain tasks, new jobs often emerged. AI, he argued, threatens to hit many industries simultaneously, potentially collapsing what once unfolded over generations into a single decade.

That is why labor wants to be involved early. If AI products are planned, financed and deployed without worker input, the consequences will not be limited to individual job titles. They could reshape regional economies and widen inequality.

Why AI threatens entire job chains, not single occupations

Megenhardt offered a scenario that illustrates the difference between incremental automation and systemwide AI adoption. Transportation, he noted, is one of the largest employment sectors for men without college degrees. Truck driving alone supports millions of workers across union and nonunion workplaces.

The risk is not limited to driverless trucks. He described how AI and robotics could automate the entire chain: factories using advanced robotics to produce goods, warehouses using automation to load and unload, trucks operating without drivers, then automated warehouses receiving shipments at the other end.

If that chain becomes standard, the disruption is not a single job loss. It is a structural shift across manufacturing, logistics and distribution. The pace matters as much as the technology. A rapid rollout could leave communities with little time to adjust.

Megenhardt tied that concern to the Midwest’s experience with deindustrialization. In his telling, the nation underestimated the human impact of factory closures and offshoring. Economic growth continued in aggregate, but the benefits were uneven. Many communities were left with fewer employers, fewer pathways to stable wages and a landscape of abandoned industrial sites, he said.

AI, he warned, could magnify that pattern. If productivity gains flow primarily to a small number of firms and investors, the result could be a broader and faster expansion of inequality.

Guardrails, bargaining and a worker voice in AI deployment

A key theme of the interview was governance. Megenhardt argued that AI developers and major investors prefer an environment with minimal regulation. Labor’s position, as he described it, is that the country cannot repeat past mistakes by trusting markets alone to manage disruption.

He framed it as a community issue, not only a workplace issue. When companies leave or restructure, neighborhoods absorb the shock. Local tax bases shrink. Small businesses lose customers. Families relocate or fall behind. Without guardrails, AI adoption could produce similar outcomes at scale.

Megenhardt said the response must include pressure on policymakers to think through consequences and establish limits. He also emphasized that collective bargaining agreements will need to address AI directly. If employers plan to use AI to change job duties, staffing levels or evaluation systems, unions will need enforceable language that protects workers.

The labor movement’s broader strategy is to insist that worker voice is not optional. It is a prerequisite for a fair transition.

AI anxiety is already hitting students and professionals

The fear caused by AI implementation is not confined to one class of workers. Ferenc referenced a recent conversation with a college student studying civil engineering who worried that the degree might not protect him from automation.

Megenhardt agreed that AI could affect every layer of the labor market. The common assumption that automation targets only lower-wage work does not hold when AI can generate writing, analyze documents and perform tasks once reserved for higher-skilled roles. In that sense, AI is not simply a blue-collar issue or a white-collar issue. It is a workforce issue.

He described the challenge of planning in an environment where the technology evolves rapidly, and the end state is uncertain. Preparing for AI can feel like aiming at a moving target. Still, he argued, workers cannot afford to ignore it.

What workers can do now: skills, strategy and organizing

Megenhardt’s advice combined individual preparation with collective action. For union members, he said, AI must be addressed at the bargaining table. For workers outside unions, he presented AI as another reason to organize.

He also warned against overreliance on AI tools in ways that erode a worker’s own skill base. If AI performs core parts of a job, the worker can become easier to replace. The practical response, he said, is to keep building skills, continue learning and stay engaged with how the work is changing.

At the same time, he acknowledged the hard truth: even advanced degrees may not guarantee insulation from disruption. That uncertainty is why labor is pushing for policy guardrails and why workforce institutions must help workers make informed decisions.

Follow the capital: why AI investment signals rapid implementation

Megenhardt pointed to the scale of investment in AI as a sign that major players expect rapid deployment. Investors are betting not only on technological breakthroughs but also on widespread implementation across industries.

He described how profits could concentrate in a small number of companies that supply the underlying systems and infrastructure. If many sectors adopt AI, those suppliers can capture value across the economy. The result, he suggested, is a feedback loop: more investment drives faster development, which drives broader adoption, which in turn drives greater profit concentration.

For workers and communities, that raises a central question: who benefits from productivity gains, and how are the costs shared?

The emergency room of the economy

Megenhardt closed with a pitch rooted in his organization’s mission. The United Labor Agency, he said, helps workers in the northern Ohio counties of Lake, Cuyahoga and Summit navigate economic turbulence. He compared the agency to an emergency room for the economy, a place people turn to when industries shift, layoffs hit, or career paths need to change.

His case for ULA was simple: in a fast-moving economy, workers need information, strategy and support. They need conversations that help them interpret trends and make decisions. They also need institutions that understand regional labor markets and can connect people to training and opportunity.

AI may be accelerating uncertainty, but Megenhardt’s message was that workers do not have to face it alone. The labor movement is building a framework to demand a worker voice, bargain protections and prepare communities for what comes next.

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