At a crossroads: worker voice and the future of workplace technology

Workplace technology is often presented as an inevitable force that workers and organizations must simply adapt to. In reality, technologies are shaped by decisions about design, development, deployment, and governance—and those decisions influence everything from job quality, worker wellbeing, and autonomy to productivity and organizational performance. This webinar explores how workers and their representatives can have a greater voice in shaping the technologies that affect their work. Bringing together researchers in worker-centered design, collective bargaining, and technology governance, the discussion will examine what workers often experience when working with technology, what worker-centered design looks like in practice, and how unions are negotiating new forms of participation, oversight, and accountability. The session will highlight emerging approaches to technology governance and explore how design, collective bargaining, and public policy can work together to ensure technology benefits workers and society.

Speaker presentation files:

• Lisa Kresge is a Senior Researcher in the Technology and Work Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, where she studies issues at the intersection of technology, labor, and employment relations. Her work examines artificial intelligence and other digital workplace technologies, with particular attention to the implications for job quality, worker voice, and collective bargaining. Most recently, she published Negotiating Tech: An Inventory of U.S. Union Contract Provisions for the Digital Age, an online resource documenting technology-related provisions in over 500 U.S. collective bargaining agreements. Trained as an interdisciplinary social scientist, she holds degrees in anthropology, sociology, and community development.
• Jodi Forlizzi is the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Jodi has advocated for design research in all forms, mentoring peers, colleagues, and students in its structure and execution, and today it is an important part of the HCI community. Jodi studies the ethical impacts of human interaction with AI systems in front-line service industries including healthcare and hospitality. She studies the potential for AI to facilitate purposeful employment for people with disabilities. She also develops methods and tools to ensure that product developers can mitigate ethical harms and bias during product development. Jodi is an ACM SIGCHI Fellow and recently received its Lifetime Research Award. Jodi is also a Senior Advisor to the AFL-CIO Tech Institute.
• Sarah Fox is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human Computer Interaction Institute, where she directs the Tech Solidarity Lab. Her work examines the impacts of AI and automation on essential work sectors, with a focus on developing systems that center workers’ needs and expertise. Her work has earned awards in leading computing venues including ACM CSCW, CHI, and DIS, and has been featured in Design Issues, the Anthropology of Work Review, and New Media and Society. She holds a Ph.D. in Human Centered Design & Engineering from the University of Washington. Her research has been covered by news outlets such as Politico, Wired, and the Associated Press and is supported by the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Transportation, the Russell Sage Foundation, among others.