The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and automatization have forced union organizations to directly insert into collective bargaining agreements specific clauses to prevent an impact on the workforce.
At least, this is the way it is being done by Alejandro Martínez Ariaza, secretary general of the National Food and Commerce Union (SNAC), who presented a new specific chapter within the collective bargaining agreement for the regulation of digital transformation and protecting the workers in face of the use of algorithms and emerging technologies.
In an intense debate table denominated “The Generational Change in Face of the USMCA”, the union leader that has contracts with companies like Bimbo and Pepsico, said that it is a “clause that is fresh off the press and it is already integrated into a list of petitions, it considers five central axes: Human supervision and technological transparency; Advance information and union consultation before implementing new technologies; Evaluation of the impact and management of labor risks deriving from AI; Employment guarantee and professional reconversion for displaced workers and Personal Data Protection and prevention of algorithmic biases.
He explained that the proposal arises from a diagnosis made together with the union sector “if the adoption of technology is not accompanied by labor regulation, the risks is not only the loss of job positions, but the loss of human control over labor relationships”,
“The day in which machines learn how to be machines in a quick and cheap way, we will no longer be necessary”, Martínez Ariaza warned, pointing out that the debate will not be between companies and unions, but between humanities and automation without rules.
He explained that this vision incorporates a principle of corresponsibility, “of not hindering innovation, but anticipating a framework of just transition that guarantees digital training, employment placement and protection in face of technological replacement.”
In this regard, Elizabeth Echeverria, a specialist in union freedom and collective bargaining at ILO confirmed that the organization is discussing this same issue at an international level, first within the framework of digital platforms and now in the generalized use of AI in companies. She acknowledged that the labor relationship is no longer managed by a human manager, but by an opaque algorithm that distributes tasks, measures productivity and defines trajectories with no transparency.
Echeverría emphasized that collective bargaining is becoming the key instrument for balancing rights, the reorganization of technology cannot leave workers with no participation. “What is valuable is that these clauses are not imposed, they are agreed upon; therein lies the power of collective bargaining as a form of self-regulation,” she noted.
In regard to the future of employment and the debate on basic income or living wages, ILO has not yet adopted a single stance, but it does work with the concept of “living wage”, which reopens the fundamental question: if machines will do the work, how will the redistribution of wealth and human dignity as a component of labor law be guaranteed?
Meanwhile, Humberto Huitrón, consultant in Collective Labor Law, who has handled three labor complaints made with the Rapid Response Labor Mechanism (RRLM) said that “The United States has given us many examples on what the alternative is to requiring a minimum quota from companies or the prohibition on certain aspects of labor substitution. The representative strikes that took place in that country stipulated a maximum number of staff reductions in their bills of petition; it has already happened in the 2024 maritime port dockers’ strike, and in that of Hollywood screenwriters and actors.”
Oscar de la Vega Castillo, Senior Associate at D&MAbogados, said that, up until now, as a corporate lawyer, they have not yet received bills of petition that include clauses like the ones that are being developed in union organizations, “they are very innovative, it opens the door for keeping these ideas in mind in order to protect workers, the job sources and create new ways for dialogue.”
