Public Statements

Public Statements Canada Cautious perspective

Our union wants seats at the table, not souvenirs

Cautious Posted by Raymond Desjardins Reading time ~ 2 min

This is community opinion, not fact. Moderated before publication.

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I represent workers in a logistics warehouse just outside Toronto. Over the last eighteen months our employer has introduced several AI-driven systems: route optimization for our drivers, shift scheduling, and a productivity monitoring tool that scores pick rates. Management describes all of this as efficiency. From the floor it often looks like pressure. I want to be careful here. Some of the tools are genuinely helpful. The routing saves drivers time and fuel, and most of them say they prefer the newer software to the old one. The monitoring is a different story. When a worker's shift is algorithmically scored and compared to a target they did not negotiate, the conversation at the disciplinary table changes. The worker is arguing against a number. Our concern, as a local, is not that AI exists. Our concern is that it is being deployed without meaningful consultation, without clear appeal routes, and without any sharing of the gains it produces. We have asked management to bring these systems into collective bargaining. We have asked for plain-language explanations of how the monitoring scores are calculated and for a commitment that no worker will be disciplined based solely on a machine score. Neither ask is radical. Both have been resisted. I would encourage other unions and works councils to raise these issues now, while deployment is still shaped by norms as much as by law.
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