Microsoft agrees to remain neutral in union campaigns

Microsoft has said it will remain neutral as a group of American workers seek to join a year of big gains for organized labor.

Roughly 100,000 workers would be eligible to join a union, as announced Monday by Microsoft President Brad Smith and AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler during a forum at the union’s headquarters in Washington.

The deal essentially expands a neutrality agreement between Microsoft and a major union, the Communications Workers of America, under which hundreds of the company’s video game workers joined a union early this year without a formal National Labor Relations Board election. Officially, it provides a framework in which each group of Microsoft employees can negotiate their own neutrality agreements under similar terms.

As part of Monday’s announcement, Microsoft and the AFL-CIO said they would work together to solve issues arising from the adoption of artificial intelligence in the workplace.

Mr. Smith and Ms. Shuler said the partnership would include meetings in which Microsoft artificial intelligence experts brief union leaders and employees on developments in the field. Microsoft experts will also seek input from employees so they can develop technology in a way that addresses their concerns, such as the risk of job losses.

The two sides said they would work together to help establish policies that would prepare workers for jobs that include artificial intelligence.

“Never before in the history of these American tech giants, which goes back about 50 years, have any of these companies made a broad commitment to labor rights,” said Ms. Shuler. said on the forum. “It’s historic. Not only did they make a commitment, they formalized it and put it in writing.”

Employee anxiety about artificial intelligence seems to have increased in recent years. Hollywood writers and actors cited AI concerns as a major reason for their months-long strikes this year, with Ms. Shuler pointing out recent poll showing widespread concern among workers that artificial intelligence could cost them their jobs.

“I can’t sit here and say this will never displace a job,” Mr. Smith said at the forum, referring to artificial intelligence. “I don’t think that would be fair.” But he added that “the key is to try to use it to improve jobs,” saying the technology could eliminate tasks that people consider boring.

The unveiling of the AI ​​initiative comes a few weeks after the board of start-up OpenAI, prompting ChatGPT to fire company CEO Sam Altman, only to accept his reinstatement days later. The episode has contributed to widespread concerns about how to ensure companies develop and deploy artificial intelligence safely.

Microsoft is OpenAI’s largest investor and played a role in Mr. Altman’s recovery.

Asked whether the OpenAI controversy was a boost for the new partnership with organized labor, Mr. Smith demurred, saying the labor initiative had been in the works for months.

“I wouldn’t say that what happened in the OpenAI boardroom changed that,” he said in an interview after Monday’s forum. “But it raised questions about the way AI is governed and perhaps gave even more credibility to the kind of partnership we are announcing today.”

When Microsoft announced a neutrality agreement with the communications union in June 2022, the offer was conditional: The company was in the process of acquiring video game maker Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion. Microsoft pledged to remain neutral in union elections at Activision if the takeover were successful. (The acquisition has now been completed.)

A few months later, when about 300 employees wanted to join ZeniMax Media, a video game company owned by Microsoft, Microsoft agreed to abide by the neutrality agreement in that case as well. The agreement allowed them to express their preference for a union either by signing authorization cards or anonymously through an electronic platform, a more efficient process than NLRB elections.

Its 300 employees have unionized — a rarity in Big Tech — and are negotiating an employment contract that includes language limiting the use of AI in their workplace.

The Communications Workers of America is one of dozens of unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation. After the ZeniMax campaign, communications union officials believed that Microsoft would likely agree to remain neutral if the union tried to organize workers elsewhere in the company. But Microsoft had never explicitly agreed to do this outside of Activision or ZeniMax.