Give workers more say over AI, UK thinktank urges

TL;DR:

• A TUC-backed report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) argues workers need far more bargaining power over how AI is adopted at work.
• It recommends a statutory duty on employers to consult staff on AI adoption, plus a “worker support levy” funding a portable wallet of benefits such as training and union membership.
• Survey data cited shows 21% of workers say AI has worsened their working life against 20% who say it has improved it, with 4% believing they have already lost a job to the technology.

The IPPR distinguishes three trajectories for AI at work: augmentation, where it complements human labour; degradation, where it monitors and intensifies work; and displacement, where it replaces people. Which dominates, the authors argue, depends on who holds the power to shape adoption — “and whose interests it will ultimately serve”.

The UK policy context

The report lands at a sensitive moment. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has named AI one of three drivers of stronger UK growth, calling it “the defining technology of our era” and pledging accelerated adoption across the economy and public sector. The IPPR’s intervention reframes that growth push around distribution: who captures the gains. TUC general secretary Paul Nowak invoked the Industrial Revolution’s “50 years of wage stagnation while profits soared” as a warning against assuming technology automatically benefits workers.

Its mechanisms would land on employers already adjusting to Labour’s expanded workers’ rights, and some business groups have warned that successive measures are raising the cost of employing staff. That tension — between accelerating adoption and embedding consultation — is the crux. A statutory consultation duty could slow rollouts but reduce the workforce friction that derails poorly communicated AI projects.

Looking forward

The recommendations are unlikely to become policy quickly, but they sharpen a debate UK employers cannot avoid: how to introduce AI without triggering resistance or eroding trust. For businesses, the practical signal is that bringing staff into AI decisions early may prove less a regulatory burden than a route to smoother adoption — whether or not a statutory duty ever arrives.