As part of her speech, setting out the Government’s approach to AI adoption, Liz Kendall said: “Now, the last Government’s approach on tech adoption – including AI – was to give businesses vouchers. But it didn’t work, with less than 1% of the companies the Conservatives aimed to reach through their Help to Grow Digital scheme actually taking up the offer in the first year. This Government takes a different approach, because we believe an active government, that works in partnership with businesses and the workforce, delivers better results.”
Joanne Thomas – Usdaw general secretary says: “We welcome the secretary of state’s commitment to partnership with employers and employees, because we need to ensure that workers can benefit from technological developments, at a time where the rapid adaptation of AI across the economy is changing the nature of work and damaging job security. That means the introduction of pro-worker AI regulations and upgraded workers’ rights along with a clear and effective strategy to support workers during change.
“It remains too cheap and easy to make workers redundant in the UK, which encourages bad employers to dismiss rather than retrain their workforce. We welcome Labour’s commitment to gathering further views on strengthening the collective redundancy framework. To deliver job security, this review also needs to include proposals to improve statutory redundancy pay provisions.”
Usdaw is calling on the Government to:
- Work with relevant stakeholders to introduce into law, as quickly as possible, the provisions contained within the Artificial Intelligence (Regulation and Employment Rights) Bill.
- In partnership with trade unions and other stakeholders, urgently review skills provisions within those sectors, such as retail and distribution, which are heavily impacted by AI and workplace technology, and direct Skills England to develop a strong and effective skills strategy.
- Engage with trade unions, through a new Union Learning Fund model, to deliver necessary skills provisions.
- Include improvements to statutory redundancy pay within the forthcoming review of the collective redundancy framework.
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is one of the fastest growing unions in the TUC and the UK's fifth biggest with around 370,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also represents many workers in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
Artificial Intelligence (Regulation and Employment Rights) Bill
Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay
TUC’s ‘Building a Pro-Worker AI Innovation Strategy’ document
For Usdaw press releases visit: www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Bluesky @usdawunion.bsky.social and Twitter/X @UsdawUnion