A senior Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) official is warning that artificial intelligence (AI) and platform-based employment are rapidly transforming the world of work and could leave workers vulnerable unless stronger protections are put in place.
Speaking at the 114th Session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, BWU Communications and Information Manager Cheyne Jones said the rise of AI-managed labour was no longer a future concern but a reality already affecting workers around the globe.
“The boss is a notification. The workplace is an app. The payslip is an equation. The disciplinary hearing is a blank screen that says, ‘account deactivated’,” Jones told delegates.
He argued that the platform economy, which includes app-based services and gig work, has become the testing ground for AI-managed employment and warned that the same model could soon spread across wider sectors of the economy.
“If we get this wrong there, it will not stay there,” he said.
Jones noted that studies suggest onequarter of global employment is potentially exposed to generative AI, with even higher rates among women and workers in developed countries.
Bringing the issue closer to home, he pointed out that services account for about 86 per cent of employment in Barbados, meaning any major shift in how service industries operate could have farreaching consequences
for workers and families.
“This is not only a technology issue. It’s a rent issue. A food issue. A gender issue. A youth issue. A national resilience issue,” he said.
Jones warned that workers can now be managed by companies located overseas, rated by customers they never meet and disciplined by algorithms they cannot challenge.
He recalled a recent conversation with an Uber driver in Miami who expressed concerns about the growing presence of self-driving vehicles and the uncertain future facing drivers.
He stressed that workers were not opposed to innovation and noted that the union itself had embraced opportunities to train workers in AI technologies.
However, he argued that technological advancement must not come at the expense of workers’ rights.
“Flexibility without security is precarity,” Jones said. “A contract label cannot erase daily subordination.”
He called for greater transparency in algorithmic decisionmaking, human review of serious workplace decisions, stronger privacy protections, labour inspections with access to relevant information and international standards capable of protecting workers in the digital age.
“We cannot accept a future where workers are classified by contract, controlled by code, and abandoned by law,” he said.
“Either rights follow the worker into the algorithm, or the algorithm writes the future without us.” (NS)
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