AI Deployment

This Conference Notes with Concern:

• The increasing deployment of Artificial Intelligence across  workplaces in Northern Ireland,
• Research findings for the financial Services Union/Tasc report  that reveal 88% of respondents believe AI will lead to job displacement 
• The regulatory uncertainty facing Northern Ireland, which sits in a legal gap between the UK's deregulated framework and the EU’s stricter protections.
• The possible risk this uncertainty poses to workers.

This Conference Believes

• AI should be used to augment job quality and safety, 
• No worker should have their livelihood, performance, or working conditions decided solely by an automated algorithm without human intervention and accountability.
• As AI adoption accelerates, particularly in financial services worker consultation and collective bargaining are essential to ensuring technological change benefits employees, consumers, and employers alike.

This Conference Instructs the Executive Committee of ICTU to

1. Lobby the Northern Ireland Assembly and relevant departments to ensure local AI policies explicitly adopt the worker protections established in the EU AI Act.
2. Develop and distribute a draft AI  agreement to all affiliates which could form the basis of a  collective bargaining agreement 
3. Secure strict commitments from employers that all critical employment decisions—including hiring, promotions, disciplinaries, and redundancies—remain subject to final human review and veto.
4. Campaign for employer/Government -funded, upskilling programmes to ensure workers facing automation are retrained for higher-value roles, rather than forced into redundancy.