The Trades Union Congress (TUC), Britain's largest trade union body, has urged the government to guarantee workers a formal say before employers roll out AI in the workplace, arguing that ministerial enthusiasm for the technology has outpaced any credible plan for the people who will work alongside it. In a letter to newly appointed AI and Future of Work ministers Kanishka Narayan and Kate Dearden, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak and assistant general secretary Kate Bell said policy should be grounded in giving workers "a voice, rights, and a fair share," rather than leaving employers to unilaterally decide which tasks get automated.

The TUC's central demand is a legal right for workers to negotiate over the introduction of AI, including algorithmic management and surveillance tools that could affect jobs, conditions or dignity at work. The union body is not calling for AI to be kept out of workplaces, but wants corporate practices reformed so staff are treated as stakeholders rather than costs to be minimised, citing Nordic countries' high AI adoption alongside strong worker bargaining power as a model, and contrasting this with the US, where it says a "chaotic billionaire-driven AI agenda" has enriched tech billionaires while workers' share of wealth declines. Nowak and Bell warned that without a genuine stake in AI's benefits, workplace disruption could fuel support for the far-right, framing worker involvement as essential to the government's wider growth ambitions.