AI is being deployed in the institutions working people depend on most: hospitals, benefits offices, government agencies. And the people it affects most have had the least say in how it’s used. That’s starting to change. Workers and unions aren’t waiting for state or federal policy to catch up, they’re negotiating AI accountability directly, in contract talks and county boardrooms, and they’re starting to make change.
On March 24, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to move forward with a comprehensive study on how AI is being used across county departments. The vote came with real commitments: co-create AI policy with employees, ensure human review of AI outputs, guarantee the right to appeal AI-driven decisions, and pledge that technology will augment workers, not replace them.
Days later, AFSCME Local 101, which represents 3,400 City of San José employees, introduced a package of AI safeguards as part of ongoing contract negotiations. Their demands include prohibiting AI from being used to replace workers, limiting its role in hiring and performance monitoring, and establishing a joint oversight committee to review new systems before they’re deployed.
What Santa Clara County and San Jose decides in the coming months will not stay within our borders. The precedents we set, on transparency, on worker voice, on accountability, will ripple outward.
Maria Noel Fernandez, Executive Director, Working partnerships USA and Riko Mendez, Chief Elected Officer, SEIU 521 for The Mercury News. (Read the full Opinion piece here.)
These aren’t isolated moments. They’re part of a coordinated push by workers, unions, and organizations to ensure that the region that builds this technology doesn’t get to ignore its consequences. WPUSA Executive Director Maria Noel Fernandez and SEIU Local 521 CEO Riko Mendez made that case in a Mercury News op-ed this month: frontline public workers are not obstacles to technological progress, they are its most important quality-control system. When they are cut out of the process, systems fail and real people suffer the consequences.
But the stakes extend beyond the workplace. When algorithms make decisions about who receives public benefits, who gets flagged by law enforcement, or how medical care is triaged, entire communities bear the consequences, especially low-income residents, immigrants, and communities of color who have the least recourse when systems fail them. Winning accountability in our public institutions isn’t just a labor issue. It’s a civil rights issue.
The Board’s vote is a foundation. The contract fight in San José is a test. What this region decides in the coming months will set a precedent that ripples far beyond our borders, and we are determined to get it right.
