AI Revolution Sparks Worker Power Debate Amid Workplace Anxiety
The advent of artificial intelligence is drawing global attention to the extreme imbalance of power between employers and their employees. While new technology has workers spooked, experts suggest it could create an opening for a resurgence in worker power across industries.
The Bleak Outlook for Modern Workers
In 2026, working for a living presents significant challenges. The momentum from earlier movements like quiet quitting, the Great Resignation, and visible union-organizing battles has been crowded out by growing anxieties. These include a worsening affordability crisis, geopolitical instability, and the looming specter of artificial intelligence transforming workplaces.
For technology CEOs leading the AI race, artificial intelligence represents a glimmering unicorn of opportunity. Their excitement is palpable when they predict AI will soon match software engineers' capabilities or eventually take over executive roles. However, for most workers, confidence remains low regarding offhand remarks about job creation and obsolescence.
A 2025 Pew survey revealed that 64% of the public believes AI will lead to fewer jobs over the next two decades. This concern explains why only 17% of Americans anticipate AI having a positive effect on the United States during the same period.
Dissolving Traditional Class Divisions
Blue-collar workers who have long faced algorithmic surveillance and optimization now worry technological advancements will make their jobs more dehumanizing. Lisa Kresge, a senior researcher at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, explained the dual concern: "For lower wage workers, there is concern about being replaced by robots. But on the other hand, there's a lot of concern about being turned into robots."
Meanwhile, white-collar workers wonder if their work will begin resembling blue-collar labor. This could occur through similar tracking and management systems or through transitions to more manual work resistant to AI takeover.
While workers appear vulnerable in unprecedented ways, this moment also presents pivotal opportunities. Society's collective anxiety over AI is catalyzing workers to push back against existing power structures.
The Unexpected Opportunity for Labor Movements
Sarita Gupta, Vice President of US Programs at the Ford Foundation, sees potential in this crisis: "It is creating an opportunity. When you have a young Silicon Valley software engineer realize that their performance is tracked or undermined by the same logic as a working class warehouse picker, class divisions dissolve, and larger working-class movements for dignity are possible."
People across industries and income brackets share anxiety and frustration reminiscent of the Covid pandemic era. Those struggles prompted significant power shifts, including:
- Unionization efforts at Amazon warehouses and Starbucks locations nationwide
- The Great Resignation's record employee departures
- Improved pay and conditions negotiations for remaining workers
Kresge noted that "part of the resurgence of labor organizing from that period of time was in response to a lot of fears" and sees AI's rise as an opening for the labor movement to regain power lost after decades of employer attacks.
Historical Context and Current Realities
Worker conditions have deteriorated over extended periods. Gupta explained: "Over time, unions have lost collective bargaining power, and a lot of that is due to the lack of laws that we need and enforcement of laws. For four decades, productivity soared while wages stayed flat, and unionization hit historic lows."
In 2025, only 9.9% of US workers were union members—maintaining 2024's percentage but representing the lowest numbers in nearly forty years.
Today, AI's emergence highlights extreme power imbalances between employers and employees, generating public concern that represents a glimmer of possibility during bleak economic times.
The Unsettled Future of Work
Artificial intelligence remains a nascent technology, with many predictions about its capabilities and labor transformation remaining speculative. The question of worker power in the AI age remains undecided, despite implications from billionaire CEOs with vested interests in unregulated AI dominance.
Kresge warned about deliberate mystification tactics: "There is a concerted effort among many tech leaders to basically create mystification around AI as a tactic, to a large extent, to disempower workers, policymakers, and anyone who might be critical of the growing concentration of funding and resources in our society toward this goal."
Gupta emphasized the importance of perspective: "We have to always remind ourselves that the direction of technology is a choice, right? We can use AI to build a surveillance economy that squeezes every drop of value out of a worker, or we can use it to build an era of shared prosperity. We know if technology were designed and deployed and governed by the people doing the work, AI wouldn't be such a threat."
The rise of artificial intelligence is already transforming society, the economy, and our relationship to work. However, many shifts remain anticipatory, based on belief in a technology still under development. The ultimate direction of these changes—toward greater worker empowerment or increased employer control—remains to be determined through collective action and policy decisions.
