Trades Union Congress 2026: Our Priorities

This week, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) will urge the trade union movement to develop a serious response to the stark realities of unregulated artificial intelligence – and reforming the movement’s structures to meet this challenge, writes our general secretary Dave Ward.

This Sunday will see the start of the 158^th Trades Union Congress (TUC), the labour movement’s annual parliament in which all trade unions will discuss and decide the strategy and tactics that will advance the cause of working class people in this country.

This year’s Congress calls at a time of massive change. In Andy Burnham’s ministerial reshuffle, Kanishka Narayan was appointed the Minister for Artificial Intelligence (AI), marking the first time that AI has had such a senior level of representation in the government.

Around the same time, the number of graduate jobs has fallen by 50% as starter roles for young people vanish in favour of AI usage, while the latest report by the Open Rights Group shows how the taxpayer funds over 2,000 AI-related public sector projects to the tune of over £5 billion.

From local councils to job centres and prisons, AI isn’t a distant prospect – it is here with us now. And with untested systems come serious issues.

Already, whistleblowing workers have highlighted systemic errors and serious problems in situations like welfare fraud assessments, where AI systems have been shown to display inbuilt biases against elderly people, disabled people and ethnic minorities, incorrectly selecting some groups far more than others when investigating fraud.

There’s no doubt that scandals like this are the tip of the iceberg, and that only more examples will emerge.

Much of this is down to the culture of total unaccountability that big tech firms have been allowed to operate under, where AI projects can sail through without any government oversight or scrutiny, while workers – who know their jobs better than anyone – have had no say at all about the roll out of this technology, or whether it is even a good idea.

In the CWU, our members in tech, telecoms and financial services have been seriously considering responses to AI for a while.

And as a movement and a country, we are in desperate need of developing an industrial strategy which recognises the interests of these workers, and the general public, when considering AI deployment. We need worker-first AI policies which can ensure that on a national and regional level, jobs are protected, workers’ concerns are heard, and that AI is a benefit, not a hindrance.

The moment for putting a line in the sand is long overdue. Now more than ever, we must be sounding the warning bells over AI. A serious plan needs to be crafted focusing on workers’ rights and public safety as well as economic growth and national security, which we hope our motions to conference will start to achieve.

If we aren’t forceful in voicing these concerns and developing a positive alternative, we may be sleepwalking into a major unemployment crisis, where unaccountable big tech firms destroy jobs with little considerations beyond profiteering, and systems falter as poorly developed AI is rolled out across the board with little to no scrutiny.

But we believe that with the change of government, we are in a space to achieve a framework where we don’t have to accept a future of deskilling, exploitation, increasing surveillance and deepening inequality. Both the government and our movement have the opportunity to shape a decent strategy based around AI rollout that is socially responsible and useful to people. It is up to us now to make it happen.

Reforming the TUC

But to achieve these outcomes, we must also harness the potential strength that the TUC holds. As a union that initiated the New Deal for Workers campaign, we have constantly reasserted the need for the TUC and its affiliates to take stronger collective action and unify working class people.

In this decade, we have made some significant achievements and have developed a serious progressive agenda. Now, as we enter a new Labour government which is honest about the wrong turns the country has taken since Thatcherism, we need to redouble our efforts in advancing this vision.

We need to push for further legislation on workers’ rights, such as introducing sectoral collective bargaining. A new insourcing agenda is desperately needed to stop the bleeding of public money to unaccountable corporations, and – crucially – we need to enshrine single worker status in law, so that every single worker in this country has the same fundamental rights on the job and workplace hyperexploitation is ended.

But to make the TUC stronger, we must also look at seriously reforming it. This is why we are also putting forward Motion 79, which will connect key campaigning areas, alongside a major review to bring forward proposals for stronger democratic governance, including the election process and term of office for the TUC leadership.  Additionally, we want to see new TUC structures that facilitate greater collaboration between trade unions across sectors, building on the positive work we have already carried out this year.

For the left and the wider Labour and trade union movement we have an historic opportunity.  The new prime minister has set out a very strong agenda for real change and the TUC must play its part to the full in delivering a new social and economic settlement for working class people.  Motion 79 offers the route to achieving this.