Britain’s Communications Workers Union wants employees to be able to refuse AI tools at work without being punished for that choice. In proposals circulated on October 9, its tech workers’ branch calls for protection against retaliation and a human review of decisions affecting pay or employment. The inquiry draws on members’ experiences of building and using AI. Participants described rising output demands and pressure on professional judgment. These are workers’ accounts, rather than a representative survey of every workplace. The union also calls for protected time to learn a craft without being forced to rely on AI.

An employer can count how often someone uses an assistant much more easily than it can judge whether the resulting work is good. Once those counts enter an appraisal, an optional tool can become a requirement in practice. A worker who checks an answer carefully may appear slower than a colleague who accepts it immediately. The union’s proposals question that way of measuring performance. Choosing a method also affects how newcomers learn. If software supplies every first attempt, a junior employee may have fewer chances to make mistakes and understand the correction. A negotiated agreement could protect those chances and allow a worker to raise quality concerns without risking promotion. It would also give managers a clear limit on using AI activity records to rank staff.