Government office buildings in Gatineau, Que. A number of federal public-sector unions have proposed changes to collective agreements to add that AI should not be used as justification to reduce staffing.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Major unions are trying to codify language around artificial intelligence and layoffs into collective agreements, a push that is facing resistance from employers, who see the technology as integral to transforming their work forces.
A number of federal public-sector unions currently negotiating new contracts have proposed specific changes to existing collective agreements that state AI should not be used as a justification by management to reduce staffing. But the inclusion of those clauses has become a subject of much contention at the bargaining table, according to union representatives.
“Our collective agreements have not kept pace with technology … so we are pushing to change that but it’s an uphill battle,” said Sean O’Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.
PIPSC is currently negotiating a new agreement with the government on behalf of roughly 20,000 information technology professionals across the federal public service.
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The current agreement expired in December, 2025, and it has a broad clause on technological change that states that the employer should “seek ways and means of minimizing adverse effects on employees” if such change is implemented. But the agreement has no specific language on the use of generative-AI tools or AI more broadly.
“AI is not the enemy for us. It is a tool to be used to enhance a worker’s job and many of our members already use AI. But we have concerns that AI is coming in to replace our workers – even just looking at the layoffs the government has already announced in the public service,” Mr. O’Reilly said.
Ottawa’s chief data officer, Stephen Burt, has publicly stated that certain jobs will be cut as the government adopts AI. The federal government’s AI strategy has stated that the automation of routine tasks will allow public servants to focus on higher-value work, but unions are concerned that fewer people may ultimately be needed to perform the same work.
At the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the federal union that represents approximately 245,000 public sector workers, AI is shaping up to be a critical part of bargaining with the federal government. In continuing negotiations on behalf of more than 1,000 federal employees responsible for education and library services, PSAC has asked for the inclusion of 15 new clauses related to AI adoption, including that AI not be a “substitute” to public service employees. After five months of bargaining, the union and the government sides are at an impasse.
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When teaching assistants at Carleton University (represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees) first proposed to their employer to include a clause stating they would not have their work “reduced or replaced by AI,” they said they were met with a blanket refusal.
It took five months of negotiating, multiple rallies, campaigns and an open letter signed by much of the membership for the university to concede and include a clause on AI in a deal reached at the end of January. Specifically, the new agreement states that the university does not have “any current intention to diminish the role of teaching assistants as a result of the use of AI tools.”
“Our focus in negotiations is on defending our members’ rights and protecting their jobs from the risks posed by AI,” said Mark Hancock, president of CUPE, in a recent interview with The Globe and Mail. “Do employers want to bargain this kind of language? No. But this is a fight we won’t back down from.”
According to Sarah Ryan, a researcher at CUPE, negotiating language around AI is difficult because not just one contract clause needs to be changed. “You have issues of job transformation, layoffs, and issues of privacy and surveillance. So, it’s tricky to address all of the risks of AI for workers.”
South of the border, a number of private sector unions have been pushing hard to include language that addresses the threat of job replacement from AI.
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The NewsGuild, a media union that is an arm of the Communications Workers of America has, to date, negotiated 59 contracts with media employers that include AI clauses.
One example is a 2023 contract between the Associated Press and The Associated Press Guild that explicitly stated that “generative AI should not be used to enable the layoff of an employee or the elimination of a position covered by the agreement.” The contract expires in early 2027.
“Many employers think that AI is going to solve all of their problems,” said Jon Schleuss, an American data journalist and president of The NewsGuild.
“But we cannot really eliminate workers en masse, especially in the media, because AI can simply be wrong.”
Mr. Schleuss said that his union has seen many examples of newsrooms adopting AI agents to write, only to have reporters or editors rewrite the bot’s work because it had factual errors.
Continuing negotiations between The New York Times and The New York Times Guild are proving contentious around the inclusion of AI clauses, he said. The Guild is pushing for a share of the licensing income that the company earns from work that reporters do daily that is used to train AI systems, but management negotiators have refused, according to Mr. Scheuss.
He added that the newspaper does not want to give up control over its internal AI policy because management wants to be able to change the policy as the technology evolves. The New York Times did not respond to a request by The Globe for clarification about what AI terms are being negotiated.
Private sector unions in Canada have also been organizing over how to ensure that workers’ jobs and wages are protected from AI adoption.
A recent agreement concluded by Unifor on behalf of 3,000 Bell Canada clerical workers included a clause related to setting up a joint committee to “oversee the impact of AI on the workplace,” but the agreement fell short of including language around AI and layoffs.