2023-05-23 10:12:15
“In the same way that the European treaties guarantee health or safety at work, we must guarantee a principle of human control over the machine,” she explains in an interview with AFP.
“We must have the guarantee that no worker will ever be subjected to the will of a machine,” she said, calling the prospect “dystopian”.
The 60-year-old Irishwoman, appointed general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) last December, chairs the organisation’s Congress which takes place from Tuesday to Friday in Berlin.
This event brings together union representatives from around forty countries every four years.
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The arrival with fanfare of the ChatGPT software at the end of last year suggests the upheavals that artificial intelligence will bring to many professions.
While some are enthusiastic about the possible disappearance of the most repetitive tasks, others are worried about a dehumanization of decision-making, with the growing importance of algorithms, and the consequences on private data.
Ms Lynch calls on the European Union (EU) to “talk” with the unions to regulate these tools.
“Every technology has a positive side and a negative side, and so will AI. But each time you involve the workers (…) what comes out of it is better”, declares- She.
The EU is currently debating a vast legislative text making it possible to regulate certain uses of AI, and to prohibit others such as the “generalized surveillance of a population”.
Faced with fears of massive job cuts, Ms. Lynch calls for “ensuring that quality jobs will be created where some jobs will be destroyed”.
Finally, the leader urges that “everyone benefits from the productivity gains made possible by artificial intelligence”, employees and shareholders alike.
The question of the distribution of wealth will also be an important debate during the Congress, against a backdrop of galloping inflation in Europe.
“The largest companies in Europe saw their dividends rise much more than wages last year,” Lynch said.
The organization is tackling the effects of the ECB’s restrictive monetary policy to fight inflation. “Workers are the main victims of rising interest rates,” she says.
“The solution is to tax dividends and redistribute wealth.”
“Intimidation”
The second woman to lead the ETUC, Esther Lynch obtained her first union mandate in the 1980s in Ireland. In 2015, she joined the ETUC, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
She shares the leadership of the European unions with the French president of the ETUC, the boss of the CFDT Laurent Berger, with less operational functions, however.
His first months in office were marked by his expulsion from Tunisia after his participation in a demonstration organized by the UGTT union, whose president Nourredine Taboubi will speak at the CES Congress on Thursday.
According to the authorities, Mrs. Lynch had made remarks constituting “flagrant interference in the internal affairs of Tunisia”.
“I made a moderate, respectful speech to support the local unions,” she retorts.
She says she was visited by law enforcement in her hotel after the government ordered her to leave the country within 24 hours. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared,” she says.
“When I asked them to show me their badge, they laughed. This laughter was intended to make me understand that we were no longer in a regime of law”, she says, saying that she was afraid “prison, or worse”.
“I experienced the most polite bullying there is (…), but I could sit here and cry thinking about it. The goal is to scare, intimidate and silence”, denounces- she. “This is what so many people experience when they only exercise their basic right to belong to a union.”
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