AFL-CIO plans state-level push to protect workers from AI, rejecting Trump's equity-stake proposal as insufficient.

What happened: AFL-CIO leadership, speaking after a union convention, announced a campaign to organize workers around AI safeguards through state legislatures in places like Massachusetts, Illinois, and New York, and to make AI a central issue in midterm and presidential elections. The union rejected Trump's proposal that AI companies give equity stakes to the federal government, saying such schemes in other industries have not benefited working people.

Why it matters: A recent AFL-CIO poll found workers trust unions more than anyone else to protect them from AI's negative effects. The labor movement frames itself as the only organized force able to counterbalance the concentration of wealth created by AI, and union leadership believes this issue cuts across party lines and will affect every workplace and industry.

What to watch: The union committed to a unified approach that supports data center construction with good union jobs and community protections (including responsible water and electricity use), while also pushing guardrails on AI—signaling the labor movement will not back a moratorium on data centers. Leadership pointed to recent strikes by tens of thousands of workers at Samsung over AI as a sign that worker mobilization on this issue may increase heading into the election.