PRESS RELEASE: EPIC and the National Institute for Workers’ Rights Release White Paper on Algorithmic Unionbusting

Washington, D.C. — Today, EPIC and the National Institute for Workers’ Rights (NIWR) released a white paper titled Who’s Got the Power? Restoring Worker Power in the Age of Algorithmic Unionbusting, documenting how employers increasingly use surveillance technologies, algorithmic management systems, and vast stores of worker data to identify, monitor, and interfere with workers seeking to organize.

The paper explains how modern workplace technologies—including productivity monitoring software, biometric surveillance, AI-powered management tools, and predictive analytics—have transformed traditional anti-union pushback from management and third-party union avoidance consultants into “algorithmic unionbusting,” which is the use of digital surveillance and automated systems to identify, target, and suppress worker organizing. It also examines how existing labor and privacy laws have failed to keep pace with these technologies and recommends federal and state policy reforms to restore worker power.

The white paper concludes that neither existing labor law nor our current patchwork of U.S. privacy laws adequately protect workers from these practices. Addressing that legislative shortfall is essential to safeguarding freedom of association and ensuring that emerging workplace technologies are not used to undermine collective action.

EPIC and NIWR are calling for stronger worker data protections, meaningful limits on workplace surveillance, greater guardrails around automated decision-making systems, robust enforcement of labor rights, and privacy laws that meaningfully cover workers.

“Worker privacy and worker power are inseparable,” said Abigail Kunkler, white paper co-author and EPIC Law Fellow. “When employers collect limitless amounts of data about their workers and use AI systems to analyze, predict, and influence their behavior, they gain unprecedented power to interfere with one of the most fundamental workplace rights: the right to organize.”

“It’s already far too easy for employers to violate workers’ rights and far too difficult for workers to get justice,” said Jason Solomon, Director of the National Institute for Workers’ Rights. “This report points to the risk that AI supercharges employers’ collection of information about workers and use of that data for control, but there are still steps we can and must take to protect worker power.”

• Visit the project’s landing page here.
• Download the white paper  here. 
• Read a one-pager on the paper’s findings here.
• Learn more about EPIC’s work on worker privacy here. 

Please contact [email protected] with requests for further comment.

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ABOUT EPIC

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) was established in 1994 to protect privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic values in the information age. Our mission is to secure the fundamental right to privacy in the digital age for all people through advocacy, research, and litigation.

ABOUT NIWR

The National Institute for Workers’ Rights (NIWR) is an advocacy organization focused on making it harder for employers to violate workers’ rights and easier for workers to fight back. NIWR was founded by the National Employment Lawyers Association.