AFL-CIO demands more involvement in digital trade

The AFL-CIO wants to be more involved in the way the U.S. Trade Representative's office sets goals in this area, arguing that they are too often dictated by big technology companies, and the Biden administration has made digital trade the centerpiece of its trade negotiations.

The largest U.S. labor organization issued a set of principles that it says is necessary to protect workers, the public's privacy and governments' ability to regulate a rapidly changing sector as the USTR negotiates digital trade agreements.

The USTR is expected to propose text on the digital chapter in the negotiations for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, the Biden administration's signature economic agreement.

The U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai pledged to create a worker-centric trade policy, but the AFL-CIO said digital trade negotiations too often don't mention labor standards or the workers who write software or support networks.

To date, the U.S. 'digital trade' agreements have sought to expand market access for large technology companies by granting broad digital data and intellectual property rights while restricting the ability of governments of both the United States and our trade partners to adopt measures to address the economic transformation, the AFL-CIO said in its plan.

The AFL-CIO said that the organization's demands are to make sure that digital trade agreements are subject to strong and enforceable labor standards, discouraging the use of gig workers who are often deprived of benefits and subjected to difficult working conditions, and discouraging the outsourcing of back-office or telemedicine jobs to countries with low labor standards.

The demands of the AFL-CIO push back against a key component of the recent U.S. trade deals that prohibit countries from imposing data localization policies to require data to be stored locally. The renegotiated North American Free Trade Deal, which went into effect in 2020, included such provisions, and USTR has sparred with countries including India over their plans for such policies, arguing that U.S. based data platforms should be free to operate anywhere in the world.

In some cases, governments should have the ability to require individuals' sensitive personal information, such as medical or biometric data, on-shore to be kept safe, according to the AFL-CIO.

The principles call for negotiating strong safeguards against misappropriation of voices, images or likenesses that could be used in digital content generated by artificial intelligence AI technologies.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement that corporations shouldn't dictate the rules of the global digital economy with no regard for working people. Their drive to monetize data often violates privacy rights and exploits workers. - Requiring governments to take strong policies to safeguard individuals' personal data as opposed to the current largely voluntary self-regulation model that has proven inadequate.

Ensure compliance with labor laws by facilitating meaningful oversight of source codes and algorithms. The labor group says automated employee monitoring systems and other AI-enabled tools can undermine workers rights and promote discrimination.

- Address abusive employment practices in the technology sector, to discourage the use of contractors, and to require firms to eliminate labor abuses in their operations and supply chains.

- Protect and promote economic security of creative professionals in the United States, including motion picture, television, and music industry workers, by aggressively addressing the stolen or unlicensed use of copyrighted content on digital platforms.

- Address the rise of cybercrime by state and private actors by requiring better cybersecurity standards and a common enforcement agenda.