First-of-Its-Kind Partnership Will Serve as Model for Bringing Workers into STEM Research and Innovation
(Washington, D.C., Sept. 24, 2024)—As part of our mission to ensure that worker perspectives are included in STEM research and innovation, the AFL-CIO and our Technology Institute announced today the launch of a historic partnership with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Over the course of five years, the AFL-CIO Technology Institute will lead a collaboration with NSF to build programs where researchers work together with the STEM workforce and unions to ensure that the innovations of the future support and include America’s workforce.
“New technologies like artificial intelligence are rapidly changing the future of work, and the labor movement isn’t sitting on the sidelines—we’re diving right in to give workers a seat at the table and make sure that future is one in which workers can thrive,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “This historic partnership with NSF will advance our vision of a future in which federally funded science and technology innovation incorporates the needs of workers, creates good union jobs, and provides workers pathways for training and upward mobility.”
“We look forward to collaborating with the AFL-CIO on investments in learning and training, including upskilling, reskilling and transitioning in and across technology sectors and/or industries such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, high-performance computing, semiconductors, advanced computer hardware and software, biotechnology, quantum information science, and more,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “This new partnership will help strengthen America’s STEM workforce and create pathways that foster economic opportunity and upward mobility for everyone in every corner of the country.”
As part of the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, NSF has been authorized “to further the creation of a domestic workforce capable of advancing, using, and adapting to the key technology focus areas” and to support the “development of technologies and innovations that complement or enhance the abilities of workers.” This memorandum of understanding is a first-of-its-kind partnership that will serve as a model for how agencies across the federal government can bring workers into the research they fund. The partnership with NSF will ensure that the needs of working people are represented in the innovations created as a result of billions of dollars of investment in publicly funded science and technology research.
“Working people are the experts on how to do their jobs, and their knowledge is essential to the development of the technologies of the future,” said Amanda Ballantyne, Executive Director of the AFL-CIO Technology Institute. “We are grateful that the NSF has embraced this partnership as a way to harness the power and expertise of workers and their unions in science and technology research.”
Contact: Prerna Jagadeesh, 202-637-5018