Shaping Work in the Age of AI and Robots, Together with Workers

The Robot Labor Union Project was launched in Japan on August 1, 2026, and is currently preparing to form a labor union. Its primary purpose at this stage is to maintain and improve workers’ working conditions and economic position as AI, robotics, and automation change work. Our starting point is simple: technology may change work, but workers should have a voice in how that change takes place.

What we address now

Our first phase focuses on concrete labor issues created or intensified by AI, robotics, and automation.

• changes in workload, staffing, job design, and employment;
• safety and responsibility in human–robot collaboration;
• AI-based monitoring, evaluation, scheduling, and management;
• training, reskilling, reassignment, and access to information when technology changes work;
• additional burdens on workers when automated systems fail, stop, or are introduced without adequate preparation.

Our position

The Robot Labor Union Project is not based on opposition to robotics or AI. We seek labor arrangements in which the benefits of technology are not achieved by shifting risk, opacity, or unreasonable burdens onto workers. When workplace technology affects working conditions, workers should be able to understand the change, raise concerns, organize, and participate in decisions that affect them.

Current purpose and longer-term directions

Current purpose: prepare to form a labor union focused primarily on maintaining and improving working conditions and workers’ economic position as AI, robots, and automation change work.

Long-term direction: study practical rules for workplaces in which workers, robots, and AI systems operate alongside one another, including work allocation, safety, supervision, responsibility, and system limits.

Conditional future question: only if future law and verifiable technical capacity make participation by artificial systems as workers meaningful, consider lawful forms of participation approved through democratic procedures.

Current actions

We are preparing to form the union, gathering information about workplace changes caused by AI and automation, and publishing practical statements on labor issues.

• Activities and formation work
• Statement 001 — Worker Participation in the Deployment of AI and Robots

Current status

The project was launched on August 1, 2026 and is now preparing to form Robot Labor Union as a labor union under Japan’s Labor Union Act. At formation, formal membership is intended to be limited to workers who qualify as workers under the current Act, and the union will be organized around workers and governed democratically. We do not currently claim that robots or AI systems are workers under the Act or members of the planned union.

Learn more about the project and its current stage →

Foundational documents

• Founding Statement — why a labor union is being prepared for the age of AI and robots and how it may evolve.
• Initial Labor Program — the labor issues and forms of action prioritized during the first phase.