(The Center Square) – A proposed recommendation by the State Attorney General’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force, if adopted into law, would offer protection to public sector employees from losing wages or employment due to AI adoption.
According to a draft of the task force’s recommendations, “Artificial intelligence technology has advanced significantly since the original establishment of technology-related management rights, now capable of directly impacting employee wages, performance evaluations, and job security through machine learning algorithms that make decisions traditionally associated with human judgment.”
The proposed recommendation comes as many private sector industries have experienced significant job loss due to AI. Half of the 80,000 tech sector jobs lost in the first quarter of 2026 were related to AI, Nikkei Asia, a news organization, recently reported. The New York Times recently reported that “tech workers, it is becoming clear, have been building their A.I. replacements.”
At the same time, Forbes recently reported that there’s also been backlash by white collar workers against its adoption, as “roughly eight in 10 enterprise workers are either avoiding or actively rejecting the technology.”
The task force recommendation itself states, “The legislature should require that public employers covered by PECBA and the PSRA be required to bargain over the decision to adopt, or modify current uses of, artificial intelligence technology if such adoption or modification affects employees’ wages or performance evaluations.
Advocating for the recommendation at the task force’s April 11 meeting was task member Cherika Carter with the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO.
“Today, AI is no longer just a tool,” she said. “It can directly shape wages, performance evaluations and job security through automated decision making systems.
“At its core, this recommendation is about alignment,” she added. “If AI is shaping the fundamental terms for workers, we want to make sure that we have opportunity and have a say.”
However, task force member Amy Harris, with the Washington Technology Industry Association, wrote in an email to The Center Square that limiting AI is not a good idea.
“AI policy should focus on outcomes: transparency, accountability, and responsible use, rather than restricting deployment outright,” she wrote. There “is a real risk that overly restrictive or unclear policies could slow adoption, where implementation is already complex. Policies that create very different operating environments between sectors can influence talent decisions over time. Our focus is on ensuring Washington remains competitive and supporting an innovative private technology sector.”
A bill introduced in the 2025 legislative session would have had most state and local government public employees engage in collective bargaining over the use of AI affecting their wages or performance evaluations, while exempting that technology used by third parties. The bill cleared the House but stalled in the Senate. It was reintroduced this year, failed to get a House floor.
Harris wrote that WTIA had similar concerns with that bill, “as this goes beyond bargaining over impacts and instead requires bargaining over the decision to adopt AI itself.”
The task force will vote to approve final recommendations by July.