Chris­t­ian Mo­ra,

Man­ag­er Hu­man Re­sources, CCLCS

Over the past 18 years as a labour prac­ti­tion­er, I have heard a fa­mil­iar re­frain: that trade unions are be­com­ing ir­rel­e­vant and must piv­ot away from col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing and work­er pro­tec­tion to­ward ar­eas like train­ing, skills de­vel­op­ment and, now, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence. At first glance, this may ap­pear for­ward-look­ing and in align­ment with the cur­rent top­ic of the date. In re­al­i­ty, it re­flects a shal­low read­ing and un­der­stand­ing of labour dy­nam­ics and a trou­bling dis­re­gard for the lived re­al­i­ties of work­ers in a sys­tem that does not al­ways fa­cil­i­tate so­cial jus­tice.

The premise pre­sent­ed in on­line com­ments and oth­er sources is fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed be­cause it ig­nores a sim­ple truth: work­ers’ most im­me­di­ate con­cerns have not dis­ap­peared. Wages, job se­cu­ri­ty, safe work­ing con­di­tions, and fair treat­ment re­main un­re­solved for mil­lions. A min­i­mum wage is not a liv­ing wage, even with in­cre­men­tal ad­just­ments un­der leg­is­la­tion to give the ap­pear­ance of sup­port for the vul­ner­a­ble. To sug­gest that unions should de­pri­ori­tise these core is­sues in favour of fu­ture-ori­ent­ed skills train­ing is to mis­un­der­stand both the pur­pose of unions and the hi­er­ar­chy of work­er needs.

A work­er strug­gling to meet ba­sic liv­ing ex­pens­es is not pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned with AI in­te­gra­tion; they are con­cerned with sur­vival, dig­ni­ty and fair­ness. It is al­so his­tor­i­cal­ly in­ac­cu­rate to im­ply that ex­ist­ing work­place pro­tec­tions are some­how self-gen­er­at­ing or benev­o­lent­ly grant­ed.

The rights and ben­e­fits many work­ers take for grant­ed to­day, such as min­i­mum wages, over­time pay, oc­cu­pa­tion­al safe­ty stan­dards, ma­ter­ni­ty leave and pen­sions, were not hand­ed down through the good­will of em­ploy­ers. They were fought for, of­ten at great cost, through sus­tained ad­vo­ca­cy, or­gan­is­ing and ne­go­ti­a­tion led by trade unions. To de­tach unions from this lega­cy is to erase the very strug­gles that shaped mod­ern labour stan­dards.

The role of unions with­in the tri­par­tite sys­tem fur­ther un­der­scores their con­tin­ued rel­e­vance. Gov­ern­ments, of­ten per­ceived as neu­tral ar­biters, are them­selves ma­jor em­ploy­ers. This dual role can cre­ate ten­sions and con­tra­dic­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly when fis­cal pri­or­i­ties con­flict with work­er wel­fare. It is not un­com­mon for gov­ern­ments to ad­vo­cate re­straint in wages or pub­lic sec­tor ben­e­fits while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ex­pect­ing high lev­els of ser­vice de­liv­ery. In such con­texts, unions serve as a nec­es­sary coun­ter­bal­ance, en­sur­ing that work­ers’ voic­es are not di­min­ished with­in pol­i­cy­mak­ing and em­ploy­ment re­la­tions. More­so, in an ever-in­creas­ing world of work that calls for more pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and per­for­mance by work­ers, the unions are the watch­dogs to en­sure that em­ploy­ees’ rights are not vi­o­lat­ed, nor are they ex­ploit­ed.

There is al­so a ten­den­cy in some com­men­tary to treat labour is­sues as ab­stract or the­o­ret­i­cal, di­vorced from re­al con­se­quences. Con­sid­er the work­er who is ter­mi­nat­ed with­out due process or ad­e­quate com­pen­sa­tion. In that mo­ment, the ques­tion of union rel­e­vance be­comes stark­ly prac­ti­cal. Rep­re­sen­ta­tion, le­gal sup­port and col­lec­tive strength are not op­tion­al, but es­sen­tial. With­out them, in­di­vid­ual work­ers are of­ten left vul­ner­a­ble in sys­tems that are struc­tural­ly un­equal.

The ex­pe­ri­ences of front­line work­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­cent years, fur­ther ex­pose the weak­ness of the “union ir­rel­e­vance” ar­gu­ment. Nurs­es, health­care work­ers and oth­er es­sen­tial per­son­nel have con­sis­tent­ly high­light­ed is­sues such as un­der­staffing, burnout, in­ad­e­quate com­pen­sa­tion and un­safe work­ing con­di­tions. These are not prob­lems that can be solved by AI train­ing mod­ules or fu­ture-ori­ent­ed work­shops. They re­quire im­me­di­ate and sus­tained in­ter­ven­tion, ne­go­ti­a­tion and struc­tur­al change, pre­cise­ly the ar­eas where unions op­er­ate.

This is not to sug­gest that unions should ig­nore tech­no­log­i­cal change. On the con­trary, they must en­gage with it strate­gi­cal­ly. Train­ing, reskilling and dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy are im­por­tant com­po­nents of mod­ern labour rep­re­sen­ta­tion. How­ev­er, these should com­ple­ment, not re­place, the core man­date of pro­tect­ing work­ers’ rights and ad­vanc­ing their eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests. A union that fo­cus­es sole­ly on fu­ture skills while ne­glect­ing present in­jus­tices risks be­com­ing dis­con­nect­ed from its mem­ber­ship.

There is al­so a broad­er in­tel­lec­tu­al is­sue at play. Sweep­ing claims about the ob­so­les­cence of unions of­ten re­ly on gen­er­alised as­sump­tions and an over­re­liance on pre­dic­tive mod­els or large lan­guage sys­tems that pri­ori­tise pat­terns over con­text. These ap­proach­es can flat­ten com­plex so­cial re­al­i­ties in­to sim­plis­tic nar­ra­tives. Labour re­la­tions are not pure­ly tech­ni­cal prob­lems; they are deeply hu­man, shaped by pow­er, his­to­ry and lived ex­pe­ri­ence. Any analy­sis that fails to ac­count for this will in­evitably fall short.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the ar­gu­ment that unions should aban­don their foun­da­tion­al roles in favour of a nar­row fo­cus on train­ing and AI re­flects a mis­un­der­stand­ing of both the present and the fu­ture of work. Tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ment does not elim­i­nate the need for fair­ness. As work­places evolve, so too must the mech­a­nisms that pro­tect work­ers. Unions are not relics of the past; they are es­sen­tial in­sti­tu­tions for nav­i­gat­ing the com­plex­i­ties of mod­ern labour mar­kets.

The re­al ques­tion is not whether unions are rel­e­vant, but whether we are will­ing to recog­nise the con­di­tions that make them nec­es­sary. Un­til work­ers no longer face ex­ploita­tion, in­se­cu­ri­ty and in­equal­i­ty, the an­swer re­mains clear: unions are not just rel­e­vant, they are in­dis­pens­able.