Americans’ trust in news sources reached a new low of 28% last year, as support for labor unions reached nearly 70%. Surging usage of artificial intelligence, or AI, to generate information threatens news reliability even further, especially as a growing number of people rely on social media or AI chat bots to source their information. Unions should be leveraging their popularity to dismantle the malicious AI content disrupting our media and aiding fascist and authoritarian powers.
Unions have access to millions of working class people who follow them on social media, receive their newsletters, attend their membership meetings, follow their voter guides and volunteer at their canvasses. And psychological studies indicate the best defence against AI misinformation and disinformation is a basic tool union organizers employ constantly — inoculation.
If you’ve ever been through a unionization campaign, you’ve likely experienced inoculation, or “prebunking.” Union busting is a $1.5 billion industry in the United States, and the amount an employer spends on so-called “union avoidance” tactics is a large factor in whether workers win their union election.
Aside from creating stronger policy protections against union busting, the best defense is to inoculate organizing workers against the anti-union propaganda their employer is likely to inundate them with. Before filing for an election, union organizers typically hold a meeting with workers to talk through what to expect their employer to say and do after the union campaign goes public.
From captive audience meetings where the employer or a highly paid lawyer tells workers that “unionizing will mean workers can’t talk to the employer anymore,” that their benefits will decrease or that they will lose their jobs because the employer can’t afford union wage increases, union busters are fairly predictable. When workers know what to look for and learn how much their employer is spending on fighting a union rather than paying higher wages, the anti-union messaging becomes a lot less compelling.
What if unions used their massive popularity and applied this same highly effective method to combat AI?
Cornell University professors Sarah Kreps and Doug Kriner say AI is disrupting the U.S.’s democratic representation, electoral integrity and democratic trust, noting most infamously when foreign actors exploited new technologies to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Since generative AI advances allow malicious actors to produce misinformation very quickly and on a large scale, and social media platforms are eager to allow its dissemination, people are rapidly finding themselves unable to distinguish reality from deepfakes.
Even more concerning, the once reliable methods for identifying AI are becoming unreliable as AI models advance. Gone are the days of garbled text and seven fingered men. Midjourney, and Open AI have all solved these issues. Possibly one of the most reliable indicators, is a gut check, technology reporters like Henk Van Ess with the Global Investigative Journalism Network say.
“When time is critical and you need an instant assessment of suspicious perfection, focus on the gut feeling that something looks ‘too good to be true,’” Van Ess writes.
A group of labor union staff members recently gave Van Ess’ advice during a training I held for the Oregon Labor Federation on AI disruption. When I asked how people identified AI, absent the big tells, each person independently mentioned a “feeling” that something wasn’t right with the content they were viewing.
Now, a gut check can’t be accurate 100% of the time, but when unions tap into our access, trustworthiness and organizing skills, we can help working class people more intuitively identify the malicious content targeting them.
AI is a threat to unions just as much as it is broadly our chances at clawing back democracy. AI is targeting our jobs, it’s threatening our privacy, it’s threatening our environment and it’s threatening our very ability to think for ourselves and socialize with other human beings.
While AI usage is growing among average Americans, and has totally exploded among teens and young adults, a large chunk of working people are concerned about the technology’s increased usage. The same amount of Americans who support unions oppose data centers being built in their communities.
Unions should themselves be AI disruptors and train their members to also be in their communities, not solely out of civic goodwill but out of a survival imperative. Unions have trust, access, resources and training, and they have public support.
Labor actions
On May 1, working people across the state gathered at rallies and celebrations for International Workers’ Day, or May Day. The largest gatherings were in Portland, where thousands of union and community members marched in the South Park Blocks, and in Salem, where Piñeros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste and associated unions and community organizations marched around the capitol. Both events focused on attacks on labor and social justice rights. Workers also held events in Corvallis, Eugene, Bend, Medford and Ontario.
Workers at Albertina Kerr in Portland rallied on May 14 outside the health facility’s office.
“Nearly two years after overwhelmingly voting to unionize with SEIU 503, and one year after beginning the bargaining process with management, Albertina Kerr workers are still fighting for their first contract,” SEIU 503 said in a social media post. “Employees report that staffing shortages and high turnover are jeopardizing quality care for youth and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”
University of Oregon classified staff also represented by SEIU Local 503 rallied on May 15 after university management proposed freezing wages for four years.
On May 29, nurse practitioners, physician associates and certified nurse midwives held a rally at Elizabeth Caruthers Park to demand that the Oregon Health & Sciences University “follow its contract, stop recently implemented workload changes and bargain a solution that will meet the needs of patients while ensuring safe working conditions,” the Oregon Nurses Association said in a press release.
New campaigns and elections
After filing in March, technologists and technicians for the Laboratory Corporation of America at the Legacy Silverton Medical Center voted on May 6, and in a split vote, did not win their election to join the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Local 5017.
Classroom and food service workers at The Ivy School Oregon Center for Creative Learning in Medford filed for an election in April but voted two to 31 on May 12 against joining the Oregon School Employees Association.
On May 13, connections, mentors and employment workers for the United Cerebral Palsy Association of Oregon and Southwest Washington in Portland filed with the National Labor Relations Board to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 5.
Following their filing in April, STA of Oregon bus and van operators in Lake Oswego voted 48 to six on May 13 to join the Teamsters Local Union No. 206.
Professional workers at the Tuality Healthcare Hillsboro Medical Center filed on May 18 to join the Oregon American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 75, or AFSCME.
Technical employees at Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital, who filed in April, voted 25 to three on May 21 to join ONA.
On May 27, Dark Horse Comics workers in Milwaukie filed to join the Communications Workers of America, or CWA, Local 7901. Portland City Council staff won their election to also join CWA Local 7901. Serendipity Center workers in Portland joined the United Cerebral Palsy Association workers in filing with ILWU Local 5.
On the same day, Oregon Child Development Coalition early child education program workers in Hillsboro voted 14 to 31 against joining Laborers International Union of North America, Local 737.
Workers at Sleep Metrics in Lake Oswego filed on May 29 to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555.
This article appears in June 10, 2026.