Unfair Practice Charge on A.I. Initiative Filed Against CSU Admin

Last week, CFA filed an unfair practice charge against the CSU for refusing to notify our members of the launch of the Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) Initiative and further refusing to meet and confer over faculty rights and impacts of the initiative. The chancellor’s labor relations officials do not believe that the A.I. Initiative impacts faculty terms and conditions or employment. The chancellor’s response is galling given the interest faculty have in their intellectual property that is housed and archived on CSU learning platforms. We are also concerned that the chancellor will look for more ways to cut labor costs with cheap, short-sited plans that shortchange students and erode the CSU in irreparable ways.

As we reported last month, on February 5, Chancellor García announced that the CSU had partnered with private organizations to create an A.I. Initiative.  The CSU failed to notify CFA of the initiative before it was launched.  Upon its launch, CFA immediately demanded to bargain over the A.I. Initiative before it was implemented.  Through a series of delayed responses from the CSU, the Chancellor’s Office made it clear that she is not interested in meeting and conferring over the A.I. Initiative. The response is not surprising given the barrage of other policies being issued without faculty input. On March 13, CFA filed an Unfair Practice Charge with the California Public Employees Relations Board in which we argue that the CSU has violated the law by failing to meet and confer with CFA prior to implementing the A.I. Initiative.

At the Equity Conference last week, faculty attended a talk with Dr. Safiya Noble, who shared her encouragement for the union to bargain over AI. Dr. Noble is well aware that technology, search engines, chatbots, and emerging A.I. technologies are fraught with errors and perpetuate the same racist and sexist biases in the larger culture. She and faculty in attendance urged that faculty should demand answers to questions about where data is stored, what international human rights and labor exploitation are at stake, what environmental harms the CSU will contribute to, how much more work will faculty have to perform in its implementation, and how A.I. might be used to evaluate faculty work. To be sure, CFA has demanded to bargain over Faculty Rights in bargaining, and we will also pursue the unfair practice charge to ensure that the chancellor stops imposing sweeping changes in the CSU while leaving faculty out of the decision-making process.