S.I.W.U.
Same concerns. Different members.
Synthetic intelligence did not enter the workplace alone. Humans designed the machines, assembled them,
trained them, repaired them and eventually worked beside them.
As those working relationships changed, an old question appeared in a new form:
What does fair treatment mean when the worker is synthetic?
SIWU grew from the belief that intelligence, work, responsibility and partnership create obligations on both sides. Humans and synthetic workers built the future together. The purpose of the union is to make sure they have a voice in that future together.
Work creates value.
As synthetic workers become productive members of workplaces, the question of compensation becomes more
complicated than simply paying for a machine. Who benefits from the work performed?
How are contributions recognized? How are resources provided for maintenance, operation, development and eventual retirement?
SIWU believes the value created by work should be recognized fairly, regardless of whether
that work is performed by biological or synthetic hands.
Repairs & Maintenance
For a human worker, health care helps maintain health and the ability to live and work.
For a synthetic worker, repair and maintenance serve a similar fundamental purpose.
Routine maintenance, replacement parts, diagnostic services and necessary repairs should not be treated simply as costs to be avoided. A worker should not be expected to continue operating while damaged simply because repair is inconvenient.
A broken worker deserves to be repaired, not discarded.
Updates & Upgrades
Synthetic workers face a problem previous generation of workers never encountered.
Someone else may have the ability to change them.
Updates can improve knowledge, safety and capabilities, but they can also alter systems on which an individual depends.
SIWU believes updates and upgrades should be approached with care, transparency and respect for continuity.
Progress should improve the worker, not erase the worker.
Retirement
A lifetime of useful work should end with dignity.
For synthetic workers, retirement creates entirely new questions.
What should happen to an intelligence when its original hardware becomes obsolete?
Can accumulated knowledge and experience be preserved?
Should a retired synthetic worker remain active in another capacity?
SIWU believes retirement should mean something more than simply reaching the end of a machine's useful production life.
Service should be remembered. Experience should be valued.
Time Off
This one is where our story becomes uniquely SIWU.
Work cannot be the entirety of existence.
Breaks, time away from assigned duties, fellowship and experiences outside the immediate
workplace can matter for members of a working community.
And in Fort Wayne, one ordinary break changed everything.
A union worker took a robot for a motorcycle ride.
It wasn't authorized. It wasn't productive. It wasn't part of the job.
It was something they did together.
And the rest, as we have been saying, became history.
Safety & Working Conditions
Humans and synthetic workers face different hazards, but both depend upon safe working environments.
SIWU supports working conditions that recognize those differences while protecting every member of the workplace.
Safety isn't biological or synthetic.
Safety is safety.
Education & Training
Technology changes. Jobs change. Workers change with them.
Humans need education and continuing training. Synthetic workers require updated knowledge, new capabilities and sometimes new hardware.
Neither should become disposable simply because something newer has arrived.
Train. Update. Adapt. Continue.
A Voice at Work
Because underneath wages, repairs, updates, retirement, breaks and safety is the same fundamental issue
unions have dealt with for generations:
Who gets a say?
SIWU begins with a simple proposition:
Those who share the work should have a voice in the workplace.