(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - As part of its mission to ensure Worker perspectives are included in STEM research and innovation, the National AFL-CIO and its Technology Institute announced the launch of a historic partnership with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

Over the course of five years, the AFL-CIO Technology Institute will lead a collaboration with NSF to build programs where researchers work together with the STEM Workforce and Unions to ensure the innovations of the future support and include America’s Workforce.

National AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said: “New technologies like Artificial Intelligence are rapidly changing the future of work and the Labor Movement isn’t sitting on the sidelines - we’re diving right in to give Workers a seat at the table and make sure that future is one in which Workers can thrive.  This historic partnership with NSF will advance our vision of a future in which Federally-funded science and technology innovation incorporates the needs of Workers, creates good Union jobs and provides Workers pathways for training and upward mobility.”

NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said: “We look forward to collaborating with the AFL-CIO on investments in learning and training, including up-skilling, re-skilling and transitioning in and across Technology Sectors and/or industries such as Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, high-performance computing, semi-conductors, advanced computer hardware and software, bio-technology, quantum information science and more.  This new partnership will help strengthen America’s STEM Workforce and create pathways that foster economic opportunity and upward mobility for everyone in every corner of the country.”

As part of the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, NSF has been authorized “to further the creation of a Domestic Workforce capable of advancing, using and adapting to the key technology focus areas” and to support the “development of technologies and innovations that complement or enhance the abilities of Workers.”

This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is a first-of-its-kind partnership that will serve as a model for how agencies across the Federal Government can bring Workers into the research they fund, Representatives involved in the effort said.

The partnership with NSF will ensure the needs of Working People are represented in the innovations created as a result of billions of dollars of investment in publicly-funded science and technology research, they added.

“Working People are the experts on how to do their jobs and their knowledge is essential to the development of the technologies of the future,” said Amanda Ballantyne, who serves as Executive Director of the AFL-CIO’s Technology Institute. “We are grateful that the NSF has embraced this partnership as a way to harness the power and expertise of Workers and their Unions in science and technology research.”

To Directly Access This Labor News Report, Go To: AFL-CIO Enters Historic Partnership with U.S. National Science Foundation | AFL-CIO (aflcio.org)

File Photo Courtesy Of People's World.