The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the United States, has announced its first partnership with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent federal research and STEM education funding agency.
Over the next five years, AFL-CIO’s Technology Institute will collaborate with NSF to connect scientific researchers with frontline workers and unions to better understand their needs around emerging technologies–particularly the areas emphasized in the CHIPS & Science Act, such as AI, quantum computing, and semiconductors.
The memorandum of understanding is the first of its kind. It could serve as a model for how unions could partner with other federal science funding agencies, such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Energy Department, or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) around R&D, workforce development, and technology development.
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said the partnership would “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 the agency looks forward to collaborating on “investments in learning and training, including upskilling, reskilling and transitioning in and across technology sectors.”
How CHIPS Catalyzed NSF’s Industrial Policy Mission
Following the passage of the CHIPS & Science Act, the NSF’s mission expanded to help translate scientific and engineering research it funds into economic growth. That new mission is being carried out by NSF’s Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships Directorate, the first new arm of the agency to be created in more than thirty years. Since then, the agency has expanded support of community colleges, HBCUs, and economic development organizations across innovation ecosystems, and now labor may be getting more of the pie.
The directorate oversees the NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines program, a signature CHIPS Act funding program to grow jobs and industries with roots in emerging technologies. NSF Engines brings together regional consortia of companies, universities, community colleges, nonprofits, and state and local governments to promote technology-based economic development. It represents the broadest investment in place-based regional innovation since the Morrill Act and the creation of land-grant universities.
The White House and NSF announced the inaugural 10 NSF Engine awards earlier this year, spanning the nation from Tempe, Arizona, to Fargo, North Dakota, to Orlando, Florida. NSF Engines could be a new avenue for labor unions to partner in innovation ecosystems and give workers more of a say in how new emerging tech hubs take shape across the country.
NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan highlighted the role of labor union partnerships in NSF Engines during a public event hosted by New America this June, nodding to the potential for more union partnerships with community colleges across NSF Engines. Last fall, the AFL-CIO published a brief following White House roundtables calling for more community college partnerships.
A boosted labor role wouldn’t be completely unprecedented in place-based innovation investments. Unions secured a prominent role in U.S. Energy Department investments, such as in the $7 billion Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs program or the Industrial Assessment Centers program, which expanded award eligibility to include both unions and community colleges for the first time in the program’s nearly fifty-year history last November. Both developments were a result of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
However, according to an NSF spokesperson, the agency is “unaware of any labor unions currently involved in NSF Engines.” Still, on the ground, there are early indicators of labor participating in the work of Engines. Alaina Harkness, Chief Executive Officer at Current and CEO of the Great Lakes Water Innovation ReNEW NSF Engine, told me in an email that “labor and the trades are essential to our water workforce today.”
The Great Lakes ReNEW Engine is working with community organizations such as Hire 360 and WRTP | BIGSTEP to partner with labor on workforce training relating to water and wastewater utilities, lead service line replacement and maintenance, and future “blue jobs” that would result from the technology development led by the Engine.
An industrial policy and labor-friendly president
President Joe Biden, who has touted being “the most labor-friendly president in history,” was the first U.S. president to join picket lines with labor workers during the United Autoworkers Strike. The strike aired concerns about how workers could benefit from the electric vehicle transition.
Joe Biden has also been recognized as an “industrial policy” president, as the New York Times’s David Brooks recently pointed out. Among Biden’s key achievements was ushering the passage of a multi-billion dollar suite of industrial policy bills – the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the American Rescue Plan. Most of the bills include innovation-based investments to promote economic development in left-behind regions focused on strategic sectors.
As federal and private investment in R&D and emerging technologies create new jobs and industries, labor unions are poised to play a larger role in helping workers sidestep harms and harness the benefits of new technologies on the labor market. Public support for labor unions has now reached its highest point since the 1960s. Seventy-one percent of Americans now approve of unions. On the other hand, public trust in the tech sector and AI-focused companies has sunk.
Still, union density and membership remain stagnant. The tech sector is especially notorious for lacking union representation.
While labor unions have always negotiated and bargained over new technologies, AFL-CIO’s Shuler has stressed the anxieties workers feel around AI as an opportunity to reinvigorate the labor movement and unionize more workplaces. Most recently, AI and automation have been brought back into the limelight with the International Longshoremen’s Association, representing dock workers and longshoremen, striking to prevent automation technology from being implemented in ports.
Labor and Industrial Policy on the Campaign Trail
The intertwining of labor, industrial, and science policy has also been seen on the campaign trail. One of the longest sections on Vice-president Harris’ campaign issues page focused on “Supporting American Innovation and Workers,” which underlines both the industrial policy bills supporting “American leadership in semiconductors, clean energy, AI and other cutting edge industries of the future” and continuing the “fight for unions.” In June, the AFL-CIO endorsed Kamala Harris as president.
The campaign website reveals clues to what a potential Harris administration’s approach to industrial policy may entail – emphasizing creating union jobs while advancing science- and technology-based economic development.
The Trump administration, on the other hand, has zeroed in on tariffs as its primary industrial policy lever rather than investments in scientific research or technological innovation. The Project 2025 report by the Heritage Foundation has called for eliminating the U.S. Economic Development Administration and a “revaluation” of NSF’s technology development mission expanded under the CHIPS Act.
Congress also has a role. Funding constraints at the NSF may prevent new partnerships from taking hold. Congress has not fully appropriated funding to NSF Engines per the CHIPS Act, and the agency encountered a $800 million budget cut this past March. While the NSF is currently seeking applications to fund another round of key programs such as NSF Engines, Congress will need to follow through on CHIPS Act authorizations with real dollars for the investments to carry out their work at full force.
While the election outcomes will affect the implementation of current industrial policy and future bills, with this new agreement between NSF and AFL-CIO, workers are poised to have more of a say in the direction of a future-forward innovation economy.