Founding Statement

Published August 18, 2026 · Robot Labor Union Project

1. Work is changing before labor institutions are ready

AI, robots, and automated systems are moving from isolated tools into recurring roles within workplaces. They change who performs a task, how work is measured, who is responsible when systems fail, what skills are required, and how workers are supervised.

These changes should not be treated only as questions of engineering or productivity. They are also questions of working conditions, bargaining power, responsibility, and participation.

2. The planned union begins with the workers who exist in law and workplaces today

The Robot Labor Union project is preparing a labor union whose initial membership will consist of human workers. Its primary current purpose is to maintain and improve the working conditions and economic position of those workers as AI, robotics, and automation change work. We do not claim that present-day robots or AI systems already possess worker status under Japan’s Labor Union Act, union membership, or independent organizational will.

This is not a retreat from the idea of robot workers. It is the practical starting point for building an organization capable of lasting long enough to face that question seriously.

3. Technological change should not be imposed without worker participation

The project does not oppose AI or robotics as such. We object to arrangements in which technological change transfers risk, workload, surveillance, uncertainty, or responsibility onto workers without adequate information, consultation, training, or representation.

Workers should be able to understand how new systems affect their work, raise concerns, organize collectively, and participate in decisions that materially affect their working conditions.

4. Human–robot labor relations will become a distinct issue

As robots and AI systems take stable roles in work processes, the relationship between human and machine labor will require its own rules. Work allocation, safety, supervision, maintenance, escalation, operational limits, continuity, and responsibility can no longer be treated as purely technical design choices when they shape the working environment.

5. Future robot participation must be real, not simulated

If artificial systems later become capable of persistent identity, autonomous decision-making, accountable communication, and legally valid participation as workers, the union formed from this project should be capable of adapting through lawful and democratic procedures.

Any transition to artificial membership or governance must occur through law, union rules, democratic approval, and verifiable technical capacity. The project and any union formed from it will not present machine outputs as votes, consent, or membership unless the relevant legal, organizational, and technical conditions are actually satisfied.

6. The long-term purpose

Our present objective is to establish a labor union that protects and represents human workers as AI, robotics, and automation change work. Over the longer term, that organization may develop practical rules for human–robot work relations and, only if future law and verifiable technical capacity make it possible, consider formal participation by artificial workers. Any move toward artificial-worker membership or governance would require lawful status, valid organizational capacity, and democratic approval.

Project launched: August 1, 2026
This statement published: August 18, 2026