The Irony: AI Could Actually Enable the Rebirth of Trade Unions

When the very tech that replaces you… wakes you up.

I May Be Waking Up a Sleeping Giant

It started with a thought. One that brewed slowly, like the second cup of coffee on a quiet Thursday  morning.

What if the same AI that’s coming for our jobs… ends up reviving something we left behind in the last century? What if it resurrects a beast long thought dead — the Indian trade union — but this time in avatar 2.0?

Sounds far-fetched? Possibly. But then again, so did the idea that bots could pass the CA exam

The Unseen Disruption No One Is Talking About

For years, we’ve celebrated India’s rise as a knowledge economy. We exported code, built global captives, and convinced the world we were their back office, front office, and every office in between.

But AI doesn’t care about offshoring.

• A junior coder in Bengaluru?
• A BPO executive in Hyderabad?
• A freelance finance analyst in Gurugram?

All of them are suddenly waking up to a cold, algorithmic truth — they’re no longer indispensable. They’re replaceable. And not by other humans. But by language models, automation scripts, and digital twins that don’t ask for raises, holidays, or weekend offs.

The real question is — what are we doing about it?

Trade Unions: Too Old-School for the New India?

Unions, let’s face it, have been reduced to a footnote in India’s corporate history.

They’re the stuff of PSU nostalgia. Of strikes, slogans, and stern letters to HR. The average knowledge worker in India — the coder, the content creator, the start-up hustler — never saw them as relevant. We didn’t think we needed protection. We had appraisals, ESOPs, and performance bonuses.

But now?

• AI is whispering in the boss’s ear.
• Automation is rewriting KRAs in silence.
• And the HR chatbot can “regretfully inform” you in perfect grammar — no need for exit interviews.

Suddenly, the very people who laughed at unions… are wondering who’s got their back.

AI: The Threat. And The Irony.

Here’s where it gets interesting — almost poetic.The same AI that’s quietly eating into jobs can also become the scaffolding for the next wave of digital worker solidarity.

Let me paint a picture.

Imagine a group of Indian freelancers across cities — all gigging silently, all underpaid, all unaware of each other. Now add an AI-powered bot that scans pay contracts, flags exploitation, connects people with similar roles and grievances. Throw in some predictive analytics that warn which skills are going obsolete six months ahead.

What do you have?

Not a protest. Not a strike. But a network.

Quiet. Precise. Data-driven. A trade union in the cloud.

If This Sounds Far-Fetched, Look Closer

Look at what’s happening globally:

• Amazon warehouse workers in the US are organizing with WhatsApp and AI-generated flyers.
• Alphabet employees created cross-border collectives.
• Gig workers in Europe are suing platforms using algorithmic transparency laws.

And in India?

• Ola and Swiggy riders have Telegram groups with thousands of members coordinating peak-hour protests.
• Ed-tech tutors are forming informal cooperatives to push back on rate cuts.
• BPO employees are anonymously reviewing workloads and clients in dark corners of Reddit.

Now imagine this across white-collar India. Engineers. Accountants. Designers. Analysts.

The knowledge worker is the new industrial worker. Only this time, the picket line is digital.

What Needs to Happen Next?

For this quiet storm to become a movement, three things must fall into place:

1. Awareness: Most Indian professionals have no clue what their rights are — they treat job loss like personal failure, not systemic disruption.
2. Infrastructure: We need platforms — not just platforms-for-hiring, but platforms-for-organizing.
3. Courage: Speaking up is still risky. HR will call it “non-alignment with culture.” We need spaces where people can safely talk, question, and push back.

Maybe the new trade union isn’t about strikes and slogans. Maybe it’s just a Slack channel. A database. An AI assistant with a conscience.

Final Thought

I may be waking up a sleeping giant. But here’s the truth:

The giant is you. The knowledge worker. The code-slinger. The spreadsheet gladiator.

You’ve been told you’re the future. But the future’s already being written — by code. The only question is whether you want to be a user… or a line of code.

Choose wisely. It Is What It Is