If Lowell is your home, this is your place

This is GREAT that Markley supports local education through a student activities fund donation! But we also have to keep in mind that the rapid expansion of AI data centers has created immense concern and friction with the local neighbors, as well as concerns for job loss and replacement. Besides the valid neighborhood concerns, JOB LOSS is another BIG CONCERN! That’s why the unions have to be VERY proactive and stay on top of this through aggressive collective bargaining and contract language. People should NOT be replaced by AI and technology but instead, co-exist as a balanced supplementary unit only. Once again, that’s where the Massachusetts Legislature comes into play and WHO we elect is so VERY important, now more than ever! The Massachusetts AFL-CIO and other major labor unions are actively lobbying the State House for these exact types of aggressive guardrails with the FAIR Act (Fostering Artificial Intelligence Responsibility). House Bill S.35 and House Bill H.77 will protect workers and enforce a “balanced co-existence framework”. These bills will ensure that AI is a "mandatory subject" of collective bargaining! The legislature must AMEND state labor relations acts (M.G.L. Chapter 150A and 150E) to explicitly state that the deployment of any generative AI or automated management systems (AMS) impacts working conditions, and that it is a mandatory subject of collective bargaining. This way, employers would be legally barred from introducing these systems mid-contract without a union-negotiated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). These bills and acts need to be comprehensively discussed and debated to ensure fairness to ALL the stakeholders, which includes both the workers and businesses, because it must also be realized that businesses have to stay economically competitive.