The air is thick with a familiar anxiety, the kind that precedes an upheaval. It is the same disquiet that settled over loom workers at the dawn of the first Industrial Revolution and factory hands when the assembly line first hummed to life. Now, the shadow cast across the shop floor and the cubicle is not that of a steam engine or a conveyor belt, but of a disembodied intelligence, a new force poised to rewrite the fundamental contract between labour and capital.
Where is Industrial Relations headed in an Artificial Intelligence era? This is the question that haunts boardrooms and union halls alike, a question that speaks to the very soul of work and the social fabric woven around it. The old certainties are dissolving. The old tools of engagement and conflict are losing their edge against an adversary that does not sweat, does not tire, and does not join a picket line. The future of industrial relations is not simply about adapting to a new technology; it is about reinventing itself for a new reality.
The first and most immediate challenge posed by AI is the...
