Alvin Velazquez (Indiana U Maurer Law) and Charlotte Garden (U Minnesota Law) have posted “The Divided States of Work Law: Regulating US Workplaces in the Age of AI” (in Artificial Intelligence and Labour Law: A Global Overview, M. Biasi, ed., Giappichelli/Routledge (forthcoming, 2026)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
United States labor policy is notable for how little it constrains most employers: unlike many jurisdictions represented in this volume, “atwill” employment is standard, and union density is low. In line with this general approach, federal lawmakers have not regulated AI or related technologies, either to plan for feared job displacements, or to limit the use of this technology to depress worker power through surveillance, discrimination, or other strategies. And while federal regulatory agencies previously took steps to bring existing law to bear in these new contexts, this approach is far from comprehensive. However, a handful of US state governments have shown greater willingness to regulate employers’ use of these emerging technologies – although their regulation occurs in the shadow of federal “preemption doctrine,” under which states are precluded from regulating some aspects of work law. This chapter explains why federal regulation of employers’ use of emerging technologies is unlikely and analyzes prospects for states to step into the breach.