Civic Tech Field Guide
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Rep Coach

Union reps can be more confident in starting organising conversations after practicing their approach on an AI actor using our tool.

Active
UK
Open source: Yes

The foundation of union building lies in workplace conversations - recruiting members, mobilising for action, resolving conflicts, and negotiating with employers. While unions provide excellent training for these crucial discussions, new reps often face a gap between training and real-world application. We developed this AI training tool to bridge that gap, helping reps practice and build confidence in organising conversations. Just as a flight simulator helps pilots master skills before flying real planes, our AI powered union training bot lets reps rehearse conversations before having them in the workplace. Built on insights from Campaign Lab's work building a training bot for doorknocking, this tool serves as a practice environment between formal training sessions. We believe AI should serve in support of human connections, not as a replacement. We built this tool with organisers and reps involved at every stage. Organisers provided the training material this bot pulls from, reps provided user feedback and helped us to ensure the AI was prompted effectively to create simulations that were believable and useful. But most importantly, this tool exists to strengthen, not replace, human organising. At a time when AI is an emerging threat to workers rights, we wanted to show that it is possible to use this technology in a way that builds worker power, not undermines it. It complements traditional union training while preserving the invaluable human connections that make the labour movement so powerful. This tool represents our commitment to embracing technology that empowers workers and strengthens collective organising, rather than replacing human connection at the heart of union work. This tool began as a prototype at Campaign Lab. It was incubated by the TUC Digital Lab and developed by Poteris and is now used by a union in their training programmes.

Additional details

Affiliation
Campaign Lab helped to prototype it.
Number of integrations
0
Geographic focus
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 🇬🇧
Geographic focus — country
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 🇬🇧

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