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Adam Klein shares insights on how federal agencies are teaming up to safeguard the public from potential AI risks. The EEOC, FTC, CFPB, and DOJ are flexing their broad authority and sending a strong signal to employers and AI providers. This joint effort not only raises awareness but also educates on legal responsibilities. State and local governments may pave the way for AI regulation, while the EEOC addresses AI bias using diverse legal approaches.

There’s no question tech companies need to appease shareholders, consumers and other stakeholders, and those may be at odds with each other, said Wendi Lazar, a partner at Outten & Golden.

“When CEOs of tech companies are making (millions of dollars) in total compensation, however, employees will not take well to an explanation that they are being laid off because the company is ‘not doing well and performance is down,’” Lazar said. “No matter how strong capitalism appears, losing your livelihood when your boss is making millions just doesn’t sit well.”

April 14, 2023 | WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last night, a former employee filed a class-action lawsuit against a tech-training and employee-staffing agency, Smoothstack, Inc. (Smoothstack). This new lawsuit alleges that Smoothstack steals wages from employees and pushes them to sign predatory Training Repayment Agreement Provisions (TRAPs), putting them on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in debt if they tried to leave or were fired from low-wage tech jobs working on projects for some of the largest corporations in the world.

“They have a job title like relationship manager or personal banker, and they greet you, try to get you to open account,” said Justin Swartz, a partner at the firm Outten & Golden. “They’re not managers at all.”

Mr. Swartz, who estimated that he had helped bring more than two dozen overtime cases against banks, said some involved a so-called branch manager inside a big-box store who was the only bank employee on site and largely performed the duties of a teller.

The practice appears to have become more difficult to root out in recent years, as more employers have required workers to sign contracts with mandatory arbitration clauses that preclude lawsuits.

Outten & Golden LLP managing partner Adam T. Klein, an employee-side attorney and an expert in discrimination class actions, agreed that it's still nearly impossible for job seekers to know if they've been evaluated using AI.

"People simply don't know, as a general rule, that they were exposed to an automated hiring process," Klein said. "It's commonly used, but it's hard to detect."

What you should do while you are still employed, how to retain important data and what you should be doing with your money.

Employers cannot evade the law's reach by saying that a job opportunity is open to all except remote applicants in Colorado, said Shira Gelfand, an attorney with worker-side firm Outten & Golden LLP.

"What we learned from Colorado is that it's really unlikely that this tactic of simply closing off hiring for remote workers in pay transparency jurisdictions will work," she said. "Pay transparency, as I said, ... is a growing trend, and it's going to continue and employers need to face that fact."

Today, Adam Klein testified at an U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) public hearing on using artificial intelligence (AI) and other automated systems in employment decisions. During the hearing, Mr. Klein and other panelists discussed the increasing use of AI in the workplace for hiring decisions and its impact on civil rights. Mr. Klein made several recommendations to the EEOC, including calling for an inter-agency collaboration focused on the technical aspects of this emerging technology in the workplace and the potential for bias.