AI Threat: Tech Giants Should Pay Higher Tax – Labour

In the face of increasing threats foisted by Artificial Intelligence (AI), tech giants should be made to pay more tax from their profits

Such higher tax would by tech giants should be  expended on staff training and retraining to help raise the capacity of workers and minimize job losses,the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has advised.

It’s President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, who made the call on Friday, said comprehensive upskilling in the automated industries subsector, had become necessary to save jobs

Speaking at the 2025 Conference of the Labour Writers Association of Nigeria at Ibadan, the NLC president, stated while AI is often associated with efficiency it had also become a workers’ exploitation tool in the hands of corporations.

“We must bargain for comprehensive retraining and upskilling programmes, funded by tax on the excessive profits of the tech giants and automated industries”, he told participants at the training themed:

“The Future of Work in the Era of Artificial Intelligence’.

,“Our struggle is to socialise the benefits of AI and robotise the burdens, ensuring it leads to a society with more leisure, greater security, and shared prosperity for the working class.”

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Describing AI as “the modern face of the class struggle”, he added:

“They sell us a narrative of efficiency and progress, but we must see it for what it truly is: a tool for maximising profit by de-skilling jobs, casualising labour, and ultimately, weakening the collective power of the working people”

Ajaero cautioned that AI could reshape labour relations in ways that weaken collective bargaining, undermine unionisation and create a digitally dispossessed underclass. if not carefully managed.

“We must fight for robust legal frameworks that guarantee the ‘Right to Disconnect’, strictly limit algorithmic surveillance, and ensure that productivity gains from AI are shared through shorter workweeks with no loss of pay,” he said.