Trades Data AI
For Union Leadership — Business Agents, Business Managers, Executive Boards

Your members built the trades. Here's the contract that makes sure they're paid for what they know — before someone else captures it for free.

Construction expertise is being harvested to train automation systems. The question is not whether this happens — it is whether your members are compensated for it, whether the data is contractually barred from replacing them, and whether the union is the entity that delivers that protection.

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Structural answers, not reassurances

The objections, answered.

Every concern your Executive Board will raise. The answers describe structure and contract — not policy promises that can be walked back.

“Smells like employer surveillance.”
The employer never sees the footage — structurally, not as a policy promise. There is no management dashboard in the product. Footage moves from the worker's device into our processing pipeline; no employer credential, no API, no output channel reaches management. The capture device is worker-controlled. That's not a contractual carve-out — it's an architecture without the channel.
“This undercuts wages or substitutes for them.”
Supplemental income sits entirely outside the CBA wage schedule. It is not piecework, not a production bonus, not a wage supplement under 29 C.F.R. Part 5. Documentation income does not factor into prevailing-wage or Davis-Bacon determinations and has no effect on pension fund contribution bases. The two income streams are structurally separate — one flows from the CBA, the other from an Independent Data Contributor Agreement directly between the member and Trades Data AI.
“Reassigns jurisdictional work or creates grievance exposure.”
The program sits outside the work itself. A member wearing a helmet camera and reviewing clips on their phone is not performing work within any trade jurisdiction — no jurisdictional assignment is touched, no dues-checkoff obligation is affected, no grievance trigger is created. It is additive member activity, not a reassignment of bargaining-unit work.
“This bargains over our members' heads.”
Participation is voluntary and member-owned. The agreement is structured as a union-endorsed member benefit program, approved through Executive Board action and announced by the local. Individual members sign their own Independent Data Contributor Agreements. No member is bound without their signature. Most locals approve this structure without a full membership vote, but we recommend your labor attorney review the agreement before rollout — and we will join any call.
“You're exploiting member data without adequate compensation.”
The worker owns their capture data and is paid under a written Independent Data Contributor Agreement reviewed with union representatives. Revenue share flows to the local as a function of member aggregate earnings — the more members earn, the more the local earns. There is no arrangement under which the company profits from member data without the member being compensated first.
Two income streams — structurally separate

Supplemental income, not a wage substitute.

These are two legally distinct channels. They do not compete, they do not consolidate, and the documentation income does not affect the CBA wage schedule.

Lane 1
CBA wages
  • Negotiated by the local
  • Protected by the collective bargaining agreement
  • Subject to prevailing-wage and Davis-Bacon rules
  • Factors into pension fund contributions
  • Untouched by this program.
separate channels
Lane 2
Supplemental data income
  • Paid directly to the member by Trades Data AI
  • Governed by an Independent Data Contributor Agreement
  • Not piecework — no production quota, no per-task rate
  • Does not factor into prevailing-wage determinations
  • Additive to CBA compensation. Not a substitute.
No dollar figures for Lane 2 in this diagram — actual earnings vary by trade, rank, and participation, and we do not want a marketing number in the place of a contract negotiation.
Who owns and controls the data

Every arrow in the chain — and what is blocked.

The absence of certain connections is structural, not a setting. There is no configuration that routes footage to an employer. The channel does not exist.

Worker
Controls capture • Reviews clips • Confirms labels • Is paid
↓
consent-gated, member-reviewed
Trades Data AI pipeline
PII-blurred before storage • No identity retained • Counsel-reviewed agreements
↓
anonymized annotations only
Lab buyers
Receive anonymized, labeled data • Cannot identify individual workers • Anti-automation clause in every contract
✕
NO path to employer. No management dashboard. No contractor access.
✕
NO reverse identity resolution. Buyers cannot map labels back to individual workers.
✕
NO discipline use. No performance monitoring. No sharing with hall dispatch.
§8(a)(5) NLRA — Duty to Bargain

The Colgate-Palmolive question — and our posture.

Colgate-Palmolive Co., 323 NLRB 515 (1997), established that an employer's unilateral introduction of monitoring technology affecting unionized crews can trigger the §8(a)(5) duty to bargain before implementation. Labor counsel reviewing any workplace-capture program appropriately asks whether that obligation applies.

Our posture: this program is union-endorsed and member-initiated, not employer-imposed. It is structured as a voluntary member benefit delivered through the local — not a contractor monitoring system. The capture device is member-controlled. No employer installs, mandates, or administers the program. That structural distinction is the basis on which most locals have concluded no §8(a)(5) bargaining obligation is triggered — because the obligation runs to employer-introduced changes in working conditions, and this is neither.

We do not represent this as settled NLRA law. NLRB precedent continues to develop, and the facts of each local's situation may differ. We state our structural position; your counsel states the legal conclusion.

We recommend your labor attorney review the agreement before rollout. We will join any call — including calls with NLRB regional staff if that is where your counsel wants to start.
Revenue-share calculator — illustrative model

What the program funds for your local.

Our standard agreements structure revenue share at 2–4% of aggregate member earnings. The calculator below is a model — not a guaranteed offer. Use it to frame the conversation, not to close a deal.

100 members5,000 members
Standard agreement revenue-share tier:
$4.8M/yr
total member earnings
500 members × $9,500/yr avg
$142,500/yr
annual program revenue to your local
at 3% of aggregate member earnings
What $142,500/year funds for your local:
JATC supplement
Additional classroom hours, instructor stipends, better training equipment
Apprentice hardship fund
Emergency grants for apprentices facing rent, car repairs, or medical bills
Full-time organizer
Salary + benefits — 50 new members per year changes the market share math
Hiring hall improvements
Better dispatch technology, additional staff, faster job matching
Member emergency fund
Financial assistance for members between dispatches, after injuries, or during family emergencies

Illustrative. Assumes ~$9,500/yr average per active member; actual earnings vary by trade, rank, and participation. The 2/3/4% tiers reflect standard agreement structures — not a guaranteed offer. The $45K JATC figure is an industry estimate.

JATC pipeline

47% of apprentices won't finish. Supplemental income changes that math.

First-year apprentices earn 40–60% of journeyman scale. When work slows, they can't make rent. Supplemental income adds a daily earnings floor on every documented shift — the leading cause of early dropout is financial, not craft. Your JATC invests approximately $45,000 per apprentice (industry estimate). Every dropout is $45,000 gone.

Without the program
40 finish
35 drop out
75 enter
With the program
50 finish
25 drop out
75 enter
+10 more journeymen per cohort. For the next 30 years of their careers. Illustrative model — actual retention lift depends on local conditions and participation.
Value capture — now

Your members' expertise, captured and paid for — before someone else takes it for free.

Construction expertise is already being used to train automation systems. Some of that training data is sourced ethically, from consenting workers who are paid. Some of it is not. The members who participate in this program are the ones who get paid for what they know — and who hold a contract saying that knowledge cannot be used to replace them.

The anti-automation clause

Every contract includes a provision prohibiting use of collected data to develop, train, or fine-tune systems intended to automate or replace bargaining-unit work in the member's trade. The clause is present in every agreement. It is non-negotiable.

Honest coda: we cannot prevent automation from happening in the broader industry. We can ensure your members are paid for the expertise that trains it, and that our data is contractually barred from being used against them. Those are two things within our control. We do not claim job-protection guarantees beyond what the contract actually says.
Structural protections

Built for the skeptics on your Executive Board.

Every protection below is structural or contractual — not a preference setting or a policy we can override under competitive pressure.

No employer dashboard — by design
No contractor, foreman, or GC has any access channel to footage, labels, or participation records. The absence of a management interface is structural.
100% voluntary, consent-gated capture
Members can pause or stop at any time. Every clip is subject to member review before processing. Participation is never a condition of dispatch or employment.
Independent Data Contributor Agreement
Each member signs their own written agreement covering data ownership, usage restrictions, payment terms, and cancellation. Reviewed with union counsel before any rollout.
CBA carve-out — explicit and documented
Program agreements carry explicit CBA carve-outs: supplemental income is separate from negotiated wages, prevailing wage calculations, pension fund contribution bases, and benefit fund allocations.
Anti-automation clause — non-negotiable
Every agreement prohibits use of collected data to develop systems that replace union labor in the specific trade. The clause is non-negotiable and appears in every contract.
Union-endorsed structure
Introduced through the local, announced by the local, credited to the local. Not a corporate partnership program — a member benefit approved by the Executive Board.
Ready to bring this to your local?

Schedule a call.

30 minutes. Your Business Manager, your labor attorney if you want one, and us. We walk through the structure, the contract, and the numbers. Ask every question. We will answer every one — including the ones we can't answer to your satisfaction, which is information too.

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Or reach us directly at unions@tradesdata.ai