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By Sharon Kimathi, Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital

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Today’s newsletter is all about workers’ rights in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) as actors and writers in Hollywood strike over pay and AI, while the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) report shows that 27% of jobs face a high risk of being automated.

Negotiators for Hollywood's actors union unanimously recommended a strike after labor talks with studios failed to yield an agreement, setting the stage for performers to join film and television writers on picket lines as early as Thursday.

The Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) actors union, which represents 160,000 members, said its national board would vote on a strike order on Thursday morning.

Hollywood has not faced two strikes at once since 1960, when members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild both walked off the job in a fight over residuals from films sold to TV networks.

Striking Writers Guild of America (WGA) members walk the picket line in front of Netflix offices  in Los Angeles, California, U.S., July 12, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Fran Drescher, former star of "The Nanny" and the president of SAG-AFTRA, said studios' responses to the actors' concerns had been "insulting and disrespectful."

"The companies have refused to meaningfully engage on some topics and on others completely stonewalled us," she said in a statement. "Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach a deal."

Today, the unions are battling over base pay and residuals from streaming services.

"You have to make $26,000 a year to qualify for your health insurance and there are a lot of people who get across that threshold through their residual payments," actor Matt Damon said at a promotional event held for the film "Oppenheimer" just hours before the strike was called.

"There’s money being made and it needs to be allocated in a way that takes care of people who are on the margins," Damon added.

Both SAG-AFTRA and the WGA are demanding increases in base pay and residuals in the streaming TV era plus assurances that their work will not be replaced by AI.

The union proposed that material generated by an AI system such as ChatGPT could not be considered "literary material" or "source material," terms already defined in their contract.

As a practical matter, that means that if a studio executive were to hand a writer an AI-generated script to revise, the writer could not be paid a lower rewrite or polish rate. The union is arguing existing scripts should not be used to train artificial intelligence, which would open the door to intellectual property theft.

Earlier this week, Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors filed copyright infringement lawsuits against Meta Platforms and OpenAI for allegedly using their content without permission to train artificial intelligence language models.

Talks about AI and labor come as a report by the OECD shows that more than a quarter of jobs in the 38-member bloc, spanning mostly wealthy nations but also some emerging economies, rely on skills that could be easily automated in the coming AI revolution.

Jobs with the highest risk of being automated make up 27% of the labor force on average in OECD countries, with eastern European countries most exposed, the organization said in its 2023 Employment Outlook.

Jobs at highest risk were defined as those using more than 25 of the 100 skills and abilities that AI experts consider can be easily automated.

Rapid advances in AI such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT are complicating governments' efforts to agree to laws governing the use of the technology. Click here to keep up with the latest steps that national and international governing bodies are taking to regulate AI tools.

Nurses hold banners as they demonstrate outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Britain, April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Sam Tobin

Sue Duke, head of global public policy at the employment-focused social media platform LinkedIn, shares her thoughts on the demand for green jobs:

“There has been a huge rise in organizations looking to hire people who can help them achieve their climate goals. 

“In the last year alone we’ve seen a 15% increase in jobs requiring green skills – a big jump from previous years – even though the wider global labor market has slowed down.

“But despite demand from businesses, just one in eight people globally have the skills needed to help combat the effects of climate change. 

“These skills are in areas such as water preservation, sustainability, and energy efficiency. Given so many green roles are new, people simply haven’t had the opportunities to learn these skills yet, and demand for green talent is outstripping supply. 

“The global labor market needs a radical transformation, fast, if we’re to achieve ambitious climate targets. It needs to be as easy as possible for people to move into green roles and learn the necessary skills. And we are seeing companies begin to roll out green upskilling programmes.

“A combined effort from policymakers, businesses and educational institutions will be essential in supporting the transition to a global workforce that is equipped with the expertise to develop a sustainable and resource-efficient society.”

Japan ranks last among wealthy nations with only 16% of female university students majoring in engineering, manufacturing and construction, and with just one female scientist for every seven. That is despite Japanese girls scoring second-highest in the world in math and third in science, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Refugio Animal member Kendra Ivelic strokes a puma at the Exhibition and Environmental Education Center Santiago, Chile July 12, 2023. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

South America takes today’s spotlight as an animal shelter in Chile hopes to rehabilitate and house wildlife affected by the country's wildfires, heavy rainfall and floods, while Colombia reports a decline in deforestation.

In the misty forests just outside of Chile's capital Santiago, a rescued puma stalks the leafy surroundings of the Refugio Animal Cascada, a shelter hoping to rehabilitate and house wildlife affected by the country's natural disasters.

The shelter, first opened two decades ago, has seen a host of new residents this year following a string of recent wildfires, droughts and heavy rains.

"We are experiencing a major global environmental crisis that shows itself ... in the loss of biodiversity and native wildlife," the Chilean Environment Minister Maisa Rojas said during a visit to inaugurate a new unit on Wednesday. "It is at risk."

The river Cano Cristales, also known as the river of the gods, in Colombia's Meta province, in La Macarena, Colombia July 9, 2022. REUTERS/Herbert Villarraga

Deforestation in Colombia fell 29.1% in 2022 versus the previous year spurred by sharp decreases in the country's Amazon region, the government said, marking the lowest level since 2013.

The government of leftist President Gustavo Petro says it is prioritizing protecting Colombia's environment and has called on rich nations to cancel foreign debt in exchange for conserving areas like the Amazon, whose destruction scientists say risks worsening global climate change.

“Policymakers must also invest in green jobs and skills. The evidence suggests that workers in green jobs are likely to benefit from higher wages and jobs that are less at risk to automation.”

Professor Cameron Hepburn & Anupama Sen, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford 

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