Episode summary

Ask most technology vendors what makes a union different from an association and you’ll get a blank stare. The answer isn’t just regulatory complexity or collective bargaining agreements, it’s the nature of membership itself. When someone joins a union, they don’t sign up for a service. They join a movement. And that changes everything about what technology has to do.

Al Povoledo, CEO of Bursting Silver, returns to The Modern Membership Org to go deep on unions specifically: what makes them operationally unlike any other type of organization, why a bad member experience erodes institutional trust in a way that doesn’t happen anywhere else, and where AI is already producing real results on the ground.

The AI conversation in the union world is contentious, a lot of it controversial, much of it misunderstood. Al cuts through the noise with concrete examples already in production: grievance intake systems that auto-categorize and route cases based on CBA clauses, member chatbots trained to answer questions about collective agreements at any hour, onboarding tools that walk new members through their rights on day one. And for the organizers worried about their role in all of this, Al has a clear answer: AI doesn’t replace the organizer. It tells the organizer exactly where to show up, why, what to do, and when.

In this episode

• Why union membership is fundamentally different from association membership, it’s a movement, not a subscription, and that changes what technology has to deliver
• How a bad member experience in a union erodes institutional trust rather than just loyalty, and why that distinction matters for every technology decision
• Real AI deployments in union operations that are producing results right now — from grievance automation to member chatbots to onboarding tools
• Why the “AI will replace the organizer” concern misses the point, and what AI actually does for the people doing that work
• How to think about AI adoption in a politically complex environment where the technology itself can be controversial

The Modern Membership Org Podcast

Full Transcript

Al (00:00)
employers actually have the funds, the data infrastructure on your members that most unions can’t match. That’s just the reality. There’s a power imbalance.

So there’s this gap at the bargaining table or it will be a gap. And that stuff matters, right? During organization drives, it matters when you’re trying to mobilize your members quickly, right? AI gives unions the tools they’ve never had before. It

Riley Miller (00:37)
Hey, welcome back to the Modern Membership Org podcast. My name is Riley. I’m here with Bursting Silver and I’m excited to welcome back ⁓ a guest that we’ve already had on the podcast, Al Povoledo Al is the CEO of Bursting Silver, as many of you may have heard him on our episode number two with Association Leaders. And he’s been working at the intersection of unions and technology for the better part of two decades, well before my time with the organization. So he’s got expert knowledge in that area alone.

both at the head of a consultant agency and that’s built specifically for this sector and as a guy who gets pulled into the rooms where the union leaders are trying to figure out what to do next. So super excited to have you back on the podcast.

Al (01:17)
Great to be here again, Riley. And for the record, I started when I was seven years old. So plus 20 years, just saying.

Riley Miller (01:24)
Yes, yes, of course. Accelerated learner there, for sure. Well, mean, ⁓ yeah, let’s just get right into it, starting at the top. We work across associations, regulatory bodies, and unions. And unions specifically are inherently different. So before we get into the framework, what makes the union sector its own animal when it comes to modernization?

Al (01:28)
Thank you.

Yeah, sure. There’s a lot of reasons why unions are different. First, it’s in the membership. think union members are genuinely passionate about the union in a way that employees or members are almost never that passionate about in a typical organization, right? It’s not just a subscription they pay into. When you join a union, you join a movement that you belong to.

And that changes everything about how a union has to perform for its member, right? A bad member experience isn’t just inconvenient. It really erodes their trust in the institution. And member trust is very key. That’s very different from member loyalty in an association. So that’s the first thing. Secondly, operationally, unions are unlike any other type of organization in terms of the way they’re run in terms of complexity.

Right, they’ve got locals, complex due structures, they’ve got nationals, they’ve got per capita workflows, agreements, timelines, collective bargaining agreement obligations. None of that is in any sort of generic modernization technology solution. We’ve spent years watching unions try different technology solutions to

Al (03:00)
address those things generically, like Salesforce and Dynamics, et cetera, into those workflows, but it hasn’t worked.

Right. Third, unions are different because they’re chronically under resourced relative to the complexity that I just described. So a union that has, let’s say, 50,000 members might have the technology modernization budget that a small or maybe mid-sized business would have. So they’re at disadvantage.

Riley Miller (03:30)
Yeah, definitely. mean, so calling back to when you’re a seven-year-old and you founded this company, we’ve been looking at this for two decades, why are you so focused on this sector specifically?

Al (03:38)
Well, just what we talked about, right? Limited resources, a lot of complexity, but importantly, they have a genuine social purpose. Unions need a special kind of partner that understands that and can execute with these constraints and these challenges. And those type of partners that really understand the union sector aren’t very common and we’re really proud to serve it. And so honestly, it’s the work that matters.

these organizations exist to protect people’s livelihoods and their rights to work, right? So helping them operate better isn’t just a business opportunity for us, it’s just worth doing. It’s the right thing to do.

Riley Miller (04:20)
Right on. I mean, that’s definitely why we’re in this field too, it’s the work that matters and we’re helping out for sure. You did say it earlier as well and I wanted to pull on that.

Member trust

Riley Miller (04:31)
in a union is different from member loyalty in an association. How does this difference impact unions and when it comes to their modernizing operations?

Al (04:40)
Yeah, well, when an association member has a bad experience, they’re annoyed, right? They might not renew. It’s a transactional frustration. But when a union member has a bad experience with their union, the stakes are completely different. Their union exists to protect their livelihood and their right to work. So if the union can’t show up for them, they can’t answer a question about the grievance. They can’t confirm what their due status is.

It just doesn’t create frustration. It actually creates doubt about whether the union is actually on their side, right? That’s corrosive and that spreads through conversations. So I remember listening to a talk that a very senior leader in one of our big union clients gave when she was speaking to her membership. This is a couple of years ago.

Al (05:27)
I’m paraphrasing, but she said something like, you we live in an age when you can check your electricity bill and text someone on the side of the world from your phone, right? Yet in too many unions, an organizer walks into a workplace, not knowing if a member is current on their dues or has an open grievance, right? That gap in confidence from the member perspective is a real problem. And it’s something if a union can’t close that gap, it just won’t stand a chance in the future. It’s a very powerful message she just…

Al (05:56)
she delivered, right? So back to your member trust in unions and you know, what does that have to do with technology modernization? Technology modernization has to enable the union to be competent in the moments that matter, right? If a member files a grievance, they need to know it was received, that it’s being tracked, that someone’s on it. Not a week later, now. And member expectations are

Al (06:21)
set by the best digital experience that they’ve seen.

anywhere. I talked about this in the last podcast, right? They’re judging the union on how rich their experience was with their bank app, with Amazon. That’s the bar now. So now what the union sector is generally used to delivering is inadequate enough. So the bright side is there’s a ton of opportunity to get to that bar or at least close to it.

Riley Miller (06:47)
Yes, all very good points. mean, that word, corrosive, that you mentioned is the right word. And you talked a lot about this on that relationship with the banking apps on the last time we had you on. James said something very similar when I had him where when members hit a broken page or they have that one unanswered experience doesn’t stay It really starts to strain the trust in the relationship with the union, the organization.

So when you’re working then with these union leaders, walk me through what the modernization project looks like when it’s done right.

Al (07:20)
Okay, how do you do it right? Well, the unions that get it right come in with the stated business problem, not a technology wish list, right? I’ll give you a really great example. We worked with a major teachers union and their goal wasn’t to get a new technology or a new solution, right? It was about grievances and what they were saying is,

Al (07:47)
The problem is our stewards are losing track of our grievance deadlines and our members don’t feel supported. That’s the problem statement, right? Nothing about technology there, right? So, but every decision about technology and modernization flowed from that. So when your goals are defined in business terms, you really have a North Star for everything that follows. So that’s the first thing, state the business problem.

The second thing to do right and make it work is to ensure that your staff is a part of it. Make sure that the technology modernization is done with them and not to them, right? So when a modernization initiative is rolled out, is thought about and the union wants to implement it, you have to make sure that your staff, your members are part of the design, part of the rollout.

make sure they’re consulted, make sure they’re trained, make sure they’re supported. Sounds like a pretty simple thing to do, right? But you’d be really surprised how often it isn’t.

Riley Miller (08:50)
Yeah, I think just in

In the experience that I have, not the two decades, but the unions that I’ve spoken to as well, a lot of those values and that ethos is focused on ensuring that their staff are looped in and their jobs are still being enabled but not disrupted. Having them part of the conversation is key. That’s really important to point that out.

Al (09:15)
Absolutely,

they’ve got to be part of it.

Riley Miller (09:18)
Big time. So like let’s flip that now on its head. What do the the warning signs look like for the the technology modernization initiative if it’s headed off the rails?

Al (09:27)
Yeah, I’ve seen a few patterns repeat over the years since I was seven, like we talked about, right? So the first is the demo trap. know, a union sees a slick software demo or technology demo, they get excited, it’s a shiny object and they buy it. But what they haven’t done is to think through how that actually maps to their workflows, their people, or what it’s generally going to cost to implement and maintain, right?

the gap between that great demo and that excitement and a working implementation model is where most projects die. Right? So that’s the first thing. The second thing, and this is very specific to unions, ⁓ because of budget

Al (10:08)
constraints, the union sector has historically relied on local small mom and pop shops to build and support their systems. And over time, those systems get more and more customized.

Al (10:20)
documentation starts to go away. The whole thing gets, you know, end up getting held together by, you know, one or two people using old tech. You know, then there’s always that risk that hit by the bus risk. And it does happen. Not

with buses, but, you know, people go away and then the union gets into serious trouble. So ⁓ that’s a risk. And to mitigate that risk going forward, unions need to be aware that

Al (10:49)
you know, that kind of reliance on, you know, smaller technology enablers, vendors may not be the right solution. At the same time, I understand there’s those big providers that are expensive and those are out of range. So you’ve got to find the right mix, right? Somebody that’s not too small, not too big. I think personally we hit that mark, but that’s not what this podcast is about. ⁓ But the third warning sign to me,

Al (11:15)
is kind of the root cause underneath both of those items, is that these initiatives start as business initiatives, and then they quietly become these IT projects. So leadership signed off, it’s handed off to someone in the union, technology staff, somebody like that, and then they step back. And then once that happens though, right, the business transformation, the organizational transformation stops and it just becomes like a software installation project.

And those things have very different outcomes. ⁓

Riley Miller (11:47)
Yeah, I was… The point you were mentioning too about having those two staff members, the linchpins in the

organization with that institutional memory, I’ve worked for organizations before as well.

it then kind of revolves around that world where you have that one person to go to and you really rely on them through sickness and in health.

Al (12:06)
Right, yeah, and it’s not just staff, by the way, it could just be a vendor, like, you know, a single source vendor that’s made up of one or two people. And again, those people come and go over the years, right? There’s sometimes just not a lot of stability there. So it’s a risk.

Riley Miller (12:21)
Yeah, and rounding off that thought too, I think as well there’s those hidden risks or the hidden workload that you’re dealing with as a technical debt, the red-green duct tape putting together the system over the years. You can’t see how big of a monster you’re actually working with.

Al (12:36)
100%. Like I’ve seen, I’ve walked into unions and they’ve been running, you know, Microsoft access based CRM solutions for the last 23 years. And, you know, nothing’s changed other than, you know, this customization built on this, built on this, built on this. But at the end of the day, there’s all this technical debt that they’re building all of this functionality on something that

It’s hardly even used now. right so

Riley Miller (12:59)
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, the goal today is to talk about modernization, and we can’t talk about modernization in 2026 without touching on AI. So let’s go there. What do you think AI actually looks like?

inside a union operation right now. Some real examples, not the hype, not the shining, as you mentioned earlier, too, that we see

so much online.

Al (13:22)
Yeah, fair. There’s a lot of conversations in the union world about AI, a lot of it being controversial and maybe not liked. But there are some real deployments happening right now producing some real results. I’ll give you some examples, right? The grievance automation I talked about a few minutes ago. So how do you use AI for grievance automation? Well, maybe your intake forms on the grievance can auto categorize and route those cases based on

collective bargaining agreement clauses and then set deadline alerts so nothing falls through the cracks, right? That’s one. Member self-service online is another one, classic, right? Classic chat bots trained to talk to a member about a collective bargaining agreement to answer common questions at any hour of the day, right? One union launched on an onboarding bot when members came on that walks members through their rights.

pretty cool, right? The other big one is just around member communications. We’re seeing trends where there’s really cool technology solutions, where AI is drafting up bargaining updates, campaign materials in a fraction of the time that would take and sending it out to the membership and also doing it, by the way, in a multilingual format. So if you’re base half your base is speak Spanish,

send that communication leveraging AI in Spanish. That takes hours instead of days. The other big one, I think, is around member intelligence. And what I mean by that is data analysis and using AI to analyze the data you already have. So predicting disengagement from your membership before it actually happens, spotting grievances early.

identifying leadership pipeline candidates before it’s time. I’ll give you a real life example. We were actually working with a union in Australia, about 70,000 members. And we used their existing data and AI technology to help them see that they’ve had about 4,000 members that have gone silent.

Al (15:25)
⁓ so now that they know that those 4,000 members are silent, you know, they can do something about it before they resign. they’ve used their data to identify workplaces that are running hot on grievances, right? And they’re spotting representation gaps in their membership that were previously not, you invisible for lack of a better term. So that’s, that’s what AI looks like in practice, right? No robots, right? No one’s losing their jobs.

It’s just turning your data into decisions that you couldn’t make before.

Riley Miller (15:53)
Yeah, I think that’s interesting too. On the topic of job threats, that’s such a big part of ⁓ AI being a big disruptor. There’s the example that you pointed out too, for organizing an outreach when you’re spinning up communications in multilingual formats. That time saved is just time that can now be allocated towards…

Riley Miller (16:18)
getting that message out faster, organizing faster, and rallying.

Riley Miller (16:22)
So I think that the unique opportunities are impartial to this perceived threat. I want to touch on that portion of that perception of AI being a threat to jobs.

Al (16:31)
Mm-hmm.

Riley Miller (16:38)
What would you say to a union leader who feels like there’s a real threat on jobs?

Al (16:44)
Yeah, look, I get it. When AI comes up in union circles, the first instinct is, know, alarms go off, job threat, job threat. That’s a totally legitimate conversation to have. But you got to break that down in two parts. First, we got to talk about AI at the employer level. So unions have to absolutely be at the table when employers are deploying AI in the workplace.

Al (17:07)
hands down, right? Now, that’s a whole other podcast topic where we’re talking about technology modernization, right? I’ll just say that unions have to be part of those conversations with employers to ensure that there isn’t that kind of job replacement. But there’s a very different conversation from what unions should be doing

internally, right? And right now, I think most union leaders are so focused on this AI threat narrative.

that they’re actually missing the opportunity sitting right in front of them to help their own organization. Here’s the reality. Employers are already deploying or thinking about deploying AI against their Algorithmic scheduling, productivity monitoring, performance

Al (17:52)
scoring, of workplace communications.

Al (17:57)
employers actually have the funds, the data infrastructure on your members that most unions can’t match. That’s just the reality. There’s a power imbalance. And that’s actually growing, you know, quietly every day. And the other reality is a union doesn’t have equivalent intelligence on its own membership and is increasingly negotiating blind against an employer who actually has it.

So there’s this gap at the bargaining table or it will be a gap. And that stuff matters,

During organization drives, it matters when you’re trying to mobilize your members quickly, right? AI gives the tools they’ve never had before. It gives them the ability to communicate with diverse memberships, like I said, multiple languages to predict which members are disengaging before they walk out door.

Al (18:48)
to spot pressures before it becomes a crisis. Those tools are there. So back to your question, right? Job replacement. My key point is AI doesn’t replace the organizer. It actually helps and tells the organizer exactly where to show up, why, what to do and when. It doesn’t eliminate that role.

Riley Miller (19:09)
Yeah, it’s a tool or a device, an outlet, something that spots those gaps and looks for opportunities, works faster, streamlined. I think that it’s an enablement, if anything.

Al (19:17)
Yeah, yeah, and that’s a tough bridge to cross. It’s not going to happen overnight. mean, personally, I think I even had a problem with it in our world, in our business. But as you start using it more, you’re saying, hey, I’m not going away. I’m just a lot smarter, faster, better because of it.

Riley Miller (19:39)
Yeah, me too, better, faster, stronger.

Al (19:41)
That was an album once a long time ago, wasn’t it? Now I’m dating myself. You got it. One more time. That’s right. One more time. Remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Still a classic.

Riley Miller (19:45)
I’m pretty sure that was a little Daft Punk, maybe Sprinklin’ on a little Kanye spots.

So last one, and this is the one where I want to the audience, the listener, especially our union leaders out there who have tuned in and stuck with us. With everything you’ve seen over the years here, what’s one thing that you’d want every union leader walking out into a modernization initiative to hear?

Al (20:12)
Okay, it kind of goes back to what we were just talking about. I mean, I think a union leader should ask themselves, what can we do for our members today that we couldn’t do five years ago? And the honest answer to that question is they can do a lot. But the problem is, I think a lot of unions have stopped asking that question. We look, we’re definitely and genuinely in a very different era.

The technology modernization tools like AI that we just talked about are incredibly powerful. They are fast to deploy. They’re more affordable than they’ve ever been. So, you know, that whole mom and pop stuff, that thing that we talked about a few minutes ago, that’s not a concern anymore, right? And ⁓ the barrier isn’t technology anymore. It’s actually a mindset at times. So, you know,

The instinct to say AI is bad, I get look, employers aren’t waiting for that debate to be resolved. They’re on it, right? Technology is the enabler. again, union leaders just have to understand it’s not going to replace them. AI and technology modernization can really be deployed effectively, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. And I think the movement is too important to be held back.

by not providing the right tools. So that’s what I would say to the leader. Give it a shot.

Riley Miller (21:35)
Yeah, and I think as leaders do, they carve that path, they set that expectation and that mentality, empowering the team is definitely a way to lead that charge, I think.

Al (21:48)
Yeah, and I should say one thing, shameless plug, we did write a few articles about union technology modernization, right? We wrote a few white papers. You should put a link in the podcast notes to that. That’s just a free download. And there’s some really good examples on how to leverage AI and technology modernization in unions. And those resources are free.

Riley Miller (22:09)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Definitely going to be in the show notes. That’s the AI Impact Series where we’ve looked at practical applications where AI in general, just to see the ideas on how it could be applied to help enable your organization to move better, faster, stronger.

Al (22:18)

Yep, exactly. Good close, Riley. You should outro that with that music. I don’t know about the copyright issues, but. man, yeah, there you go.

Riley Miller (22:33)
Yeah, we’ll have to get a license, but we’ll sneak it in there.

that or you have me in the background doing acapella. Of course, because everybody wants that. I won’t do that. Well, Al, it’s been a pleasure having you on once again. Thank you so much again for the insights, the expertise, and the incredible value, I think, that we’re able to…

Al (22:41)
Don’t quit your day job Riley, don’t do that.

Riley Miller (23:00)
share from all of our experience here.

Al (23:04)
Thank you, sir. Enjoy the chats. Absolutely.

Riley Miller (23:07)
And we still have to line up that AI talk. We keep touching on it. We’re playing in many verticals. think we have a conversation ahead of us for sure just dedicated into that one line.

Al (23:17)
Happy to do it and we’ll probably have to re-record it like five weeks later when new stuff comes out. So it’s almost like its own podcast on its own. But yeah, well, we should certainly hit it for sure. Okay, take care.

Riley Miller (23:28)
Absolutely. on. Thanks, Al.

All right, that is a wrap. Thank you again to Al for being on the podcast here. If you enjoyed this, please consider subscribing or giving us a rating. We’re on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, you name it. The Modern Membership Award podcast will catch you on the next episode.