Estonia's labour dispute committees are drowning in AI-written claims. Some run past 100 pages

Estonia's labour dispute committees received 2,593 applications in the first ten months of this year, up from 1,516 in the same months of 2022. Kaire Saarep, director general of the Labour Inspectorate, told ERR on 5 November that AI is a large part of the load and that the committees are drowning in paper.

An application with a couple of claims should fit on one or two A4 pages, Saarep said. The committees now see 50 to 100 pages, sometimes more, and all of it has to be read before the hearing.

AI is one cause among several. Saarep also points to redundancy disputes in an uncertain economy, workers who know their rights better, and cases involving third-country nationals, which make up nearly a quarter of the total. The rise has run for at least five years, and ERR's report puts no number on AI's share.

Eight chairs and a 45-day deadline

The inspectorate has had eight committee chairs for at least ten years. This year's count already works out at 324 applications each, with two months to go, and Saarep puts the ceiling at 300 for a full year. The law gives a dispute 45 calendar days. If the committees cannot hold that line, Saarep warns, the procedure loses its point as a quick and simple alternative to court. The inspectorate wants funding for one more chair, and the economy and industry minister is due to visit on Monday to discuss options.

Long does not mean strong, or weak

In April, in an interview published by Grant Thornton Baltic, Saarep described AI-written complaints of 20 to 30 pages in smooth language that often lacked real evidence. Chairs struggled to find the facts and what the worker actually wanted. A Grant Thornton lawyer described representing an employer against a worker's AI-written text that cited Supreme Court rulings which did not fit the case. The employer's side still had to work through all of it, and that pushes up legal costs. The lawyer also suspects AI often prompts workers to add a claim for moral damages, which chairs now see in almost every application.

Length tells you nothing about the merits, though. In the same interview Saarep described a case that cost a company seven months' pay, 27,000 euros. A marketing manager returning from parental leave got a redundancy notice on the first day back, and the tasks simply moved to other people's desks. The committee ruled the redundancy void.

What to do on Monday

• ✳Keep your records ready before any dispute starts. The committee gathers no evidence itself and decides only on what the parties submit, and your evidence goes in with your objection
• ✳For every redundancy, write down why the job disappears and where its tasks go. If the work just moves to colleagues, expect that to be tested
• ✳When a long application arrives, have AI pull it into a table: each claim, the fact behind it, the evidence offered. Then check that table against the original yourself
• ✳Look up every court ruling it cites before you respond, and do the same for anything AI drafts for you
• ✳Use a company AI account with checked data terms. An application is full of personal data and does not belong in someone's free personal account
• ✳Prepare evidence as clearly titled PDFs, with an Estonian translation of anything in another language. The inspectorate asks for both
• ✳Give people a clear written reason and a named person to talk to. Saarep says workers often turn to AI or lawyers out of fear of their employer

A very long claim now costs a worker very little to produce. Your answer still rests on records, so put them in order now and teach HR to sift long AI-written text without trusting it.