What Is Agentic Flooding?
Members can now draft a long, law-citing grievance in minutes with an AI tool. What the term means, what it looks like in a grievance inbox, and how to triage the volume without dismissing the real claims in it.
Where the term comes from
“Agentic flooding” comes from 2026 research by Chris Schmitz, Alan Chan and Lewis Hammond on government services. They use it for a surge in the volume or complexity of requests, such as appeals, complaints and submissions, that AI tools cause and that substantially strains the service receiving them. Their paper documents cases across 11 countries.
The same pattern is now reaching grievance procedures. A member who once raised a problem in a short conversation with a steward can now arrive with a multi-page document that names statutes, cites arbitration awards and asks for specific remedies. Each one takes longer to read, check and answer, and the number arriving goes up because drafting no longer takes effort.
What AI-drafted grievances look like
Unions and employers describing these documents report the same features:
- Length. Several pages for an issue that would once have been a paragraph, often with headings and numbered grounds.
- Citations that do not apply. Statutes from the wrong jurisdiction, employment-standards rules where the collective agreement governs, or arbitration awards that are misdescribed or cannot be found.
- Many grounds at once. Harassment, discrimination, contract breach and constructive dismissal raised together, so each has to be considered.
- Confident remedies. AI tools tend to agree with the user, so the member may expect compensation the agreement does not provide.
- Matters that used to be settled informally. Scheduling disputes and workplace friction that a conversation with a supervisor would once have resolved.
Some of these documents describe real violations. The drafting tool tells you nothing about the merits.
Why “it was written with AI” is not a reason to reject it
Canadian labour statutes impose a duty of fair representation: a union must not act arbitrarily, discriminatorily or in bad faith when it represents a member. See, for example, section 37 of the Canada Labour Code, section 74 of the Ontario Labour Relations Act, section 12 of the BC Labour Relations Code and section 47.2 of the Quebec Labour Code. Labour boards look at whether the union actually considered the complaint, not at how the member wrote it.
The duty does not require a union to file or advance every grievance. A union can decline a complaint that has no basis in the agreement, as long as it looked at the facts, made a reasoned decision and can show it. That record matters more as volume rises, because a hurried rejection of a well-founded complaint looks arbitrary.
A triage approach that holds up
The goal is to reach the facts and the agreement quickly, and to record what you decided:
- Restate it in one paragraph. What happened, when, to whom and who decided it. If you cannot write that paragraph from the document, call the member before doing anything else.
- Find the article. Match the facts to the collective agreement you actually have. A statute or a case cited in the document is not a clause, and most grievances turn on the agreement.
- Check the time limit. Note the filing deadline under the agreement first, so a long review does not cost the member a timely grievance.
- Verify citations before relying on them. Look up any award or statute you intend to use. Do not repeat a citation into a step letter because it appeared in the member’s draft.
- Record the decision and the reasons. File, decline or hold for more facts, with a short note of why. This is the record that answers a fair-representation complaint.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Consult counsel for any specific matter.
What is not yet known
Most reporting so far comes from the United Kingdom and from government services rather than unions. In October 2026 the general secretary of Prospect, a UK union, warned of a rise in weak AI-assisted claims reaching unions and the employment tribunal. No Canadian figures on AI-drafted grievances have been published.
Researchers also caution that higher volumes cannot all be attributed to AI, and that many AI-assisted complaints are legitimate. Some members with real grievances may be raising them for the first time because the tools made it easier.
Frequently asked questions
What is agentic flooding?
Are unions receiving more AI-generated grievances?
Can a union refuse a grievance because it was written with AI?
How do you review an AI-drafted grievance quickly?
Do AI-drafted grievances cite cases that do not exist?
Next steps
For what a well-formed grievance contains, see how to write a grievance. For how Sertus checks a grievance against the collective agreement, see grounded case analysis.
Last updated: October 2026
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