<p>Algorithmic management systems govern the working conditions of tens of millions of workers globally, yet the workers subject to these systems rarely possess the knowledge needed to understand, evaluate, or contest the decisions shaping their livelihoods. This correspondence argues that the ethical failures of algorithmic management, specifically failures of transparency, contestability, dignity, and voice, are inseparable from a deeper problem: the absence of critical AI literacy among the governed workforce. Drawing on Freire's theory of critical consciousness, the emerging critical AI literacy framework, and the growing discourse on AI civics, this article connects the documented harms of algorithmic workforce governance to the conditions that allow those harms to persist unchallenged. The analysis integrates published empirical evidence, regulatory developments across the EU and US, and practitioner observation from last-mile delivery operations. It argues that institutions deploying algorithmic management bear an obligation not merely to comply with transparency regulations, but to equip workers with the literacy needed to exercise the rights those regulations create. The article proposes a preliminary framework distinguishing cases where remediation can render algorithmic management ethically defensible from cases where refusal to deploy is warranted. It concludes that algorithmic management without critical AI literacy is governance without informed consent, and that legitimate refusal to deploy marks a necessary corrective to narratives of technological inevitability.</p>