In an "industry-first", a newly-approved union agreement covering editorial employees at news publications including Crikey and The Mandarin explicitly prohibits AI from replacing human employees and requires all output to have human oversight.
As the Albanese Government revealed plans for an AI Safety Institute to harness productivity gains and combat "malign uses" of the new technology, a "confronting" report from the FSU champions the need for a digital "just transition" amid concerns about job security and surveillance in the finance sector.
The NSW Minns Labor Government has introduced what the Business Council claims is the "most interventionist AI and digital regulation" for employers in the country, while separately reviving a bid to lift the workers' compensation total impairment threshold for psychological injuries.
Fast-growing HR and recruitment platform Employment Hero made a senior technical writer redundant after it replaced the content he produced for its online "help centre" with "automated workflows and AI", but the FWC has declined to extend time to allow him to pursue his unfair dismissal claim.
If unions lead the way, AI provides a "once-in-a-generation chance" to rebuild the middle class and restore dignity to workers that has been eroded by "decades of rising inequality and casualisation", Labor frontbencher Andrew Leigh has told an ACTU AI symposium.
The MUA says it has secured a new deal at Hutchison Ports that "slams the door on automation", while members at the Port of Melbourne's "robo-terminal" are in line for big pay rises after endorsing a VICT agreement that boosts consultation over AI.
The ACTU will use next month's economic reform roundtable to demand the Albanese Government compel employers to reach AI "implementation agreements" with workers that guarantee job security and any necessary retraining before they can introduce the technology.
With employers said to be using artificial intelligence for everything from recruitment and rostering to forecasting industrial action, an employment lawyer is urging IR practitioners to consider the legal, ethical and practical issues.
Victorian employers would need to prove that workplace surveillance is "necessary and proportionate", restrict its covert use and review all automated decision-making under recommendations made by a parliamentary inquiry into the State's "outdated" laws.
Employers should be statutorily barred from using AI to make decisions affecting workers without "human oversight", while the FWC should review the National Employment Standards in response to "significant job redesign" by the technology, says a government inquiry into the digital transformation of workplaces.
