Victoria's Parliament has begun an inquiry into workplace surveillance, to examine the extent to which employers collect, share, store, sell, disclose and dispose of surveillance data, the role of artificial intelligence , and whether there should be dedicated State workplace surveillance laws.
A Greens senator involved in an artificial intelligence inquiry says food delivery gig platforms provide "a real opportunity" for regulating work allocation algorithms, while employers' purpose in deploying the technology must be "interrogated".
Unions are seeking a "total ban" on using AI to hire, fire, discipline or promote workers, along with an "AI tax", in submissions to a Senate inquiry accusing employers of introducing the technology without consultation and deploying it to police productivity.
Artificial intelligence HR and hiring tools pose "significant risks" for workplaces, according to an equality law expert who is calling for an enforceable positive duty on employers, while a recruitment body has told a Senate inquiry there should be an industry standard.
A federal parliamentary inquiry will consider the implications of the "rapid uptake" of automated decision-making and machine learning on the workplace, after a request from Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke.
The ILO says AI-related workplace automation will disproportionately affect women, and the resulting job losses could threaten the increasing participation of females in the labour market.
Employers that restructure to take advantage of artificial intelligence would be "responsible" for reskilling their workforces to avoid unnecessary redundancies, under a policy to be considered by this week's ALP national conference.
The Federal Government needs to urgently reform anti-discrimination laws to address biases embedded in algorithmic hiring systems that often work against the interests of women, people of colour and people with disabilities, according to a university researcher.
The federal government body charged with reviewing contested public service promotions has blamed an artificial-intelligence recruitment process for a spike in overturned decisions.
Former Workplace Gender Equality Agency director Libby Lyons has called for "radical changes" to stamp out unfairness in the Fair Work Act, ditch gendered terms and discriminatory clauses in agreements and stop stereotyping women as caregivers.
