As Artificial Intelligence makes its mark in every corner of the community the SDA has commissioned the John Curtin Research Centre to report on its impact in the workplace.
In a nutshell, the report, For All of Us: Making Artificial Intelligence Work for Working People, looks at the lessons learned from the failure to sensibly and effectively regulate social media and warns against making the same mistake with AI in the workplace.
As SDA National Secretary Gerard Dwyer notes in his forward to the report:
“Technological change is not inherently good or bad; outcomes depend on how it is designed, introduced and governed, and whether workers have a genuine voice.”
The report argues that the starting point should be to ensure that when AI is to be introduced in the workplace there be genuine consultation with the workforce enforced by legislation and that there be a dedicated AI regulator within the workplace relations ecosystem.
The NSW government has started down this path with its Workplace Health and Safety (Digital Work Systems) Act introduced last year, but workplace management of AI must be addressed nationally if it is to work for the benefit of all, workers, business and the broader community.
The report points out the dangers of introducing AI to workplaces without proper worker consultation:
“AI-enabled performance monitoring and algorithmic task allocation can easily slide into excessive surveillance, unrealistic productivity targets and work intensification if deployed without worker input or safeguards. The same technologies that can reduce injury and improve safety can, if misused, erode autonomy and dignity.”
The report proposes a worker-centred AI policy agenda that includes:
- Embedding artificial intelligence governance within the Fair Work Commission through the creation of a specialist Expert Panel on AI, tasked with setting standards and overseeing the use of AI in workplace relations.
- Requiring consultation, transparency and human review mechanisms for workplace AI systems that materially affect working conditions with employees and unions.
- Guaranteeing universal access to AI and digital skills training across the workforce, including portable training entitlements for casual and part-time workers.
- Treating AI systems, data centres and digital infrastructure as strategic sovereign capabilities within national industrial and government procurement policy.
- Developing a national digital procurement framework to ensure public investment in AI advances domestic capability, job quality and worker empowerment.
- Strengthening accountability and oversight via a statutory AI governance framework, including independent monitoring, reporting and dispute resolution mechanisms.
SDA National Secretary Gerard Dwyer and report author Nick Dyrenfurth, Executive Director of the John Curtin Research Centre, are available for interview.
Contact: Jim Middleton 0418 627066
Quotes from Gerard Dwyer:
“With the internet and social media we were promised a Golden Highway; what we’ve got is an unregulated sewer of misinformation and worse. Let’s not make the same mistake again.
“Right now, too many workers are already on the sharp end of poorly governed tech: intrusive surveillance, black-box rostering, intensified and unsafe workloads, algorithmic bias in hiring and task allocation, and a steady erosion of job security and autonomy.
“AI can deliver real gains in productivity, safety and efficiency, but those gains will only be shared if the technology is deployed on fair terms. That means transparency, proper consultation and respect for workers’ rights.”
Quotes from Nick Dyrenfurth:
“After more than a decade of shocks – a pandemic, global supply disruptions, war, inflation, a cost-of-living crisis, and now an energy supply crunch – productivity growth has stalled to its lowest level in generations, while real wages have grown even more slowly.
“Workers enter this technological transition already feeling that they are not receiving their fair share of economic gains and rebuilding democratic trust will be essential if they are to back the next wave of AI driven change.
“Australia has a choice: we can build an AI-powered economy that works for all of us — rewarding work and creating jobs — or one that further concentrates wealth and power in the hands of Elon Musk and the billionaire tech bros.
“Productivity gains don’t magically trickle down, and the fair go doesn’t survive by accident. Those gains only flow to workers when Australia sets the rules and insists that AI works for working people — not Musk and his mates.
“Whether AI entrenches inequality or renews the social contract is not a technical question but a political one. A National AI Strategy grounded in worker empowerment, corporate accountability and shared prosperity is not only possible — it is essential if the future of work is to be worthy of the name.”