The NSW Government has just passed nation-leading legislation to stop employers from using digital technologies – like artificial intelligence and algorithms – to sidestep their health and safety responsibilities.
Recently, we’ve seen digital surveillance replacing human management, and workers being injured by unsafe algorithm-driven workloads.
These new laws modernise the NSW work health and safety system by making it clear that new technology cannot remove an employer’s duty of care.
Digital systems like AI and algorithms are increasingly shaping how work is organised, managed and monitored, and the FSU welcomes any move by governments to strengthen worker protections to ensure our laws keep up.
All workers across Australia, not just in NSW, deserve these protections, and we encourage other governments to follow NSW’s lead.
Meanwhile, the NSW Government’s proposed changes to the workers’ compensation system have also passed Parliament.
Union members in NSW fought hard for over a year to improve the government’s proposed legislation. While we didn’t win everything we wanted, our fight for a fairer workers’ compensation system did lead to significant improvements.
The union movement remains deeply disappointed by the government’s decision to raise the Whole Person Impairment (WPI) threshold for access to lifelong income replacement for workers with serious psychological injuries. With a review by the Chief Psychiatrist and new powers for the Treasurer to lower the threshold, this fight will continue.
Crucially, we also secured retrospective protections, meaning these changes will not affect anyone currently in the system.
Congratulations to NSW union members for securing these great health and safety improvements. We’ll keep you updated on any developments.
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