NSW’s new Digital Work Systems laws spark a clash between unions hailing AI safety protections and businesses warning of unprecedented union access to workplace data
NSW landmark Digital Work Systems laws – designed to rein in the risks of AI and algorithm-driven management – have ignited an immediate clash between unions and big business over how far regulators should reach into the data and systems that now underpin modern work.
Passed in a tight 20–17 vote, the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill creates a new “Digital Work System Duty” requiring employers to ensure algorithms, AI tools and digital platforms used to allocate, monitor or pace work do not jeopardise worker health and safety, including psychosocial risks such as stress and fatigue.
Unions have hailed the reform as a breakthrough for workers facing AI‑driven work intensification and surveillance. Employer groups, led by the Business Council of Australia (BCA), argue it is a deeply flawed overreach that hands unions unprecedented powers to trawl through business systems and sensitive data.
Unions NSW framed the passage of the Bill as a watershed moment that finally drags WHS law into the algorithmic age.
The new duty explicitly requires businesses to ensure digital work systems – including algorithms, AI and online platforms – do not create risks to workers’ health and safety, and to consider whether these tools drive...
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