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: “A breakthrough for hundreds of thousands of workers”
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 excessive workloads, unreasonable performance metrics or discriminatory outcomes.
For Unions NSW secretary Mark Morey, that goes to the heart of concerns emerging from parliamentary inquiries into work intensification and the psychological harms linked to automated decision‑making.
“This is a breakthrough for hundreds of thousands of workers… By explicitly holding employers responsible when AI and digital systems harm workers, NSW is setting a proper standard for workplace safety in the digital age,” he said.
Unions also secured a significant procedural win: a formal right to require “reasonable assistance” to access and inspect digital work systems where a safety breach is suspected, with 48 hours’ notice.
They argue this mirrors traditional rights of entry to physical workplaces but updates them for an era where key hazards may be embedded in code, dashboards and data flows rather than machinery on a factory floor.
The reforms appear to be tapping into broader worker unease about AI in the workplace. A Redbridge poll of 1,507 NSW workers cited by Unions NSW found nearly two in five (38%) believe the risks of AI outweigh the benefits, and around seven in ten (69%) support tougher regulation of AI at work.
“The community has been clear: they don't want to stop technology, but they want it used fairly and safely,” Morey said. “These laws ensure that when an algorithm decides your hours, your pay, or your pace of work, there are clear rules and real human oversight to prevent harm.”
He dismissed business criticism as overblown: “Despite hyperbolic claims from business lobbyists, these laws are based on a very reasonable principle: technology should serve the workforce rather than exploiting it. Any business using these tools responsibly has nothing to fear from these new safety standards.”
Business Council: “Deeply flawed, unprecedented and unnecessary”
For the Business Council of Australia (BCA), the same provisions amount to a dramatic and unnecessary expansion of union power.
BCA CEO Bran Black described the legislation as “deeply flawed, unprecedented and unnecessary”, even after a last‑minute round of amendments secured with the support of the Opposition and several crossbench parties.
According to the BCA, the new union access provisions go far beyond traditional health and safety inspections, granting officials a right to require digital access to a wide range of internal systems in any NSW workplace – from small businesses to hospitals and major infrastructure sites.
The Council warns this could extend to internal emails, payroll and HR files, health records, customer databases, and financial platforms.
While the government has committed to develop detailed access guidelines before the powers commence, Black argued that, in principle, the Bill gives unions a pathway into the most sensitive digital infrastructure of organisations across the state.
“This Bill should have never passed, however I’m thankful for these hard‑fought guardrails that will mean businesses have at least some opportunity to prepare for intrusive union access to their digital documents,” he said.
Amendments pushed by the Opposition and crossbenchers have become central to the business narrative about damage‑control. They include:
- A mandatory 48 hours’ notice period before digital access is exercised
- A requirement that union access powers be governed by guidelines developed with business involvement
- A delayed start so the new powers do not commence until those guidelines are in place
- Scope for industry‑specific rules to avoid a one‑size‑fits‑all model
- A comprehensive 12‑month review of how the regime is operating
The BCA also points to its own polling of 1,021 NSW workers and voters, which found 75% were concerned about data breaches and personal information being accessed or exposed, while only 5% believed unions should be responsible for investigating workplace technology. In the same poll, 44% of respondents said they believed the Bill would have a negative impact on jobs and investment in NSW.
“At a time when NSW needs to accelerate housing supply and attract capital to lift productivity and living standards, it is critical that the forthcoming guideline consultation genuinely protects workers’ data, consumer information and commercially sensitive material,” Black said.
Safety experts: well‑intentioned but built on the “wrong foundation”
Beyond the industrial relations rhetoric, safety professionals are raising a different concern: that the laws risk mis‑diagnosing the underlying problem.
As explored in analysis of the Bill’s passage, the Australian Institute of Health and Safety (AIHS) argues that while the intent is to protect workers in increasingly digital workplaces, the legislation is “well‑intentioned but fundamentally flawed” because it treats digital work systems as a unique hazard category rather than one part of wider work design.
AIHS chair Celia Antonovsky notes that if a driver is fatigued because of an unachievable target, the risk is essentially the same whether a human manager or an algorithm set that target.
The Institute’s concern is that by elevating AI and algorithms as a standalone legal focus, regulators risk pulling attention and resources away from core psychosocial hazards – such as workload, staffing levels, role clarity and job control – that stem from organisational design and leadership.
The Institute has also warned that the Bill breaks with the nationally consistent Model WHS Laws, which rest on general duties to manage all risks rather than singling out specific technologies. That divergence, it says, could fragment compliance and create confusion for employers operating across multiple jurisdictions.
Rather than scrapping the law, AIHS is urging the NSW government to embed the new duty within evidence‑based WHS principles and to consult more deeply with WHS professionals, HR leaders, industry and workers as it produces guidance materials and refines definitions.
Competing visions of “safe” digital work
Beneath the politics, the debate over the Digital Work Systems laws reflects a deeper question: who should control and scrutinise the digital infrastructure increasingly running modern workplaces?
Unions see the law as a necessary rebalancing in favour of workers who, they argue, have been subjected to opaque algorithms, real‑time surveillance and relentless productivity metrics with little recourse or transparency. For them, formal rights to inspect digital systems – alongside a clear legal duty on employers to prevent AI‑driven harm – are overdue.
Business groups warn that the pendulum has swung too far, exposing organisations to intrusive data demands, legal complexity and a chilling effect on investment and innovation – particularly if sensitive commercial, employee or customer information is swept into scope.
Safety professionals, for their part, want the conversation re‑anchored in work design and evidence‑based risk management, so that digital systems are scrutinised as part of a broader organisational ecosystem rather than in isolation.
What all sides agree on is that AI and digital platforms are reshaping how work is organised, paced and monitored – and that the law needs to keep up. The real test for NSW will come from how effectively government, business, unions and safety experts can use the next phase of consultation, guideline‑setting and review to turn principle into practical, proportionate protections.
HR leaders can’t wait for the dust to settle. The safest path lies in treating digital systems as integral to work design, consulting closely with workers about how tools affect their jobs and building governance frameworks that can withstand scrutiny – whether it comes from regulators, unions or their own workforce.
