No veto power for unions on AI says labor
CANBERRA: The Albanese government has made its first formal steps towards regulating artificial intelligence in the workplace, but has ruled out union veto rights and stated that new data suggests the technology still has had only a limited effect on jobs.
Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth will also bring in AI infrastructure developers into her employment portfolio by demanding they invest in local skills and training when constructing billion-dollar data centres and set minimum apprenticeship targets for the projects.
She will also flag explicit workforce participation targets for women and First Nations people for the projects and commitments to funding experienced workers to obtain training qualifications.
Rishworth will announce the establishment of the AI Employment and Workplaces Forum at The Australian Financial Review Workforce Summit on Tuesday, which she said would allow unions, employers and government to chart a tripartite path to ensure AI’s productivity benefits are shared, and the laws are “fit for purpose”.
But the tripartite approach “does not, and should not, involve a right of veto”, she will say.
Rishworth tipped she would take a cautionary approach to regulation, revealing new data from a Department of Employment and Workplace Relations report indicates that artificial intelligence has had no negative effect on graduate jobs so far, and only a slight reduction in administrative jobs.
The speech, the first from a workplace minister dedicated to AI, comes as unions are pressuring the government to move faster on regulating the technology as they fear hundreds of job cuts in the coming months.
However, businesses have warned against red tape that strangles the productivity benefits of AI.
In her speech, Rishworth will say she will convene the first meeting of the AI Forum on Wednesday, and the group will meet at least three times a year.
“This tripartite forum will bring together government, employers and unions around the same table, demonstrating the goodwill of all parties to tackle this challenge in a constructive way,” she will say.
“[It will] work out how we can get those productivity benefits, ensure workers are brought along on the journey, and that those benefits are shared.”
The forum features equal numbers of union and employer representatives, including ACTU secretary Sally McManus, as well as the CEOs of the Business Council, Australian Industry Group, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
It will rely on five key principles Rishworth deems essential to the adoption of AI in workplaces: trust, capability, transparency, safety and productivity.
Unions have been calling for six-month notice periods for AI job cuts and stronger consultation obligations, raising employer concerns about union agreement being a requirement before introducing the technology.
However, Rishworth will assure parties that “tripartism does not, and should not, involve a right of veto”.
“There will always be contestability – and I am not pretending this will be a silver bullet solution. But I really believe tripartism can build shared understanding and trust.”
Rishworth said her department was working on a gap analysis to identify how workplace institutions and laws interact with AI adoption, and “there was a live question about whether these settings are fit-for-purpose”.
But she stressed that the forum operated from the same set of agreed facts about AI’s effect on jobs.
“There are a lot of predictions out there about what will happen to the labour market because of AI,” she said.
“While augmentation in the medium term is the most likely scenario, according to Jobs and Skills Australia, we need reliable data to accurately monitor the real-world impacts of AI adoption.”
She said her department was finalising a report, expected next month, that will produce the first government data on how the labour market had changed since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 up to February, with a focus on entry-level roles and job composition.
“Pleasingly, employment outcomes for young tertiary graduates have been positive, despite some expectations that they could be the ‘canaries in the coalmine’ for AI in the workplace,” she said.
“We are not seeing an elevated rate of compositional change, meaning that the mix of jobs in the economy is not changing faster than usual.”
However, she said the labour market was “starting to see a slight softening in the rate of growth for occupations that are most exposed to AI adoption, like filing clerks or keyboard operators”.
“Now, I would say that this data is reflective of a particular point in time, and is not predictive,” she said.
“But it will help build a shared understanding of what is actually happening in the labour market, which gives us a platform to build trust.”
The data stops just as Wisetech announced 2000 job cuts it blamed on AI and was followed by Atlassian’s 1600 job cuts in March.
This month, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank announced it would cut its workforce after reaching two major technology deals.
The Finance Sector Union at the time issued the strongest public criticism of the government over its perceived sluggishness in regulating AI and called for urgent legislation.
FSU secretary Julia Angrisano accused the government of “incredible naivety when it comes to its light touch approach to regulating AI”.
She said the government had repeatedly assured unions that it would only act when AI becomes an issue for jobs. However, the FSU said that moment had “well and truly arrived”.
“The federal government has been asleep at the wheel, but it’s not too late for them to step up and protect local jobs,” Angrisano said.
A spokesperson for the government at the time defended its efforts and said that workers’ voices and union engagement were critical to AI adoption.
“We are working as a government to ensure that AI is being harnessed to create good jobs, not threaten them.”
In her speech, Rishworth will flag that the government will also take a role in shaping how technology companies’ investments in data centres can benefit skills growth, including through memorandums of understanding and government expectations.
She will say the types of action she believes will meet expectations includes data centre developers “set[ting] targets for minimum amounts of work for apprentices and trainees on these construction projects”.
“Australia will prioritise proposals that invest in our skills pipeline, so we have enough tradies to build this vital infrastructure, without cannibalising our existing trade workforce,” she will say.
“Our government will work closely with the states and territories to implement these expectations in their approval processes.”
She will also flag explicit workforce participation targets for women and First Nations people for the projects, and commitments to funding experienced workers to obtain training qualifications.
