Nothing intelligent about more union power with AI

The Minerals Council now says the union agenda is to use AI as a pretext to expand union control in the workplace.

With Jim Chalmers gearing up for what he says will be much-needed productivity reforms in 2026, employers have every reason to fear what this might mean when it comes to industrial relations and artificial intelligence. On Monday, the Treasurer said his agenda for next year’s budget would be to deliver on the outcomes of this year’s economic reform roundtable. Legislation on how to proceed with artificial intelligence is shaping up as a defining issue and employer groups are sensing danger. Future prosperity demands that the productivity-boosting potential of AI is realised. But business is warning misguided regulation would instead strangle business flexibility.

Employers say the ACTU is seeking an unfettered pre-emptive right for unions to insert themselves into business decision-making and the ability to veto plans to implement new technology. The trade union agenda could be delivered through relatively minor amendments to the consultation obligations in the Fair Work Act. Employers say it is highly likely that amendments to the Fair Work Act to deliver the changes will be progressed during 2026.

Assistant Trade Minister Tim Ayres has said: “I will be looking in particular at how we can strengthen worker voice and agency as technology is diffused into every workplace in the Australian economy, and I look forward to working with our trade union movement on all of this.”

This agenda would help explain why the trade union movement was willing to pull back from its insistence that there be a specific national AI authority and a national artificial intelligence act. Instead, it welcomed the Albanese government’s AI road map as “ensuring our workplace laws are fit for purpose in the AI age, that meaningful consultation with workers takes place over the introduction of AI, and employers back their workers in by providing training and skills development”.

The Minerals Council now says the union agenda is to use AI as a pretext to expand union control in the workplace. It says AI has become a “stalking horse” to impose greater controls over businesses in relation to the use of technology generally, not just AI. If this were to be true, it would represent a further tightening of industrial relations laws by the Albanese government to favour trade unions, which has so far included a return to industry-wide bargaining. It would also be a major blow to what is the best opportunity to turn around the nation’s woeful record of low productivity growth.

Employers had feared the productivity roundtable would be a repeat of the Albanese government’s first-term Jobs and Skills Summit, which turned out to be a scripted opportunity to give trade unions what they wanted. Further featherbedding for trade union delegates and members must not be allowed to derail the opportunities presented by well-regulated artificial intelligence in the workplace.