Gig workers to get rights to workers comp under NSW Labor election promise
Uber delivery drivers and casual employees will be able to claim compensation if injured at work and take entitlements from job to job if Labor wins the New South Wales election.
New entitlements would make gig workers more resilient and make the labour environment less precarious in general, the state opposition said on Sunday.
“The rise of the gig economy has revolutionised the way people can access work – but that shouldn’t mean workers should be left more vulnerable,” Labor leader Chris Minns said.
The plan would see the introduction of a workers compensation benefits scheme for gig workers – similar to one other employees can already access.
Gig, disability and home care workers would also gain access to a portable entitlement scheme, allowing them to accrue leave and entitlements in their industry, rather than through their employer.
Portable entitlements would help prevent a predicted exodus of workers from the NSW disability sector, the Australian Services Union said.
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The union’s NSW secretary Angus McFarland said the sector needed about 30,000 new workers in the next 12 months but about 50% of existing workers plan to quit in the next five years.
“A big source of their pain is losing their entitlements every time they switch jobs, which tends to happen very regularly,” McFarland said.
The highly casualised nature of the disability sector meant support workers often performed multiple jobs and combine casual and part-time work.
One in four disability workers have been leaving their jobs every year, according to the federal government, three times more than the turnover in other healthcare or social sector jobs.
Labor’s proposals are a response to the rise of the gig economy and part of a broader, long-term plan to rebuild the NSW economy after it was ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The rollout of the reforms will be assisted by the unions, the gig platforms themselves, business groups and academics.
Their announcement comes after seven food delivery drivers were killed on the roads in 2020, including Dede Fredy and Bijoy Paul, whose families sought additional workers’ compensation payments.
The families received a payment from Uber’s accidental death policy last year but the Transport Workers Union argued in August the cases demonstrated why workers compensation schemes needed reform.
The workers’ families could not access statutory compensation because no gig platform had hired the riders as formal employees, Labor said.
Food delivery riders are also denied access to minimum rates of pay, sick and annual leave, and superannuation in NSW.
“Work has changed but our laws have not,” shadow treasurer Daniel Mookhey said.
“We need to act. We need to modernise our laws so they suit how people are working today.”
The policy will also address a rise in insecure work in the disability, community and home care sectors in NSW.