On International Workers' Memorial Day, ITUC-Asia Pacific pays solemn tribute to workers across the region and the world who have lost their lives, been injured, or fallen ill due to unsafe and unhealthy working conditions.
As trade unions around the world remember those lost to preventable workplace tragedies, ITUC-Asia Pacific is sounding the alarm about a new frontier of occupational health and safety (OHS) risks – those created by artificial intelligence (AI), algorithmic management, and digital surveillance. These emerging technologies, if left unchecked, could reshape the world of work in ways that threaten both the physical and mental well-being of workers.
“We are now witnessing new forms of workplace hazards – ones that are no longer limited to machinery, chemicals, or environmental factors, but rooted in algorithmic control, constant surveillance, and digital exploitation. These are no less harmful to workers’ lives and must be addressed with the same urgency,” Shoya Yoshida, ITUC-Asia Pacific General Secretary, said.
The expansion of AI and digital management tools in the workplace is intensifying work, eroding rest, increasing stress, and weakening human oversight. These shifts are creating new forms of OHS hazards and impacts, including physical and mental health strain, increased stress, and burnout – which are often invisible and underreported.
In many sectors, such as in the platform economy, digital tools are being introduced without worker consultation or proper safety assessments. Algorithmic monitoring systems, productivity tracking apps, and opaque management platforms now dictate how workers move, behave, and perform – often with no regard for their physical or psychological well-being.
“AI is not just a technology issue – it is an urgent occupational health and safety issue,” said Shoya Yoshida. “Without regulation, it becomes a tool of exploitation and harm.”
ITUC-Asia Pacific also highlights that women and precarious workers, who tend to be excluded from social protection, are disproportionately exposed to new forms of OHS risks. Women workers, for instance, are more vulnerable to gender-based harassment, which also perpetuates in digital platforms.
With widespread informal employment, weak enforcement of OSH regulations, and limited recognition of mental health as part of workplace safety, new risks introduced by AI and digitalisation are falling into regulatory gaps.
ITUC-Asia Pacific warns that unless national governments and employers act now, these risks will become entrenched, creating a “new normal” of unsafe digital work. This includes the normalisation of surveillance, productivity pressure, exclusion from decision-making, the absence of meaningful rest and recovery, and lack of social protection from emerging occupational risks associated with AI and digital work.
“OHS in the digital age requires regulation, enforcement, and social dialogue. Workers must not only be protected – they must be part of the solution,” Shoya Yoshida asserted.
Shoya Yoshida further stressed the importance of social dialogue and collective bargaining as critical tools to ensuring health and safety of workers amidst AI expansion and digitalisation. “Shaping a just, inclusive, and equitable future of work requires governments, employers, and workers to work together towards ensuring AI’s benefits are shared fairly while protecting workers’ lives and dignity.”
In line with this, ITUC-Asia Pacific advocates for robust international regulations, including a binding ILO Convention on Decent Work for the Platform Economy, which will be discussed at the upcoming International Labour Conference in June. This Convention could help ensure robust OHS standards and fundamental rights for all workers, including those in platform-based employment.
As ITUC-Asia Pacific mark this solemn day under the banner of “Remember the dead, fight for the living,” ITUC-Asia Pacific urges governments, employers, and international institutions to place occupational health and safety at the core of all future-of-work discussions.
“We owe it to the workers we lost and to those still suffering in silence to make safety and health non-negotiable,” Yoshida concluded. “The digital transition cannot come at the expense of workers’ lives. It must be just, inclusive, and above all, safe.”
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