The Business School made ‘history’ when it hosted a world-first meeting of employment authorities, according to Professor Marian Baird. Professor Baird is a Professor of Gender and Employment Relations and an Expert Panel Member of the Fair Work Commissions. Co-organised with the Fair Work Commission and the Sydney Employment Relations Research Group, Professor Baird thanked the Responsible Management Hub for its key funding of this historic event.

The forum’s hot topic was the impact of AI on employment relations and dispute settlement. More than 250 guests from industry, unions, government and academia attended and heard about the torrent of AI generated claims alleging unfair dismissal and other workplace injustice. Some countries have experienced 70% increase in cases without additional resourcing to deal with them.

Australia’s Fair Work Commission President, Justice Adam Hatcher, outlined the AI managed systems introduced by his organisation to weed out unmeritorious matters and bring rigour and responsibility to applications.

The leaders of employment tribunals from around the world said they were keen to ‘plagiarise’ Australia’s processes as none has engaged AI to fight AI in their case management systems.

Employment authorities cited similar problems with claimants seeking discovery of non-existent documents, citing incorrect jurisdictions and witnesses being unable to explain their own evidence.

 Northern Ireland’s Labour Relations Agency chief executive Mark McAllister said anecdotal evidence indicated AI was also pushing workers away from conciliation and reducing chances of settlement.

Leaders from the Australian Industry Group and the Australian Council of Trade Unions also spoke of the impact of AI, positive and negative, on employment in Australia.

The following officials addressed the packed event in the University’s grand MacLaurin Hall:

• Audrey Cahill, DG, Workplace Relations Commission, Republic of Ireland
• Maxine Orr, President, Industrial Tribunals and Fair Employment Tribunal, Northern Ireland
• Niall Mackenzie, CEO, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, United Kingdom
• Nkosikhona Nkosi, CIO, Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration, South Africa
• Dr Andrew Dallas, Chief, Employment Relations Authority, New Zealand 
• Mark McAllister, CEO, Labour Relations Agency, Northern Ireland
• Simon Sanders, GM, Employment Services, New Zealand
• Joseph Mitchell, Ass Sec, Australian Council of Trade Unions
• Brent Ferguson, Australian Industry Group

In one generation, Vietnam has moved from one of the poorest countries to a middle income manufacturing and innovation economy of more than 100 million people.

The Business School’s three Research Hubs combined to host a forum exploring collaborations, ongoing and potential, between Vietnam and Australia.

Professor Thu-Anh Nguyen, Executive Director of the Sydney Vietnam Institute, told the event the Institute has collaborations with more than 300 institutions in Vietnam including high level collaborations with government ministries meaning “we can translate your research into policy, innovations and operational solutions.” Professor Nguyen told the forum.

Professor Minh Ngoc Tran told the forum that Vietnam is becoming a regional hub for data science and AI. Since 2023 Professor Ngoc has helped organise an annual Summer School on mathematical statistics which has become the largest annual conference in Vietnam. 

Dr Nate Zettna spoke about the development of a Southeast Asian AI Barometer, a collaboration across five faculties at the University including the Business School. The project’s key question ‘Is AI good for public infrastructure?’ is exploring the public’s trust in AI across SE Asia including in Vietnam.

“Our goal is to develop an evidence-based tool that helps governments and organisations better understand public attitudes towards AI, to help them make more responsible and informed decisions about adoption,’ Dr Zettna said.

The nexus between climate change and modern slavery is a specific research concern for Dr Martijn Boersma who told the conference that 7% of farmland in Vietnam will be submerged by one meter of sea level rise in the near future, whilst almost 400,000 Vietnamese people are compelled into either forced labour or forced marriage.

“We need to make sure that the benefits of economic growth are shared fairly with the people that manufacture so many of the things that we use every day.”

Dr Rosea Taghikhah is part of an international collaboration that is developing a formula that will help determine if land should be allocated to food or energy production depending on the quality of the land and the need for food security.

Associate Professor Sandra Alday (Sydney Southeast Asia Centre) has been researching Vietnam for more than 12 years. She credits the country’s economic vitality to the dynamism of female-led social enterprises. She is currently exploring what builds resilience in female entrepreneurs in the Philippines and is keen to expand the project into Vietnam.

Kevin Hobgood Brown (SVI chair) said culture “is everything” when it comes to ensuring a successful project in Vietnam. “I've never worked on a project anywhere in Asia that has failed because they got the service wrong or the project wrong, or put it in the wrong place, or priced everything wrong. You've got so many experts working on all of those areas, they’re almost always right. But when projects have failed, it’s due to cultural reasons.”

Recognising worker voice and how this is crucial in modern-slavery responses was the topic of a forum hosted by the Responsible Management Hub at the University of Sydney Business School.

Held under the Chatham House Rule the focus was recognising and uplifting workers’ voices in rural supply chains in NSW. People with lived experience of modern slavery participated in the workshop, which also bought together 40 representatives from trade unions, employer associations, civil society organisations and regulators to examine how effective worker voice mechanisms can help address modern slavery. 

The workshop provided a forum for participants to consider how workers can be given a stronger role in raising concerns and shaping responses to exploitation.

The outcomes will directly inform the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s work.

Participants also included the Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth, the Director (Strategy and Business Engagement) of the Office of the Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Laura McManus, and Dr James Cockayne, who is the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner.

The NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Dr James Cockayne, told the forum “the objective of this workshop is to foster better understanding amongst stakeholders of the obstacles and opportunities to workers using their voices to address challenges in rural NSW supply-chains. This work will feed directly into my ongoing work to tackle modern slavery and support at-risk workers across the state.”.” 

Associate Professor Martijn Boersma noted, “Effective worker voice systems need to ensure that workers can raise concerns without fear of repercussion, and with confidence that what they say will lead to meaningful action.”

The University of Sydney was the first Australian University to offer Chinese as a field of study via the ‘Oriental Studies’ Department in 1918. More than 100 years later, the Responsible Business Hub and the China Studies Centre bought together academics and practitioners keen to explore potential collaborations.

One long standing collaboration between the Business School and KPMG was featured in a Q&A between Dr Wei Li (Business School) and Helen Zhi Dent (KPMG partner and Australian Chinese Business Council NSW Branch President). Together with Professor Hans Hendrischke this partnership produces two major reports: Demystifying Chinese Investment in Australia (since 2011) and Chinese Migrant Entrepreneurs in Australia (since 2020).

The seminar also heard from Professor Hans Hendrischke who explained the three major ‘China shocks’ of the 21st century,  Dr Eagle Zhang whose expertise is in Chinese accounting practices and Dr Michael Murphree whose China skills includes overturning people’s misconceptions about how Chinese business operates (and drinking with Chinese truckdrivers...to improve his Mandarin).

Responsible Management Hub Community Lead, Professor Chris F Wright, said the seminar was an opportunity to exchange knowledge, identify new research agendas and engage industry partners. He urged attendees to seek out new research relationships and to take advantage of the deep and varied China expertise in the Business School and University.