September 2026
For the first time, an Australian regulator has made rules that treat being managed by an algorithm as a genuine source of harm. That’s the real story inside the Fair Work Commission’s new gig work reforms, and it’s a bigger deal than the pay rise making headlines.
Now in force, the Fair Work Commission’s minimum standards order covers on-demand delivery workers on platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash. It exists because of years of campaigning by unions, and by the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) in particular: the TWU is the applicant in the case, and the order the Commission ultimately made is substantially the one the TWU proposed, with Uber and DoorDash coming to support it [3,4]. The order took effect on 17 August [1]. We’ve written before about the hidden mental health cost of gig work: the job insecurity, the isolation, and the financial pressure and instability that come with never knowing what a week’s income will look like. This reform won’t fix all of that, but buried in the fine print is the first real sign that policy is starting to catch up
What the order changes
The real focus is the pay floor. The order sets minimum hourly rates of $31.30 for riders without a vehicle, a pedal bike, an e-bike or a scooter, $31.50 for a combustion motorcycle or scooter and $32.00 for a motor vehicle with a carrying capacity of up to one tonne [2].
These rates apply until 31 December 2026, and the order already schedules the next step up: from 1 January 2027, $31.80, $32.00 and $32.50 respectively [2].
The floor works across an earnings period rather than delivery by delivery: a platform must ensure a worker’s total earnings for all engaged time in the period are no less than the applicable rate, and top up the shortfall where they aren’t [2].
For the workers who have never had a contracted or guaranteed hourly rate, this change is substantial and long overdue.
The order also goes beyond just the money. It sets out a formal dispute resolution process, so a worker who believes a platform has treated them unfairly now has a defined route to raise it rather than an unanswered email. Separately, gig workers can challenge an unfair deactivation at the Commission, the closest thing the system has to an appeal against being cut off by an algorithm. It also gives union delegates and other workplace representatives the right to represent riders – a core union demand through the campaign – and requires platforms to consult workers before making significant changes to payment terms and algorithms.
Alongside those sit a set of conditions that look a lot like the basics of employment, and which no gig worker had by right before this year: a gig worker information statement, cover for vehicle repairs, registration and expenses, record-keeping obligations, limits on fines and requirements around insurance, a platform feedback forum for discussions with workers, and a right to unpaid time away [2].
One of those terms is quietly significant: every covered platform must now give workers a gig worker information statement that tells them they have a right to union membership, names the TWU as the union with the right to represent them, and links to where they can join [2].
What algorithmic management means and how it affects workers’ mental health
Much of the public conversation surrounding gig work assumes that psychological harms to workers flow entirely from job insecurity; aspects like not knowing how many shifts they can get, which inevitably leads to unstable pay each week. But there’s a growing body of research that points to another separate cause that harms significantly: the everyday experience of being managed by a system you can’t physically see or question.
In this context, “algorithm” isn’t one single system. It’s a combination of the platform’s underlying software that assigns delivery jobs to riders, sets the fee for each trip, tracks location and completion times, scores performance, and can suspend or deactivate an account, generally without the worker making that individual call.
A 2023 study [5] that surveyed 423 food delivery riders found that algorithmic management was appraised by workers in two different ways: at times as a challenge that could be seen as motivating, but often as hindrance that causes increased levels of stress. The difference didn’t point to the algorithm itself, but the fact that workers felt they had no say in how it operated, and that’s the gap the consultation requirement is aimed at. It doesn’t propose removing algorithmic management from gig work, but it does give workers a legally enforceable route to have their input considered when the rules of the system change.
The gap that’s still open
It’s tempting to read this as mental health finally getting a seat at the table, but it’s only a start. The order is an interim instrument — it is named an interim order — and will be reviewed if the Commission issues a notice of intent and draft order in either of the related last-mile delivery cases [1]. How far standard WHS psychosocial duties extend to platforms like Uber and DoorDash in practice is still being worked out.
Since 1 July 2026, the NSW Code of Practice on addressing psychosocial hazards has no longer been guidance, but has been an enforceable compliance benchmark under the state’s Work Health and Safety Act [6]. It reflects the direction regulatory expectations are headed, but it is a state WHS code based on traditional employment relationships that stands alongside, rather than within the federal minimum standards framework for gig workers. The consequence is a real gap: wage protection and a say in algorithmic change are arriving through one legal channel, while psychosocial safety protections are emerging through another, and the two have yet to be stitched together for gig workers in particular.
The bottom line
The minimum standards order, won after years of union campaigning, is real progress: a pay floor, a dispute and appeal process, and for the first time, a legal requirement to consult workers before algorithmic changes affect their pay and workload. But a pay rise and a consultation clause don’t, on their own, address the isolation, unpredictability, and surveillance that research consistently links to stress and burnout in gig work [5]. Reform is catching up with pay. It still has to catch up with mental health.
References
[1] Fair Work Commission, Application by the Transport Workers’ Union of Australia (MS2024/3), [2026] FWCFB 211, 11 August 2026.
[2] Fair Work Commission, Interim On-Demand Delivery Employee-like Worker Minimum Standards Order (MS900103), commencing 17 August 2026.
[3] Transport Workers’ Union, Platforms propose minimum standards, 2025.
[4] Uber Eats Australia, Setting a new standard: Uber Eats leads industry move to strengthen protections for delivery people, 2025.
[5] Zhang L, Yang J, Zhang Y, Xu G, Gig worker’s perceived algorithmic management, stress appraisal, and destructive deviant behavior, PLOS ONE, 2023.
[6] Sonder, Psychosocial hazards: What NSW’s 1 July 2026 code of practice change means for employers, 2026.
Related MYH content: Mental Health in the Gig Economy: The Hidden Struggles of Independent Workers, 2025.