The rights and wages of workers for unregulated digital companies like Uber will become the frontline of a nationwide industrial relations campaign, as unions seek ways to stay relevant in the so-called "sharing economy".
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The Australian Council of Trade Unions says the boom in freelancing websites and person-to-person networks presents a world of new problems for workplace standards and fairness.
ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said rapidly growing "liquid workforces" - where workers are not legally employees and do not have the right to organise and collectively bargain - must become a focus of the labor movement.
"This is not just about insecure work, but the changing nature of work ... we need to start considering what the future of the workplace will look like," ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said.
"In the liquid workforce where separate people bid for parcels of work, like some sort of reverse eBay auction, how do you regulate that? We want to look at the threats and the opportunities that this provides to our movement."
Fast-paced technological advances and the disruption of traditional business models underscore major upheavals in the workplace and pressing challenges for unions, which may suffer further declines in membership if the rapid growth of the sharing economy continues.
Mr Oliver said the sharing economy currently operated outside regulations designed to guarantee workers' rights and ensure people are paid their fair share.
"A lot of this is happening outside the law, outside industrial relations laws, outside workers compensation laws," he said.
"This is something we need to consider now. I don't have the answers but I want to start targeting the best and the brightest of our movement to start looking at these challenges."
The comments come ahead of this week's triennial ACTU Congress, the most important gathering of unions in Australia, which sets the policy and strategic direction of the labour movement for the next three years.
Mr Oliver said the ACTU would establish a taskforce to devise ways the union movement could organise the new generation of workers.
It is a challenging time for the Australian union movement, with declining membership, particularly in the private sector, and a Productivity Commission inquiry into the workplace system. There has also been a persistent campaign by employers to slash penalty rates and a royal commission into allegations of trade union malfeasance.
"The objective is to be out there and to build our movement, to be out there campaigning on our issues," Mr Oliver said.
"I'll be going to the conference to seek the endorsement for a comprehensive plan for campaigning in workplaces, online, in communities and in marginal electorates."
The ACTU has unveiled multimillion-dollar plans for large-scale ground campaign designed to oust the Abbott government from power, as it ramps up warnings over threats to wages, work conditions and living standards.
The campaign, expected to eclipse the anti-WorkChoices fight that helped defeat John Howard in 2007, will revive union tactics used in the run-up to last year's Victorian election by targeting 32 key marginal electorate battlegrounds.
The ACTU Congress this week will also be asked to sign off on a new charter based on six broad themes - rights at work, universal healthcare, quality education, dignity in retirement, strong public services, and a "fair go for all", including better measures to ensure multinationals pay their fair share of tax.
