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The Coalition’s Plan to Regulate Industrial Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Braham Dabscheck
Braham Dabscheck*
Affiliation:
School of Industrial Relations and Organizational Behaviour, University of New South Wales, Kensington, New South Wales, 2033
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Abstract

In October 1992 the federal coalition released Jobsback, a statement of its industrial relations policies. The article situates Jobsback in the context of the evolution of the coalition’s industrial relations policies since the Fraser years, outlines its major features, and provides a critique. Jobsback erects a new regulatory schema under a banner of deregulation. Three key elements are contained in Jobsback. They are tribunal avoidance and the use of the common law, legislatively imposed employment rules to ‘aid’ the transition from an award to a non-award system, and enterprise confinement. The article draws attention to the coalition’s views concerning industrial conflict, constitutional issues, transitional problems associated with establishing legislatively imposed workplace rules, minima in workplace agreements, the Office of the Employee Advocate, equality before the law and good faith bargaining.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , June 1993 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1993

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References

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