Introduction

This chapter examines the impact of an Australian state government (Victoria) applying an aggressive, neo-liberal reform agenda on the delivery of public sector hospital care and on nursing staff in particular. These changes were set in the context of a response to increasing labour costs and also disproportionately higher non-labour costs due to new pharmaceuticals, new diagnostic equipment and technology (White & Bray 2005: Congressional Budget Office 2008). However, the response of the Kennett Liberal-National Coalition government in Victoria to these cost pressures was to introduce more radical neo-liberal influenced changes to public hospitals than those implemented by the New South Wales state Labor Government (White & Bray 2005). These changes also coincided with the introduction of enterprise bargaining nationally during the 1990s, which allowed for enterprise-level collective bargaining over wages and conditions, with the aim of improving productivity (see also Chapters 1 and 5). However, centralised control over staffing budgets by state health departments left relatively little actual control of these issues in the hands of local hospital management (White & Bray 2005).

Introduction

This chapter explores the key features of the Australian ‘employment model’. We deliberately use the term ‘model’ as distinct from ‘labour market’ because it is more holistic and invokes an important literature that links the welfare system and the labour market. This work originated with Esping-Andersen’s (1990) delineation of three models of welfare capitalism: social democratic (Sweden); conservative (Germany); and neo-liberal (United Kingdom and United States, which we also term the Anglo-American cases). The latter model is particularly relevant, given that our focus in this book is on the implementation of neo-liberal ideas in the labour market and more widely. The three models of welfare capitalism are not, however, a static typology, and Esping-Andersen characterises the models as emerging from political and economic struggles in each of the countries where they emerged. Importantly, this approach explicitly rejects the arguments of neo-classical economics (and neo-liberalism), which view markets as predominant and welfare provision as limited, instead of viewing labour markets and welfare as interlinked.

Introduction

The impact of the neo-liberal agenda, the shift in distribution of employment to the service sector, the growth in casual, temporary and contract employment and a decline in union membership have combined to create a context in which employees’ ability to resist managerial control has been reduced. In this situation of weakened resistance, the availability of new information technologies for the monitoring and surveillance of employee performance has enhanced the type, depth and intensity of management supervision. However, like any new technology, the impact of information technology is mediated by the social context and power relationships within which it is introduced.

Introduction

As illustrated elsewhere in this book (see especially Chapters 2, 10 and 11), there has been a widespread shift in recent decades from full-time, ‘standard’ employment towards part-time, ‘non-standard’ employment, both in Australia and internationally. This trend has brought with it a proliferation of less secure, peripheral labour market participation. Focusing on retail and hospitality, two closely related industries that are characterised by high levels of ‘non-standard’ or precarious employment, this chapter examines how the strategic implementation of flexible working arrangements can enable people to achieve more secure and less peripheral labour market participation. The policy impetus for this discussion is provided primarily by the provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009 in relation to flexible working arrangements, set within the context of Australia’s experience during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The chapter indicates ways in which the use of flexible working arrangements can be implemented to expand equitable labour market participation and to reduce the impact of macro-economic fluctuations.

Introduction

Workplace conflict is an inevitable part of the pluralistic nature of organisational life. In Australia, the management of workplace conflict has been at the heart of the political agenda for workplace relations for the major parties. This chapter briefly traces the history of the regulation of workplace conflict since the beginning of the twentieth century and looks at the importance of tribunal conciliation to the settlement of workplace disputes over this time. It then describes the major changes to the system of dispute settlement since the late 1980s, particularly in relation to the differing agendas of the various political parties, employers and unions, which have acted to decentralise dispute resolution to the workplace. In doing so, the chapter describes the national tribunal, the Fair Work Commission (formerly Fair Work Australia), examining its relationship with the functioning of dispute-settlement clauses in enterprise agreements required by legislation and the resolution of unfair dismissal disputes, which make up the bulk of the Commission’s workload. It then examines the collective and individual manifestations of workplace conflict. The chapter ends with an examination of the decline in strike numbers and concludes that overt conflict is not disappearing in Australia but it is changing to more individualised manifestations.

Introduction

Legal regulation of Australian employment has undergone massive changes since the mid-2000s. The legislative regime introduced under the Work Choices policy by the Howard Liberal-National Coalition government in 2005 was revolutionary – it dismantled arbitrated awards, ensured that individual agreements prevailed over collective agreements, removed unfair dismissal protection from most Australian employees, introduced secret strike ballots and greatly diminished the independent industrial tribunal’s role. In a dramatic policy contrast enshrined in the Fair Work Act 2009, operative from 1 January 2010, the federal Labor government significantly reversed most of these changes, emphasising enterprise-based collective bargaining underpinned by a safety net of modernised awards and legislated conditions, eliminating individual bargaining and reintroducing job security through unfair dismissal laws. The common law employee–contractor distinction importantly underpins the new national system, together with employment anti-discrimination and occupational health and safety legislation. This chapter analyses these features, critiquing the new national system, which largely has moved away from reliance on market forces to a system of collective bargaining supported by protections for weaker groups and a new good-faith bargaining concept.

Introduction

In this chapter, we examine the role of workplace relations practices and policies at Futuris, Australia’s largest domestic automotive components company. We will show the ways in which competitive pressures, government policy and industrial negotiations have shaped and changed the experience of work and workplace relationships in the company. The components industry is one in which the globalisation of markets has shaped production scale and strategy; it is an industry in which labour negotiations and the content of enterprise agreements provide the framework for productive efficiency and the experience of work, and also an industry in which communications and employee involvement have to serve sometimes conflicting management and employee needs. Many of the issues raised in this case study have salience in other locations, because the industry is inherently global in its orientation through its part of global value chains in the automotive sector.

Introduction

The contemporary Australian workplace relations landscape, as in many other Anglo-American advanced market economies, is strongly influenced by neo-liberal ideologies. Related to this has been a series of important developments, including declining trade union membership and density, the emergence of sophisticated human resources management (HRM) strategies focusing on the individual and the rise of enterprise bargaining. These changes have had a significant effect on the structure and practice of workplace relations, not least on the ways in which management variously communicates, interacts with and involves the workforce or its representatives in the organisation and its processes (which we refer to here as ‘employee voice’). The shift in the locus of decision-making power to the workplace level, and a focus on direct communications between employers and employees, increasingly is becoming the norm so that forms of voice involving unions are generally in decline in the English-speaking world. As unions and union voice channels in the workplace have become more marginalised, this has acted as both a cause and a catalyst for the development of alternative voice channels in many – usually larger – organisations. These fundamental changes in workplace relations have stimulated increased interest in new patterns of employee voice and employee participation in Australia, specifically in terms of establishing and utilising effective mechanisms to engage employees and manage the employment relationship.

Introduction

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, the Australian workforce presents an unusual degree of diversity. Race and culture, gender, disability, age, lifestyles and changing family responsibilities are among the key diversity characteristics of an expanding population and labour force. This diversity has been fuelled by sustained mass immigration, the increasing workforce participation of women, the need to retain older and skilled workers and demands for equitable employment participation by traditionally marginalised groups, such as people with disabilities and Indigenous people. In this chapter, the nature and extent of each of these forms of diversity will be addressed, and the implications of this diversity for workplace relations examined. This analysis will also look at the interaction between diversity and disadvantage, and industry restructuring and economic change.