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Introduction to Special Collection: Women’s agency at work
- Janet Sayers, Jane Parker, Julie Douglas, Katherine Ravenswood, Rae Cooper
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- Journal:
- The Economic and Labour Relations Review / Volume 26 / Issue 3 / September 2015
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 January 2023, pp. 384-392
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This article introduces a Special Collection of four articles that highlight responses by working women collectively and individually to forces accelerated by the recent global crises. It draws out common themes from accounts of African women’s responses to harassment at work, of the links between union representation and pay equity in Brazil and South Africa and of Australian women’s quest for flexible and fair work/family arrangements. From these perspectives, the article sets out a five-point research agenda to help empower women’s collective and individual agency in response to working conditions shaped by global economic and social forces.
Job-sharing among teachers: Positive, negative (and unintended) consequences
- Sue Williamson, Rae Cooper, Marian Baird
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- Journal:
- The Economic and Labour Relations Review / Volume 26 / Issue 3 / September 2015
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 January 2023, pp. 448-464
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The pros and cons of part-time work have attracted considerable attention in recent years, not least because of its presumed potential to enable employees to reconcile paid work and family needs. This article focuses on job-sharing, which is a unique yet underexplored form of part-time work and one which has rarely been analysed in terms of the consequences for all stakeholders. This case study of job-sharing details its positive outcomes for some employees, in assisting them to balance career and family. The study also highlights some previously unexplored and, we argue, unintended negative consequences of job-sharing. In this case, job-sharing contributed to the increased use of temporary employees who were locked out of many of the benefits of quality flexible work. Furthermore, the case study reveals competing interests between permanent and temporary employees, creating a range of challenges for human resource practitioners in managing and developing both groups.
Fifteen - Policy and the labour movement
- Edited by Brian Head, The University of Queensland, Australia, Kate Crowley, University of Tasmania
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- Book:
- Policy Analysis in Australia
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 10 March 2022
- Print publication:
- 14 October 2015, pp 231-244
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Summary
Introduction
How have Australian trade unions attempted to influence public policy development? In analysing union influence on public policymaking during 1983–2013, we identify several distinct patterns of engagement by unions with the policy process during three very different political and policy environments. We see unions as ‘core insiders’ in the policymaking process under the Hawke– Keating Labor government (1983–96), as ‘outsiders of necessity’ under the Howard conservative Coalition government (1996–2007) and as a hybrid of ‘specialist insider groups’ and ‘outsider groups of choice’ under the Rudd–Gillard Labor government (2007–13). While these shifts in unions’ strategic orientation can be understood as responses to changes in the policy and political agendas of respective governments, they also reflect changes in the structure and organisation of – and strategic thinking within – the labour movement.
During the last 30 years, unions’ strategies differed markedly, as did their relationships with governments and their capacity to influence policymaking. Investigating three decades means that the account provided is somewhat schematic, but the benefit is that we are able to emphasise and, to some extent, explain the contingent nature of union orientation and influence. At various times in their history, some unions have sought to exercise influence over very wide areas of public policy. Here, however, we pay particular attention to policy in the field of industrial relations, for example, in relation to the system of wage fixing, but we attempt to incorporate union interventions across a broader policy landscape, such as labour market, economic and social policy.
To explain the nature of union influence over policymaking, we identify distinct, overarching strategic orientations in changing contexts. Among the various political science perspectives on the role of interest groups in the policymaking process, the nature of union engagement over the past 30 years is best understood in terms of the ‘insiders–outsiders’ framework developed by Grant (2000). We argue that while the environment in which unions operate is critical for understanding their strategic orientation, exogenous forces do not, solely, shape union action. Union ‘organisation’ – membership, intra-union relations, political and cultural focus and frames of reference, gender relations, and the like – plays a critical role in mediating union engagement with the policy process.
Contributors
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- By Aakash Agarwala, Linda S. Aglio, Rae M. Allain, Paul D. Allen, Houman Amirfarzan, Yasodananda Kumar Areti, Amit Asopa, Edwin G. Avery, Patricia R. Bachiller, Angela M. Bader, Rana Badr, Sibinka Bajic, David J. Baker, Sheila R. Barnett, Rena Beckerly, Lorenzo Berra, Walter Bethune, Sascha S. Beutler, Tarun Bhalla, Edward A. Bittner, Jonathan D. Bloom, Alina V. Bodas, Lina M. Bolanos-Diaz, Ruma R. Bose, Jan Boublik, John P. Broadnax, Jason C. Brookman, Meredith R. Brooks, Roland Brusseau, Ethan O. Bryson, Linda A. Bulich, Kenji Butterfield, William R. Camann, Denise M. Chan, Theresa S. Chang, Jonathan E. Charnin, Mark Chrostowski, Fred Cobey, Adam B. Collins, Mercedes A. Concepcion, Christopher W. Connor, Bronwyn Cooper, Jeffrey B. Cooper, Martha Cordoba-Amorocho, Stephen B. Corn, Darin J. Correll, Gregory J. Crosby, Lisa J. Crossley, Deborah J. Culley, Tomas Cvrk, Michael N. D'Ambra, Michael Decker, Daniel F. Dedrick, Mark Dershwitz, Francis X. Dillon, Pradeep Dinakar, Alimorad G. Djalali, D. John Doyle, Lambertus Drop, Ian F. Dunn, Theodore E. Dushane, Sunil Eappen, Thomas Edrich, Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, Jason M. Erlich, Lucinda L. Everett, Elliott S. Farber, Khaldoun Faris, Eddy M. Feliz, Massimo Ferrigno, Richard S. Field, Michael G. Fitzsimons, Hugh L. Flanagan Jr., Vladimir Formanek, Amanda A. Fox, John A. Fox, Gyorgy Frendl, Tanja S. Frey, Samuel M. Galvagno Jr., Edward R. Garcia, Jonathan D. Gates, Cosmin Gauran, Brian J. Gelfand, Simon Gelman, Alexander C. Gerhart, Peter Gerner, Omid Ghalambor, Christopher J. Gilligan, Christian D. Gonzalez, Noah E. Gordon, William B. Gormley, Thomas J. Graetz, Wendy L. Gross, Amit Gupta, James P. Hardy, Seetharaman Hariharan, Miriam Harnett, Philip M. Hartigan, Joaquim M. Havens, Bishr Haydar, Stephen O. Heard, James L. Helstrom, David L. Hepner, McCallum R. Hoyt, Robert N. Jamison, Karinne Jervis, Stephanie B. Jones, Swaminathan Karthik, Richard M. Kaufman, Shubjeet Kaur, Lee A. Kearse Jr., John C. Keel, Scott D. Kelley, Albert H. Kim, Amy L. Kim, Grace Y. Kim, Robert J. Klickovich, Robert M. Knapp, Bhavani S. Kodali, Rahul Koka, Alina Lazar, Laura H. Leduc, Stanley Leeson, Lisa R. Leffert, Scott A. LeGrand, Patricio Leyton, J. Lance Lichtor, John Lin, Alvaro A. Macias, Karan Madan, Sohail K. Mahboobi, Devi Mahendran, Christine Mai, Sayeed Malek, S. Rao Mallampati, Thomas J. Mancuso, Ramon Martin, Matthew C. Martinez, J. A. Jeevendra Martyn, Kai Matthes, Tommaso Mauri, Mary Ellen McCann, Shannon S. McKenna, Dennis J. McNicholl, Abdel-Kader Mehio, Thor C. Milland, Tonya L. K. Miller, John D. Mitchell, K. Annette Mizuguchi, Naila Moghul, David R. Moss, Ross J. Musumeci, Naveen Nathan, Ju-Mei Ng, Liem C. Nguyen, Ervant Nishanian, Martina Nowak, Ala Nozari, Michael Nurok, Arti Ori, Rafael A. Ortega, Amy J. Ortman, David Oxman, Arvind Palanisamy, Carlo Pancaro, Lisbeth Lopez Pappas, Benjamin Parish, Samuel Park, Deborah S. Pederson, Beverly K. Philip, James H. Philip, Silvia Pivi, Stephen D. Pratt, Douglas E. Raines, Stephen L. Ratcliff, James P. Rathmell, J. Taylor Reed, Elizabeth M. Rickerson, Selwyn O. Rogers Jr., Thomas M. Romanelli, William H. Rosenblatt, Carl E. Rosow, Edgar L. Ross, J. Victor Ryckman, Mônica M. Sá Rêgo, Nicholas Sadovnikoff, Warren S. Sandberg, Annette Y. Schure, B. Scott Segal, Navil F. Sethna, Swapneel K. Shah, Shaheen F. Shaikh, Fred E. Shapiro, Torin D. Shear, Prem S. Shekar, Stanton K. Shernan, Naomi Shimizu, Douglas C. Shook, Kamal K. Sikka, Pankaj K. Sikka, David A. Silver, Jeffrey H. Silverstein, Emily A. Singer, Ken Solt, Spiro G. Spanakis, Wolfgang Steudel, Matthias Stopfkuchen-Evans, Michael P. Storey, Gary R. Strichartz, Balachundhar Subramaniam, Wariya Sukhupragarn, John Summers, Shine Sun, Eswar Sundar, Sugantha Sundar, Neelakantan Sunder, Faraz Syed, Usha B. Tedrow, Nelson L. Thaemert, George P. Topulos, Lawrence C. Tsen, Richard D. Urman, Charles A. Vacanti, Francis X. Vacanti, Joshua C. Vacanti, Assia Valovska, Ivan T. Valovski, Mary Ann Vann, Susan Vassallo, Anasuya Vasudevan, Kamen V. Vlassakov, Gian Paolo Volpato, Essi M. Vulli, J. Matthias Walz, Jingping Wang, James F. Watkins, Maxwell Weinmann, Sharon L. Wetherall, Mallory Williams, Sarah H. Wiser, Zhiling Xiong, Warren M. Zapol, Jie Zhou
- Edited by Charles Vacanti, Scott Segal, Pankaj Sikka, Richard Urman
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- Book:
- Essential Clinical Anesthesia
- Published online:
- 05 January 2012
- Print publication:
- 11 July 2011, pp xv-xxviii
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7 - Union Power
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- By Rae Cooper, University of Sydney, Sydney, Bradon Ellem, University of Sydney, Sydney
- Edited by Mark Hearn, University of Sydney, Grant Michelson, University of Sydney
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- Book:
- Rethinking Work
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 13 February 2006, pp 123-143
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Summary
For most of the ‘boom years’ from soon after the end of the Second World War to the economic crises of the 1970s, Australian unions, like those in so many other market societies, enjoyed high levels of membership and apparently entrenched power. In this world, different from the old capitalism which preceded it and the new one which has followed it, the social institutions that made ‘industrial relations’ were consolidated after what had been a much less certain period before the war. Collective bargaining and workers' unions were central elements of this world, but today they are both under threat. Membership has collapsed from postwar highs; individualism tramples over collectivism.
This chapter sets out an argument about the present union crisis. Contrary to much orthodoxy, we argue that Australian unionism has undergone immense change in the recent past. Many things point to this: the corporatist Accord with the national Labor government, the rationalisation of unions through amalgamation, the adoption of organising strategies. The membership base has been transformed, such that over 42 per cent of all unionists are women, a figure more or less in line with the gender division of the paid workforce. Unlike other countries, there are no ethnic and racial groups conspicuously excluded from the union movement. Nevertheless, union power and membership remain, quite clearly, in crisis.
The chapter draws on the human geographers and the industrial relations researchers who see unions as agents of their own history and argue that unions themselves hold the key to their survival.