Bradley Bowden

Unanticipated safety outcomes: Shiftwork and drive-in, drive-out workforce in Queensland's Bowen Basin

Extended work shifts (more than 8 hours) and a marked increase in the use of a contractor workforce has resulted in significant productivity gains for employers. These developments we argue have resulted in an unanticipated outcome that has OHS implications: the emergence of a drive-in drive-out workforce (DIDOW) - in the case we studied, a workforce that is permanently based outside Queenslands Bowen Basin but travels to and from their place of work. The concern with a DIDOW is that the workers are at greater risk of driver sleepiness as a function of the work schedule compounded by a long-distance commute. These factors place the driver and the community at a greater accident risk. The results suggested some drivers commenced travel at 0200 and drove up to 1300 km to work. Driving in the early morning and traveling longer distances were associated with significantly higher levels of self-reported sleepiness. Some 13% of drivers reported falling asleep when driving to commence day shift compared to 23% following night shift. Driver sleepiness is a significant safety risk factor in a DIDOW. We anticipate that the planned expansion of the coal industry will result in more employees joining the DIDOW, putting more people at risk of accident.

Recasting industrial relations: Productivity, place and the Queensland coal industry, 2001–2013

The link between industrial relations and productivity is contentious. It is often argued that particular industrial relations models are more or less conducive to greater productivity. However, this article, in exploring this issue through an examination of the Queensland coal industry since 2001, finds no evidence of such a link. Instead, it finds that the more employer-friendly industrial relations system that has prevailed in Queensland coal mining since 1996 has been associated with both rising (1996–2000 and 2011–2013) and falling (2001–2011) productivity. Instead, the only correlation that seems to hold true is that between the productivity and the state of the labour market. Since 1996, on every occasion that productivity rose (1996–2000 and 2011–2013), employment was falling. Conversely, when employment rose (2001–2011), productivity fell. Suggestively, rising employment was always associated with rising coal prices, while falling employment was always correlated with declining price. If there is no evidence of a link between industrial relations settings and productivity, this study nevertheless finds that a profound recasting of industrial relations has occurred in this sector. This has involved systematic attempts to circumvent not only the unionized workforce, but also, more recently, the Central Queensland coal communities themselves.

THE ORGANISING MODEL IN AUSTRALIA: A REASSESSMENT

Throughout the Anglo-Saxon world the ‘organising model’ has become the key union strategy for reversing membership decline. This article, however, argues that this model is conceptually flawed, in that it overlooks the significance of structural factors and strategies directed towards the regulation of occupational labour markets. In the absence of a system of industry or occupation-wide regulation even the best organised workplaces are exposed to de-unionisation. Sixteen years after its Australian adoption there is little evidence that the organising model has had any meaningful impact.

Dust, contractors, politics and silicosis: Conflicting narratives and the Queensland Royal commission into miners’ phthisis, 1911

In 1909–10 the Queensland Parliamentary Labor Party was rebuilding its strength from the Opposition benches after a damaging split with its former leader, William Kidston, who continued as premier in alliance with more conservative politicians. Reflecting the concerns of hard‐rock miners, the party campaigned to ameliorate the occupational disease silicosis (miners’ phthisis). In December 1910 a Royal Commission was appointed to enquire into this ‘evil’. This opportunity was squandered by the commissions conservative findings, the governments action in placing responsibility for dust suppression on tributers and contractors and the reluctance of mining unions to alienate the latter groups by making silicosis an industrial issue. This article attempts to recover employer and employee narratives that helped shape this pivotal event whose legacy cast a long shadow over the lives of Queensland mining families.

A study of resource dependency: the coal supply strategy of the Japanese steel mills – 1960‐2010

Purpose – The development of the Pacific seaborne coal trade since 1960 has been central to East Asias economic expansion. In exploring the growth of this trade this paper seeks to understand why Japanese steel mills (JSMs), the worlds largest coal importers, used few of the strategies that one would expect in the light of resource dependency theory, relying instead on market exchanges.Design/methodology/approach – This study relies primarily on archival sources, held by the Departments of Mines and Natural Resources in Victoria (British Columbia) and Brisbane (Australia) to reconstruct changing patterns of supply and price in the Pacific coal trade.Findings – It is found that by relying on a strategy that amounted to “vertical quasi‐integration” JSMs were able to use their combined power to dictate the terms of market exchanges with buyers during the 1980 and 1990s. By 2000, however, this strategy had become counter‐productive, as low prices fostered the emergence of a powerful Australian‐based selling...

Re‐considering managerial use of child labor: Lessons from the experience of nineteenth century Australia

Purpose – Much research has focused on the reasons for child labor. This paper, in examining the experiences of late nineteenth century Australia seeks to ask the alternate research question: “What are the factors that cause managers to desist from the use of child labor during periods of initial industrialization, even where the society is characterized by a youthful demography and low levels of manufacturing productivity?”.Design/methodology/approach – This study measures the incidence of child labor in Queensland, Australias third largest state, through an examination of the censuses for 1891 and 1901. It then locates the results of this analysis in the nineteenth century Australian peculiar pattern of economic investment.Findings – It is found that industrializing Australia had an extremely low incidence of child labor. This is attributed to the highly capitalized nature of the Australian rural and mining sectors, and the linkages between these sectors and the wider economy. This suggests that counti...

A Time 'the like of which was never before experienced': Changing Community loyalties in Ipswich, 1900-12

During the nineteenth century, Ipswich was Queenslands premier industrial centre outside the colonys capital, its prosperity resting on the districts coal mines and railway workshops. Yet, despite Ipswich being an overwhelming working class town, organised labour remained a marginal force. Instead, Ipswichs workers and their families placed local loyalties ahead of industrial allegiances. The strength of these local ties reflected the importance of family owned concerns, which allowed the towns patriarchs to dominate Ipswichs political and social life. After 1900, however, Ipswichs political-economy underwent a profound transformation as the towns old families lost their position of pre-eminence to outside firms. As new avenues for employment emerged, organised labour found the social space in which to develop its own sense of identity. This labour identity was, however, shaped by the experience of Ipswichs various locations, producing not a united working class, but one fractured by differing goals and aspirations.

Commentary—Bangladesh Clothing Factory Fires: The Way Forward

The Bangladeshi clothing factory fires and building collapses that killed thousands of workers in 2012 and 2013 created international outrage. One result of this was the Accord on fire and building safety in Bangladesh, an Accord signed between garment retailers and their Bangladeshi suppliers. This article explores this response by placing the recent Bangladeshi disasters in a wider historical context. It argues that disasters such as those that have occurred in Bangladesh have their root cause in a production “bottle-neck”. While spinning and weaving is highly mechanized, the final step in clothing manufacture (sewing) is labour intensive. This creates an age-old drive to lower costs by concentrating low-paid clothing workers in buildings that are not designed for the job at hand. Fire and building collapses are the inevitable result.

Benchmarking, Global Best Practice and Production Renorming in the Australian Coal Industry: The Impact of Globalization

Globalization is a potentially rich, but also deeply ambiguous concept for framing current developments in political economy. The very notion of globalization seems to capture in the most efficient way possible the spirit and experiences of our times, from currency meltdowns to the internationalization of taste through global media and advertising. At the same moment though, the sceptic is entitled to ask: what is so novel in all of this as to merit the popularization of another new term in the social sciences?1

Heroic Failure? Unionism and Queensland's Coal Communities, 1954-67

Abstract This article records the struggle waged by the Queensland Colliery Employees ‘Union, the state branch of the Miners’ Federation, in defence of jobs between 1954 and 1967. This struggle was unsuccessful, in that it failed to achieve its objective of protecting underground jobs. Despite this failure, however, the campaign to defend the collieries managed to overcome the traditionally locality-based outlook of Queenslands coal miners, producing organising techniques and an industrial vision that proved the salvation of the union. When the union began a large-scale organising campaign in open-cut mining after 1967 it took to this new sector a tradition of militancy and resistance that no other coal union could equal.