David Plowman

Industrial Relations and the Legacy of New Protection

This paper argues that public policy changes towards industry protection are the underlying causes of the major industrial relations changes that are currently taking place. The operation the tariff agencies and industrial tribunals gave rise to a New Protection environment that conditioned wage outcomes and employment relations. The reduction in industry protection has reduced the scope for New Protection processes and outcomes, and has necessitated a re-evaluation of wages policy and labour costs.

The Australian Industrial Relations Literature, 1970-1986

on the contributions of individual disciplines, our clear impression is that much of the literature has maintained a distinctive multi-disciplinary character. The paper shows that approaches drawn from such diverse disciplines as law, labour history, organizational6ehaviour and labour economics have been usefully deployed in the analysis of a variety of topics. The literature has also evidenced a gradually increasing recognition of the potential contribution of theory as an integrating tool in research.

Employer Associations and Industrial Reactivity

Abstract This paper examines the contention that employer associations are reactive, rather than proactive institutions. The paper examines the role of Australian employer associations in both shap...

Industrial Legislation and the Rise of Employer Associations, 1890-1906

The strikes of the 1890s have often been depicted as a watershed in Australian industrial relations history because of their long-term impact on theformation of the Labor Party and the introduction of compulsory arbitration legislation. Whether these strikes were the cause, rather than a catalyst, of such developments, they did result in legislation giving unions a greater degree of legal encouragement and protection than had previously existed. This paper argues that the continuous existence afforded unions by this legislation made it desirable for employers to organize into permanent associations. This form of organization contrasted with the previously transient associations designed to deal with unions on an ad hoc basis. These employer associations (which should not be confused with trade associations) spearheaded employers opposition at the industrial, parliamentary and judicial levels against the new industrial legislation, especially that seeking to introduce compulsory arbitration. The paper argues that, until 1906, although employers had been unsuccessful in keeping compulsory arbitration legislation off the statute books in two states and at the Commonwealth level, they had been successful in restricting the scope and operations of those arbitration systems.

Employer Associations: Challenges and Responses

This paper analyses the responses made by employer associations to the major challenges confronting them. It is argued that employer associations are reactive organisations evolving dependent, semi-autonomous or autonomous institutions to accommodate the external challenges confronting them within their sphere of operation. Employer associations are seen as particularly re active to the countervailing power of trade unions. The presence of strong union organisations within an industry is seen as a primary reason for the estab lishment of efficient employer organisations within that industry. The internal challenges facing employer associations are also examined. These include the problems of fragmentation, proliferation, separatism, competition and member ship control. The paper contends that economic and industrial relations realities have forced associations to assess the optimum mix required for maxi mum autonomy compatible with economic and operational efficiency. The pressures for unity have grown and, notwithstanding the independent outlook both within and between employer groups, considerable rationalisation has taken place.

An Uneasy Conjunction: Opting Out and the Arbitration System

Since the enactment of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act in 1904 the federal tribunal system has provided opting out mechanisms enabling parties to enter into their own bargaining arrangements outside the formal tribunal system. Thus, in theory, there has been the potential for a two-stemmed system: a tribunal or arbitation stream and a bargaining stream. The co-existence of an arbitration stream that is required to provide general industrial standards in the public interest, and of a bargaining stream that may enable parties to circumvent those standards, has created tensions that have been resolved in favour of the formal system. Historically, opting out provisions have been highly circumscribed and have not resulted in the development of a separate bargaining stream. This paper examines the operations of the opting out provisions of the Industrial Relations Act 1988. It suggests that the Act perpetuates the tensions inherent in the two-streamed approach. It also suggests that the Act has enabled the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to curtail the parties capacity to opt out. The paper suggests changes that are needed if the legislation is to provide for genuine opting out and the development of a genuine bargaining stream.

Countervailing Power, Organisational Parallelism and Australian Employer Associations

There is a substantial body of literature which suggests that employer associations are for Med to provide a countervailing force to trade unions. One for M of countervailing power is organisational parallelism, a situation in which associations methods of organisation replicates that of unions. After examining the evidence, this paper concludes that the countervailing power thesis is inadequate in explaining the origins and development of employer associations in the Australian context.

Moulding Federal Arbitration: The Employers and the High Court 1903-1935–

The passage of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904 did not establish a stable industrial tribunal system, or predispose Australia to a system of centralised industrial regulation. Instead, in the Arbitration Courts for Mative period, employer litigation and High Court decisions were as instrumental in shaping federal arbitration as was legislation. With High Court blessing employers succeeded in frustrating compulsory arbitration for over a decade. They established the legal superiority of collective bargaining over compulsory arbitration, and of state law and wages boards determinations over awards of the federal system. After 1914, however, earlier gains were lost and the federal tribunals pre-eminence was increasingly established. This High Court reversal reflected its changed composition. Following the failure of the Bruce-Page Government in 1929 to repeal the Act and the failure of non-Labor High Court appointments in the 1930s to reverse the growth of federal arbitration, employers finally accommodated federal arbitration.

Employer Associations in New South Wales

Though employer associations perform important functions in the highly institu tionalised systems of industrial relations in Australia, very little is known about them. Our ignorance of these associations may be expected to reduce our knowledge and understanding of industrial relations. This paper presents some of the results of a 1980 survey of metropolitan employer associations in New South Wales. The survey attempted to identify several salient features of these associations including their number and range of occupational/industrial coverage, their organisational structures and inter-organisational links, their policy and decision-making apparatus, their membership rates, their perceptions of their functions and significance relating to dispute settlement procedures. The first part of the paper is concerned with formulating a functional definition of employer associations. Following the survey findings the concluding section highlights further areas of potentially fruitful research.

National Wage Determination in 1978

* Department of Industrial Relations, University of New South Wales. THREE EVENTS dominated national wage fixation in 1978: the two national wage cases-one for the March quarter, the other for the June and September quarters-and the conclusion of the long running Conference on Wage Fixation Principles. This Conference gave rise to the implementation of the Mark III version of the Centralised System of Wage Fixation Principles. Though the March quarter national wage case preceded the handing down of the new wage indexation principles, it is convenient for the purposes of this note to review the development of these principles first.