Georgina Murray

‘You Get Really Old, Really Quick’: Involuntary Long Hours in the Mining Industry

Is there a job-quality problem in mining? Is part of this problem that mining employees are working involuntary long hours? If so, how extensive is this problem? What is the impact, if any, of involuntary long hours in mining on family life? And how much control do mining employees have over their working-time arrangements? What are the possible policy responses? We address these questions through analysis of data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Australian Work and Life Index survey, a survey of employees in Queensland, and qualitative interviews with 135 people associated with the Queensland mining industry. We find evidence of substantial involuntary long hours in mining, closely related to 24-hour operations and 12-hour shifts, with adverse implications for the work—life balance, which is made worse where employees lack input into the design of rosters. The findings suggest that, in order to promote ‘good jobs’ in the mining industry, there is both a need to revisit protections for employees against being forced to work ‘unreasonable’ hours above the ostensible national standard of 38 hours per week and strong support even amongst mine-workers for a ceiling on hours worked per week.

Working with Guanxi: An Assessment of the Implications of Globalisation on Business Networking in China

Cross cultural literature has suggested China has a business culture based on family networks or guanxi connections underpinned by strong Confucian ethics. We argue that Chinese business may have distinctly national cultural attributes (that international businesses ignore at their peril) but we reassess the continuing significance of these historical cultural concepts. We query whether a system of networks consolidated during fifty years of state-owned enterprises can still have application on the considerably larger scale of multinational corporate business of todays China. Interview data collected from Australian expatriates in China in 2001 is used to assess the relevance of guanxi for effective international operations in China from the perspective of Australian expatriate managers.

Black Empowerment in South Africa: “Patriotic Capitalism” or a Corporate Black Wash?

This article triangulates data to show that black empowerment in top business is not happening. Black empowerment (defined in this context as initiatives to give the black community access to corporate ownership and management roles) has made little impact in South Africa since 1994. The sample of three black empowerment companies and five top South African companies shows that top business remains predominantly white, with few signs of black integration into ownership or management. The failure of black empowerment was ensured when the African National Congress government failed to nationalise key industries (as the Afrikaner National Party did in 1948) or even to bolster its parastatals (government organizations) enough to build a strong black middle class. The ANC could not overcome its fear of white-capital-flight (a flight that happened anyway) and withstand the pressure from economic liberals. The Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) programme is the tragic result of this fear.

Business power in Australia: The concentration of company directorship holding among the top 250 corporates

This paper presents results from a comparative study of company directors of the top 250 Australian companies. The paper analyses the concentration of directorship holding in Australia and New Zealand in 1991 and compares this with other Australian, New Zealand, British, Canadian and American studies. The paper argues that while the density of interorganisational interlocks in Australia is quite normal by international standards, such comparisons are substantially affected by the relatively small number of board positions characteristic of Australian companies. When we allow for this external parameter by considering the concentration of directorship holding by persons, there is evidence of a significant concentration of available positions in the hands of relatively few persons in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The paper suggests that the organisation of business power in Australia reflects a continuing tension between principles of regulation derived from the larger economies of Britain and the Unit...

Financial Elites and Transnational Business

Several expert contributors focus on global issues, including the role of transnational finance, interlocking directorates, ownership and tax havens. Others examine how these issues at the global level interact with the regional or nation state level in the US, the UK, China, Australia and Mexico. The books scrutinizes globalization from a fresh, holistic perspective, examining the relationship between the national and transnational to uncover the most significant structures and agents of power. Possible policy futures are also considered.

Does age affect the relationship between control at work and sleep disturbance for shift workers

Among miners, shift work, aging and lack of control at work may be factors leading to increased sleep problems. Such risk factors may also operate in interaction, resulting in an even increased harm for sleep disruption. The present study aims at evaluating these relationships drawing on a sample of Australian mine and energy workers and their partners. The workers were mainly men. All performed shift work that included either nights (95%) or multiple shifts (92%), usually both (87%), while 36% were aged 50 years or above. The results show that low latitude over work activities is associated with higher sleep disturbances across the sample, though the effects are clearer amongst younger workers. By contrast, for younger workers, control over shift scheduling is not associated with sleep disturbances but for workers aged 50 or more, low control results in more sleep disturbance. Misalignment between shift workers and partner work schedules, and partner dissatisfaction with shift workers employment and shift workers work-life balance, are also associated with more sleep disturbances amongst shift workers.

Financialization of corporate ownership and implications for the potential for climate action

Abstract Purpose – To investigate whether investor interest in climate issues affects the carbon behavior of the corporations in which they may invest (target corporations). Methodology/approach – We developed the Finance and Climate Database, merging data on ownership, carbon disclosure, and investor climate interest from several sources, with 30,840 shareholder unit observations. We supplemented analysis of this with interviews. Findings – Climate-interested investors (CIIs) account for well over a third of the ownership of the world’s very large corporations. More activist CIIs may make a difference to carbon behavior of target corporations where their shareholdings are large enough to enable them to exert power, at or above around 1.5 percent of a target company’s shares. Share price volatility also strongly affects carbon behavior, and the balance of power in investment presently favors the short term over the long term. Research limitations/implications – More precise proxies for carbon interest and carbon behavior would benefit future research. Social implications – There is potential for far greater influence by individual CIIs. The most important factor in shifting the balance of power from the short term to the long term would be global agreement on a carbon pricing system. Originality/value of chapter – This is the first time such a database has been developed or used for this purpose.

Work-related influences on marital satisfaction amongst shiftworkers and their partners: a large, matched-pairs study

This study details a large cross-sectional couples-level exploration of work-related variables and marital satisfaction (MSAT) in a shift work context. It uses a recognized MSAT scale and a number of existing and new instruments to examine work characteristics that include: support, safety climate, work–life balance, and sleep, in combination with scales for other commonly used explanatory variables in MSAT studies. The study shows that work-specific variables explain significant proportions of the variance in MSAT in both shiftworker and partner samples. We see the operation of spillover effects (work affecting other aspects of life), primary crossover effects (where the partners perception of the shiftworkers job affects their own MSAT), and secondary crossover effects (where aspects of the shiftworkers attitudes or behavior, measured in the shiftworker survey, influence partner MSAT in the partner survey). Work–life interference influences marital dissatisfaction, with negative views on the part of the partner to their spouses work–life interface being more important than partner perceptions about the partners own work–life balance. Social support for both parties, sleep quality, shiftworker morningness, psychological health, workplace risk culture, and job insecurity all played some role in MSAT, as did demographic variables such as age and the presence of children.

Ideology Down Under and the Shifting Sands of Individualism

Recent transformations in work and employment in developed countries may well be reproducing situations once typical of the developing world. Flexibility and corporate decision-making autonomy, recasting of workers’ rights and trade union roles are now firmly embedded on public policy agendas. These challenges depend on the ability of social actors to impact labour markets and the scope of their influence. Labour and Employment in a Globalising World: Autonomy, collectives and political dilemmas is a collection of essays which explore topical issues regarding work and employment from South to North. The book contextualises South-North comparisons within globalisation and converging patterns as one of its component parts. The postulate poses globalisation as a force of both standardisation and differentiation. Institutional and negotiating models standardise as they accommodate autonomous work tendencies and legal grey zones. The forms they take differ with regards to national and historical particularities. The South-North political paradigm is innovative and also engenders a paradox: growing disparities and irregularities within labour and employment markets tend, as well, to converge. This does not, however, preclude conflict, for the process of differentiation dominates the one of standardisation, both being characteristic traits of modern day capitalism. The paradigm is political as it impacts the workplace and beyond, society in the broad sense. It is a driving force of globalisation. This introduction endeavours to illustrate how political globalisation contextualises labour and employment. It is a more realistic depiction than the reductionist economic construct. It then lays out the book’s content and initiates a pluridisciplinary debate through the problematical approaches of the authors.

Australia Has a Transnational Capitalist Class

This chapter looks at the apparent contradiction of a transnational capitalist class (TCC) within the Australian nation state and asks if they do exist what is their relationship to the Australian Capitalist Class (ACC)? Is their relationship comfy, cooperative or conflictual? The test for these likely scenarios is material that comes from a longitudinal study of interlocking directors and major shareholders (drawn from the top 30 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) 1992-2007 and 300 top Australian companies listed on the Huntleys 2007 shareholder database) plus interviews with top thirty company directors over a 15 year period 1992-2007. The Australian interlock case study 1992-2007 illustrates the key organizational power structure of top national business through multiple top board interlocks. The Owner Penetration Index (OPI) allows us to measure and then point to the growing significance of TCCs in the form of J. P. Morgan, Citicorp, and HSBC. Keywords:Australian interlock case study 1992-2007; Australian Stock Exchange (ASX); Citicorp; HSBC; J. P. Morgan; Owner Penetration Index (OPI); transnational capitalist class (TCC)