Judith Sloan

Penalty Rates and Labour Supply: Employee Attitudes to Non-Standard Hours of Work:

This paper considers the supply of labour to non-standard hours of work. If penalty rates for such hours of work were reduced, any potential employment creation due to increased labour demand would depend in part on the labour supply response. We consider the rationale for penalty rates, changes in the labour force and in the length of working hours, and evidence on employee attitudes (including in-depth discussion groups that we have organized). It is concluded that changes since the introduction of penalty rates and the heterogeneity of employee preferences make the rigid structure of penalty rates inappropriate. Appropriate patterns of working time and associated compensation vary substantially among industries and occupations.

Award Restructuring: Factors Associated with its Progress and Success

Abstract Interne debate surrounds the issue of award restructuring in Australia. This paper seeks to inform this debate by analyzing results from a survey of workplace managers seeking their views on the amount of progress being made with, and the outcomes being achieved from, award restructuring. In particular, sophisticated multivariate techniques are used to identify those workplace characteristics associated with successful negotiation and implementation. A four-stage model of the process Is tested and the results indicate that success with award restructuring, as observed at the workplace level, is most dependent on the presence of structures which facilitate enterprise bargaining plus the quality of management. Also found to be of importance at various stages of the model are multiple unions, a cooperative industrial relations environment, the strength of product markets, the level of exposure of market to technological change and competition, award jurisdiction, the Importance of awards and labour ...

Trade Union Structure and Workplace Efficiency: An Agenda for Reform

tag=1 data=Trade union structure and workplace efficiency: an agenda for reform. by Judith Sloan, Mark Wooden. tag=2 data=Sloan, Judith%Wooden, Mark tag=3 data=The Australian Quarterly, tag=4 data=62 tag=5 data=3 tag=6 data=Spring 1990 tag=7 data=206-216. tag=8 data=TRADE UNIONS tag=10 data=Since the late 1970s the question of whether trade unions enhance or detract from productivity at the workplace has become very controversial. tag=11 data=1991/3/2 tag=12 data=91/0233 tag=13 data=CAB

The Economic Implications of Enterprise Bargaining

The economic implications of enterprise bargaining depend critically on the precise version of enterprise bargaining being contemplated. One version sees enterprise bargaining as an add-on process, with the existing bank of awards retained, and trade unions playing a central and protected role. Another version sees enterprise bargaining as an holistic process, wherein all terms and conditions of employment can be negotiated subject to some minimum conditions. Trade unions may play some role, but not to the exclusion of other bargaining agents. Add-on enterprise bargaining may have only a small impact on productivity; there is a danger that wage (and price) inflation could increase; and the impact on employment is uncertain. Holistic enterprise bargaining is likely to have a more substantial impact on productivity; is unlikely to lead to inflation; and employment growth should be boosted. However, power-reducing policies and the abolition of awards are necessary correlates of holistic enterprise bargaining.

The Unionization of Young People in Australia

In 1982, 53 per cent of adult employees (25 years and older) in Australia belonged to a trade union while 44 per cent of young adult employees (20 to 24 years old) and 31 per cent of teenage employees were union members. This article describes and analyses the unionization of young people in A ustralia. The principal issue addressed is why the unionization of young people is low relative to that of adults. Several key reasons emerge. These are the non-unionization of apprentices, the industrial distribution of the employment of young people (with their over-representation in low-unianized sectors) and high turnover rates among young employees. Contrary to expectations, the number of hours worked does not contribute to the explanation of the relatively low unionization of young people.

An Economic Analysis of the 1998 Patrick Dispute

This article considers some of the policy issues at stake in the waterfront dispute, including an analysis of the factors that led to the dispute and a discussion of the likely outcomes of the new negotiated agreements. It concludes that the introduction of another competitor into the Australian stevedoring industry is relatively unlikely. Without such competition and in the face of 100 percent unionisation, it is not clear whether the short-run gains in productivity from the latest round of enterprise agreements will necessarily be sustained.

Book Reviews : ALTERNATIVE SYSTEMS OF BUSINESS ORGANIZATION AND OF WORKERS' REMUNERATION By J. E. Meade. George Allen & Unwin, London, 1986, x + 144 pp.,

Scope for employee advancement and grievance handling procedures surfaced as the two most significant determinants of the inter-organizational variations in the state of labour-management relations. Sharma’s conclusion, that ’to bring about an improvement in labor-management relations on a country-wide level, it would be necessary to improve both (a) opportunities for advancement and growth, and (b) methods and approaches to grievance handling’ (pages 138-9), may make sense in the background of existing reality, but a study of this magnitude surely should also provide meaningful explanations. It is conceivable that what the Indian situation represents is

58.95 (hardback)

The following comments constitute a more general assessment of the textbook. To begin, one would not fault the clear and useful diagrams, tables and reading guides for students, nor the production and presentation of the text (which has improved since the last edition). In terms of content, general textbooks such as this are expected to provide a sound and relatively broad coverage of the ‘foundations’ of the subject in question, that is, to adequately represent the ’mainstream’ in most cases. There is no doubt that this text does this, and the second edition probably does it better than the first. Further, the last section also does something else, by presenting a broad coverage of a number of interesting policy issues. For teaching purposes this allows a course to build on some of the interest and knowledge that often draws students to industrial relations. This is a strength of the text, which makes

Book Reviews : Policy, Power and Order: the Persistence of Economic Problems in Capitalist States: By Kerry Schott. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1984, ix + 206 pp. (No price stated)

The complexities of Australian society and the existing work on power and privilege deserve more consideration than this. Under the heading ’Education for What?’, the problems of education suffer a similar fate. We are presented with a set of arguments familiar to any reader of Government Reports (such as the Williams Committee Report) about the goals of education. Alongside this, evidence is assembled to show that young Australians

book reviews : Industrial Action: Patterns of Labour Conflict Stephen J. Frenkel (Editor) , Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1980, pp. 176,

* Economics Discipline, Flinders University of South Australia, Bedford Park, SA 5042. In a recent article in the ./OM/7M/, M. A. Haskell considers some of the implications of interfield salary uniformity within academia.’ The author concludes that through variations in the proportion of senior posts between disciplines and differential placement of individuals within existing salary brackets, ’university administrators have not been unduly constrained in matching the supply of and the demand for academic personnel’. While it is not the intention of this comment to contradict this broad conclusion, it is argued that a very important dimension of the adjustment mechanism has been overlooked, namely ’quality’. Moreover, it is held that the evidence presented by Haskell to demonstrate his hypotheses should be treated cautiously.