Sally Weller

An argument with neoliberalism Australia’s place in a global imaginary

This article argues that the uncritical application of the lens of neoliberalism closes off opportunities for more rigorous analysis of actually existing socio-economic change. We ask whether Australia’s developmental trajectory over the last three decades can be described as neoliberalization and whether the outcome is a variety of neoliberalism. Instead of stitching together a story about variegated neoliberalism, we find an alternative narrative based around the notion of a developmental project more compelling. We document the spatial and political realities that have inhibited the roll-out of neoliberal ideas and practices in the Australian context. We think that instead of expanding the varieties of variegated neoliberalism to accommodate all manner of events and processes in all sorts of places, our task should be to recognize those instances where social, political, cultural or economic changes settle capitalism’s contradictions in ways that diverge from neoliberal frameworks and expectations. Our central point is that the role of academic research is to explain the lived world and to develop abstractions to aid that explanation, rather than to design an abstraction (neoliberalism) and then fit the lived world to its contours.

Clothing Outwork: Union Strategy, Labour Regulation and Labour Market Restructuring

On 12 March 1998 the Australian Industrial Relations Commission found that tbe clauses of the Clothing Trades Award dealing with the regulation of outwork in the clothing industry were allowable in their entirety under section 89A2(t) of the Workplace Relations Act 1996. This decision preserves the mechanisms that will enable the award to be enforced according to the industrys Homeworker Code of Practice. This paper describes the unions community action campaign against unregu lated clothing outwork, a campaign that bas successfully focused public attention on the need to establish safeguards for outworker employment at a time when employee protection more generally is under threat. It attributes tbe progress in regulating outwork to the unions public awareness campaign and its uneven impact on the competitive position of employers, to a resultant change in employer attitudes and strategies, and to the governments desire to quieten opposition to its industrial relations agenda.

Re-employment after Retrenchment: Evidence from the TCF Industry Study

Industry Commission inquiries into the passenger motor vehicle and textiles clothing and footwear (TCF) industries have focused attention on the employment prospects of workers who are displaced as a result of structural change. The fact that older and less skilled workers face considerable difficulty finding new employment is now widely recognised. In this paper we examine the post-retrenchment outcomes for workers retrenched from jobs in the TCF sector. The method of analysis— discrete-time event history analysis—improves on previous studies of post-retrenchment outcomes because labour market conditions are incorporated into the statistical model, redressing the over-emphasis on supply-side issues that characterise previous research. The analysis shows that local and national labour market conditions are important determinants of employment outcomes. Personal characteristics, household circumstances and ascribed skill are also important as employers use these attributes to filter potential recruits. The analysis suggests that the utility of retraining is variable, enhancing the employability of workers with the best prospects (based on their personal characteristics and skills) before taking up retraining but decreasing the employment chances of those with poorer prospects.

Casual employment and employer strategy

Abstract This paper examines how recruitment practices have shaped the increasing incidence of casual work in manufacturing firms. The growth of casual employment is seen as an outcome of recruitment practices developed to meet internal labour demands in the context of changing labour regulations and changing relationships between firms and the labour market. This paper highlights the heterogeneous nature of casual jobs, identifying six forms of casual employment each with different purposes, causes and longer term labour market implications. While casual employment is a function of ‘demand-side’ factors, the recruitment strategies that stimulate its growth are formed through managers’ perceptions of the quality and reliability of the available labour supply.

Family or enterprise? What shapes the business structures of Australian farming?

ABSTRACT Australian farmers navigate their contemporary circumstances through the use of different business and legal arrangements that are shaped by the commercial realities of farming and the aspirations of farm-owning households. In posing the question ‘Family or Enterprise?’, this paper examines the extent to which various household and farm business indicators are associated with different forms of farm ownership, namely sole proprietorships, partnerships, trusts and companies. Results from a postal survey of farm enterprises in Victoria, Australia suggest that both household and enterprise factors contribute to the business structure used, although the strongest determinants appear to be those factors that are less well understood in the rural geographical and sociological literature: household composition, farmer age and farm size. Greater scrutiny of the business instruments deployed by farmers to manage family and enterprise pressures should inform expectations of the fate of family farming in advanced financialised economies.

Regulating Clothing Outwork: A Sceptic’s View

By applying the strategies of international anti-sweatshop campaigns to the Australian context, recent regulations governing home-based clothing production hold retailers responsible for policing the wages and employment conditions of clothing outworkers who manufacture clothing on their behalf. This article argues that the new approach oversimplifies the regulatory challenge by assuming (1) that Australian clothing production is organized in a hierarchical ‘buyer-led’ linear structure in which core retail firms have the capacity to control their suppliers’ behaviour; (2) that firms act as unitary moral agents; and, (3) that interventions imported from other times and places are applicable to the contemporary Australian context. After considering some alternative regulatory approaches, the article concludes that the new regulatory strategy effectively privatizes responsibility for labour market conditions - a development that cries out for further debate.

Actually existing political economies

In this response, we are prompted by the commentaries to discuss three issues: the need to be wary of malleability in the definitions of keywords like neoliberalism; the importance in economic geography of close study of the national scale and the relationships among state policies, economies, societies and national developmental trajectories; and the concern we have about the assumed political utility of the idea of neoliberalism now that its use is widespread. We conclude by reiterating our scepticism that all manner of changes are capable of being enrolled as aspects of ‘variegated’ neoliberalism. Our argument is that the important detail of political–economic change is too often overlooked as a direct consequence.

Participation in Labour Adjustment Assistance: The TCF Labour Adjustment Package

The 1988 sector-based industry plan for restructuring of the Australian Textiles Clothing and Footwear industries accelerated the decline of employment in the TCF sector. Many of those thrown out of work by TCF plant closures were women, older workers, and workers from non-English speaking backgrounds who would find it difficult to re-establish themselves in the labour market. The Hawke government provided a package of labour adjustment assistance designed to help the retrenched TCF workers find jobs in other industries. This paper examines the rates of participation by retrenched TCF workers in the TCF Labour Adjustment Package. Drawing on both statistical and case study evidence it explores the different take-up rates by different subgroups of retrenched TCF workers. The paper concludes by exploring the implications for labour market interventions more generally.