Employer Matters in 2005

Abstract

By any reckoning, the year 2005 will long be remembered as a watershed year for Australian industrial relations. While there were the usual types of industrial disputes, on-going enterprise bargaining and another round of arguments over the Australian Industrial Relations Commission's (AIRC's) annual safety-net review, the year was dominated by the looming re-writing of Australia's industrial relations regulatory regime, made possible by the Government's surprise majority in the Senate, granted to them in late 2004. Viewed as a looming dark cloud by some or a shining light by others, most of 2005 was spent in anxious anticipation of the Howard government's impending 'WorkChoices' legislation. Employer groups spent much of the year lobbying the Howard government for the types of reforms long cherished, but only dreamed of by employers, for arguably 100 years. A once in a lifetime opportunity had presented itself and employer groups were determined to take full advantage of the situation, by ensuring that the government did not lose its nerve. Perhaps more importantly, however, in addition to lobbying the government, major employer organizations devoted significant resources to building the case for industrial relations reform and attempting to sell that message to the electorate. By year's end, employers had succeeded in the first objective, but had seemingly failed in the second.

Industry differences in the neoliberal transformation of Australian industrial relations

“…By the mid‐1990s, the ‘new right’ demands for decollectivisation, once perceived as reflecting a radical minority, had reshaped mainstream employer opinion. The election of the Howard government in 1996 created an opportunity for organisations such as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Mines and Minerals Association to advocate neoliberalism and related legislative change (see, for example, Hearn‐Mackinnon, 2006; Lyons, 2007; Plowman, 2004; Thornthwaite and Sheldon, 1999; 2000; 2001).…”

Employer and employer association matters in Australia in 2017

“…Sheldon and Thornthwaite (1999) argued that the Business Council of Australia (BCA) decisively shaped IR reform by successfully advocating for a system of decentralised bargaining in the late 1980s and early 1990s, though Briggs (2001) also persuasively argued that powerful elements within the union movement were crucial to the transition to enterprise bargaining. Thornthwaite and Sheldon (2012) and Mackinnon (2006, 2007) also documented employers' considerable success in moulding labour market regulation during the Howard Government years, which culminated in the passage of the Work Choices Act 2005 (Cth).…”

Employer and Employer Association Experiences of Enterprise Bargaining: Being Careful What You Wish For?

“…As a corollary, unions simultaneously suffered a general narrowing and 'shallowing-out' of choices, making it harder for them to recruit, retain and represent members. These are situations that a number of large and Downloaded by [University of Otago] at 07:23 19 July 2015 powerful employers have gone out of their way to exploit strategically in order to attack unionism (Hearn Mackinnon 2005;Cooper, Ellem, Briggs and van den Broek 2009).…”

“…However, where Work Choices stripped employers of virtually any obligation to bargain, the FW Act reinstated a legal framework that supports a bounded collective bargaining that nonetheless meets most of the principal demands that employer associations had been making since the mid 1980s. The forums and methods through which organizations of employers developed an increasingly unified vision for industrial relations change, and lobbied for legislative changes to give effect to their vision, have been documented elsewhere (Sheldon and Thornthwaite 1993, 1999a, 1999b, 2001and 2003Sheldon 2000 and2002;Hearn Mackinnon 2005 and2006) In promoting the dismantling of a tribune-centred bargaining structure in favour of confining collective bargaining to the enterprise level, employer associations argued that an enterprise-based bargaining system would advantage both individual employers and industries more generally. The specific advantages they emphasised changed over time but, for the most part, they coalesced around three main and interconnected themes.…”