Employer Matters in 2007

Abstract

The year 2007 may well be remembered as one being short on major industrial disputation, yet one where industrial relations itself dominated public discussion and political life of the country like no other time in Australia's history. It was a year dominated by the electoral cycle, with both organized labour as well as major employers playing their cards very carefully, lest they provide political ammunition to their political and industrial opponents. Thanks largely to the effectiveness of the union movement's anti Work Choices campaign, major employer groups and their political allies the Howard government found themselves fighting a rearguard, and ultimately losing, battle, valiantly trying to defend the Work Choices regime. At year's end, the Liberal government had lost office, Prime Minister John Howard had lost his own seat in Parliament, and the Rudd Labor Government had been swept to power with a clear mandate to dismantle the Work Choices regime. Yet despite this conclusion to a year dominated by debate over industrial relations, it seems that employers had nevertheless lobbied Labor party leaders successfully enough to secure the continuation of many key components of the former Howard government's industrial relations regime.

The bulwarking of individualised workplace relations in the mining industry: Retaining managerial control within a contested regulatory space

“…The industry was extremely vocal in its opposition to Labor's proposal to scrap the SIAs, and it was reported that both Gillard and Rudd (Grattan, 2007;Norington, 2007) had a number of meetings with industry representatives to alleviate their concerns. Elements of the transitional provisions have been attributed to the extensive lobbying of the industry in opposition to the SIA's removal and consultations with Labor (Hall, 2008;Hearn Mackinnon, 2008;Sutherland, 2009) -although this was denied by the policymakers (ABC News, 2007). The WA mining industry had a much heavier reliance on these agreements than the rest of the Australian economy, hence it was in its interest to utilise the influence it had in this regulatory space to achieve a framework that enabled organisations to preserve what they had.…”

“…Hence unsurprisingly, the industry was opposed to the removal of SIAs and labelled it akin to 'economic vandalism' (WorkplaceInfo, 2007). Concerns were voiced about the prospect of negotiating with unions and the fear of a re-emergence of industrial action (Hearn Mackinnon, 2008). The industry lobbied to be exempted from the abolition of SIAs (Macdonald, 2007), and it was suggested that Labor made a number of compromises (Sutherland, 2009) to appease the industry.…”

“…While much attention was paid to the SIA-using mining organisations at the time of the development and introduction of the Fair Work regime (Hearn Mackinnon, 2008), no systematic research has been conducted on the critical question as to what eventuated when the agreements were phased out or how these organisations responded. This article focuses on the strategic choices that management across the WA mining industry made when the SIAs were removed and a collective agreement-making regime was installed by the government as the sole agreement-making method.…”

Employer and Employer Association Matters in 2009

“…As is suggested by some of the above statistics, many employers have been concerned at the prospect of union involvement in the bargaining process. One industry that has been the subject of interest in past reviews and has displayed hostility to the changed bargaining arrangements has been the mining sector (MacKinnon, 2008(MacKinnon, , 2009. AMMA has on numerous occasions espoused vociferously their preference for direct employee engagement via individual workplace agreements (Knott, 2009).…”

“…Employers and employer associations have continued to display major concern about union behaviour in the construction sector (MacKinnon, 2008;Sheldon and Thornthwaite, 2003). In 2009, their concern focused on the proposed amendments to the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005 embodied in the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill: replacing the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner with the Office of the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate; including safeguards on the Inspectorate's powers to obtain information and documents; and establishing the office of the Independent Assessor who may determine upon application that a particular project can be exempt from the examination notice powers.…”