Hi guys, so for the last blog posts of the semester I will be talking about a few changes the Australian ER system has seen over the past 20 or so years. Most of these reforms have been very important in political and economic debates in this time period.
In the late 1980s enterprise bargaining was introduced that included the the cooperation of unions. This was an attempt to decentralise the ER system but the then current Hawke Labour government (Labor Party).
The Howard liberal government bought more radical reforms through in the mid 1990's with the intent to individualise the employee-employee relationship, thus reducing union involvement in the processes'.
Responses to this change have varied from employers: some have tried to introduce non union agreements (met with strong employee opposition, particularly in the water and mining industries) whilst others have tried to incorporate a more cooperative approach.
In particular there has been a change in wage determination approaches:
1983-1993- there was above from a centralised wage determination to a managed decentralism approach. This change saw the introduction of a two tier wage system a reduction of tariffs (important in the steel and automobile industry) and the establishment of a structural efficiency principle encoring collective agreements.
1993-1996- coordinated flexibility. In order to maintain increased competitiveness a more comprehensive enterprise bargaining system was introduced. This allowed employers to be able to make agreements with their employee, without the presence of unions.
1996-present- fragmented flexibility. An even greater move away from the involvement in unions and a higher focus on employer-amployee agreement making. Radical decentralisation of IR to enterprise level via the Workplace Relations Act (1996) giving workplace agreements.
I got this information from:
http://www.australianreview.net/journal/v1/n1/lansbury.pdf
