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The Economics of the Australian Waterfront Dispute

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Tim Harcourt
Tim Harcourt*
Affiliation:
Australian Council of Trade Unions, Melbourne
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Abstract

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Industrial Relations returned to the forefront of the Australian public debate in 1998 with the dispute between the Federal Government and Patrick Stevedores on the one hand and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) on the other. This article, which was written in April 1998 at the height of the dispute, concentrates on the economic issues involved and the facts about ‘waterfront reform’. The article analyses the economic aspects of the dispute in terms of employment issues, productivity issues, industrial relations and the relationship between waterfront reform and Australia’s international trade. It concludes that economic issues must be understood carefully in order to distinguish between genuine practical concerns about waterfront efficiency and purely political points made by those who oppose the MUA and trade unionism in general.

Type
Symposium on the Waterfront Dispute
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , December 1998 , pp. 222 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1998

Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank Jane Howard for her assistance and Greg Combet, Tony Morison, Tas Bull and an anonymous referee for comments.

References

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