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Enterprise Bargaining: The Truth Revealed at Last

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Malcolm Rimmer  and
Lee Watts
Lee Watts
Affiliation:
National Key Centre in Industrial Relations, Monash University
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Abstract

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This paper is a selective review of recent Australian research upon enterprise bargaining and workplace industrial relations. It begins with a discussion of data collection methods, pointing out some strengths and weaknesses of survey, case study, and agreement text analysis methods. It then focusses upon two substantive issues to test the success of research. The first concerns the infrastructure for enterprise bargaining. Our conclusion is that research illuminates this topic, and reveals general unreadiness. The second issue is productivity performance and enterprise bargaining. We are far more sceptical that research has proved a relation between the two. We conclude with the observation that researchers may be on the wrong track if they try to quantify the effects of enterprise bargaining on productivity performance. The paper recommends that greater attention be given to change management programmes designed to increase competitiveness, and to the outcomes sought from these, rather than to productivity.

Type
Contemporary Issues
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , June 1994 , pp. 62 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1994

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