Employer Power and Weakness by Patrick O’Leary and Peter Sheldon is a study comparable to that by Bruce Hearn McKinnon (2008) – Beyond Work Choices (Reference Hearn McKinnon2007) – on the strategy of Rio Tinto in the Australian mining industry. Both publications arose from PhD theses on management strategy in Australian industrial relations. Furthermore, both monographs were published by niche publishing houses to fill a gap in the industrial relations literature in terms of institutional bias towards trade unions. Patrick O’Leary – the author of the PhD thesis – and Peter Sheldon – his supervisor – are therefore at the forefront of scholarship on management strategy in the meat-processing and exporting industry and industrial relations generally.
Utilising strategic choice theory, an analysis of power relationships and a historical narrative method, the authors analyse employer strategy and decision-making in the Australasian meat-processing and export industry in the post-War period until 2001. As John Shields aptly comments on the book’s back cover, ‘the study’s particular novelty … lies in its very welcome focus on describing and explaining the role of employers and their organisations in the transformation of industrial relations in Australia’.
The book ‘mostly embraces presentation of information and analysis through historical narrative’ (p. 17). However, an issue arises in that this approach signifies to the reader a largely chronological approach that may or may not underpin a thematic approach. In this case, the theme is of strategic choices by employers and the resulting shift in power dynamics in the industry. In fact, the content of all chapters, but particularly of the opening three, which are responsible for establishing the context and early development of the industry and its industrial relations, moves back and forwards between time periods and dates.
A clear chronology of the development of the industry and the changes facing the parties would be helpful because the patterns of industrial relations in this industry, whether from the employers’ perspective or that of the union, the Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union (AMIEU), build on and react to a tradition of adversarial industrial relations established sequentially from the late 19th century.
The two chapters (4 and 6) that deal with the emergence and strategic positioning of Australian Meat Holdings (AMH) provide an analysis of the impact of the formation of AMH by four Australian exporters in 1984 and then its subsequent acquisition by the American-owned ConAgra in 1991. Under ConAgra auspices, AMH became the dominant player in the Australian industry and led the way in industrial relations strategy for the industry, particularly in terms of ongoing enterprise bargaining and the adoption of individually-based Australian Workplace Agreements in an attempt at de-unionisation. The company secured longer shifts, thus increasing working hours while simultaneously reducing allowances and penalties, and achieving the removal of union control over its abattoir throughput. This control had previously been maintained via the ‘tally’, which had determined the daily pace of work and the total number of animal carcasses processed.
AMH strategy centred on its regional Queensland abattoirs, such as Fitzroy River in Rockhampton, where changes to working conditions were achieved through enterprise bargaining without negative media coverage and with reduced union industrial action. As regional labour markets in the mid-1990s were not capable of employing ex-meatworkers in other industries, meatworkers were forced to accept the changes proposed by AMH in order to retain their financial livelihood. While it was not made explicit in the book, this gave power to the company to pressure the AMIEU and its members into accepting relative job security over improving wages and conditions.
This strategy was then transferred to the Dinmore abattoir at Ipswich, just outside of Brisbane. Given that one of the themes indicated in the title and the introductory chapter was that of power it was surprising that the analysis of AMH did not specifically examine the various sources of power – both ‘local’ at the regional level and ‘global’ in the form of the multinational food operations of ConAgra – which allowed the AMH strategy to succeed.
The authors also undertook two state-based case studies – of Gilbertsons in Victoria (Chapter 7) and of the South Burnett Meat Works Co-operative in Queensland (Chapter 8) – with a focus on the 1990s. The inclusion of these two abattoirs is both innovative and informative and offers a comparison between the urban Victorian plant and the regional Queensland one. However, the reason for the choice of companies was not directly addressed, and the reader is left to assume that the selection was based upon ‘local factors’, as the book’s title suggests, but without a clear explanation of these factors and how they drove strategy at each plant.
The data collection techniques are explained for each of these two case studies. The authors identify the suspicion felt by the management in Victoria towards the researchers when compared to the more open approach exhibited by the management in Queensland. This ongoing management suspicion inhibited research on the industry’s industrial relations in Victoria from the management perspective while promoting reliance by researchers upon data collected from the union, either by interviews with union officials or by using the union’s archival resources.
The authors note this in the Gilbertson case study and emphasise their reliance upon Government inquiry reports and union interviews compared with the South Burnett case study where management allowed interviews directly with meatworkers during official work breaks. This is an issue common in research on the Victorian meat-processing and export industry and at least partially explains the bias towards trade union research.
The book provides a useful example of the types of historical and qualitative data sources – primary and secondary documentation and interviews – that can be utilised, making it extremely useful for students researching labour history or industrial relations issues.
A major strength of the book is the discussion of the role played by the Meat and Allied Trades Federation (MAFTA) on behalf of employers in the industry, particularly prior to the ConAgra takeover of AMH. The analysis of MAFTA’s role in the ongoing Victorian dispute to achieve lower wages and conditions in the industry post-award restructuring in 1989 showed that employer association strategies do not always achieve the outcome most desired by members in the manner envisioned by members.
