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The Victorian Labour Hire Maintenance Workers’ Strike of 1997

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Elsa Underhill
Elsa Underhill*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Technology, Footscray Campus
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Abstract

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The trend towards outsourcing maintenance functions to labour hire firms raises questions about the capacity of unions to maintain membership levels and employment standards amongst an increasingly casualised labour hire workforce. The Victorian manufacturing maintenance sector has experienced substantial outsourcing to labour hire firms, but unions in this sector have maintained membership levels and established enterprise agreements to govern employment of labour hire workers. In 1997, labour hire workers in this sector struck for almost 7 weeks in support of a wage claim. This paper outlines the nature of employment regulation of labour hire firms in Victorian manufacturing maintenance and the factors leading to the 1997 dispute. It analyses how the union organised industrial action and how the employers responded. The conclusion explores some questions about collective action by labour hire workers, and highlights some problems of dispute resolution under the current regulatory regime.

Type
Symposium on Outsourcing
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , June 1999 , pp. 73 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1999

Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank the journal’s anonymous referees and Malcolm Rimmer for constructive comments and suggestions. The usual caveats apply.

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