This paper describes the various stages of industrialisation through which Malaysia has passed, beginning with import substitution in the 1960s, export-oriented industries of the 1970s to heavy industries in the 1980s. The public sector, which used to employ a substantial percentage of the labour force and a high percentage of ethnic Malays, has been reduced as a result of the government’s decision to corporatise and privatise many of its agencies. However, as more Malays have began working in the industrial sector, a new phenomena of an emerging Malay proletariat alongside the non-Malays has become evident. They now form more than half of the union leadership and are strongly represented among skilled workers. Whether the government will become more liberal with its laws and policies towards unions in the future is uncertain, as the democratic process in Malaysia has yet to gain a firm hold.

The Howard Government, supported by the Labor Opposition, legislated in 2007 to enable small businesses to engage in collective bargaining with large businesses under the Trade Practices Act. The object of the legislation is to facilitate greater equality in the bargaining power of the parties. Except where the small business sells goods/commodities rather than a service, a person who is ‘employed’ and the business that provides a ‘service’ are both effectively involved in the sale of labour or in the performance of work in the labour market. However, the legal concepts and procedures relating to collective bargaining in these two types of labour transactions are different. One, the ‘employment’ of persons, is placed in the category of workplace relations operating through labour law; the other, the ‘sale of services', is viewed as a commercial transaction, dealt with through commercial law. This paper considers the question of whether there are sufficiently significant differences between these labour/service transactions as to justify the application of two separate sets of laws to deal with them — one to cover transactions between employers and employees, and the other to cover transactions between small and large businesses. A case study will be used to illustrate the involved and unsatisfactory approach of the commercial law route in determining what is in essence a labour transaction rather than a commodity transaction.

Much theoretical and empirical work by economists and psychologists has shown that the neo-classical approach is defective, and economists are now looking for an alternative. Evolutionary economics is the answer. It starts from the realistic premise that society and the economy are shaped by competition, but unlike neo-classical economics, it proceeds empirically by observing and analysing what has been happening to the economy and society. It does so on the premise that a process of social selection is taking place, analogous but not identical to that of biological selection. This dynamic approach requires a revival of economic history. By reporting on, and inviting debate over, what is happening and its implications, the adoption of an evolutionary approach should help restore the moral content of economics and the surrounding social sciences. Such a change in approach would be a paradigm shift, and will take time. That it will happen is likely: in the end facts kick.

This article addresses the unresolved question of whether recent technological change causes job instability in a non-western context. China is now the world’s largest user of industrial robots. A Lewis turning point has been predicted, involving a transition from a plentiful supply of rural low-cost workers to a labour shortage economy in which rising labour costs drive labour-technology substitution. The routine-biased technological change hypothesis suggests that technology-induced routinisation in job task content has a profound impact on employment structure. This study captures the extent of routinisation of jobs in the transitional context of China and examines the incidence and impact of routinisation on labour turnover in the labour market. Using rotating panel data from the China Labour-force Dynamics Survey 2012, 2014 and 2016, this study, based on individual information with regard to flexibility in work schedules and degree of autonomy in workload and task content on the job, follows a recently developed measure to construct a routine intensity index and indicates a division into three routine intensity groups. The empirical findings show that the probability of job mobility is significantly increased with the magnitude of routine task intensity, suggesting that the process of technology-induced routinisation is strongly associated with labour turnover.

This paper focusses on what the judicial battles in the waterfront dispute tell us about the role of law and what implications this has for labour relations and corporate law. For labour law, the significance is that reliance on liberal law has limited potential for workers seeking to pursue their causes through the courts. For corporate law, the Court’s decision makes it plain that, when there is an overt conflict between wealth owners and workers, the courts will try to obfuscate this, while ensuring the security of property owners. To this end, the High Court-despite scolarly criticism-treated each corporation in the Patrick group as if it were an independent atom. This ruling will be a green light to other anti-union employers and will disadvantage workers in a system which increasingly makes their rights dependent on the legal identity of their employer.

In the period leading up to the federal government’s May 2009 announcement of a paid parental leave scheme, there was a surge in community and media debate about the absence of such a scheme in Australia. This article explores whether this context had some bearing on bargaining outcomes during that time. We analyse data from the Australian Workplace Agreements Database to determine the incidence and length of paid parental leave in collective agreements registered between 2005 and 2010. The results show an increase in the number of agreements that included paid parental leave clauses in the period, with just over 14% of all current agreements including a paid parental leave clause by 2010. Moreover, 18% of all agreements lodged in 2010 included a paid parental leave clause, suggesting an increase in bargaining outcomes over time. We also find a slight increase in the average duration of paid parental leave in collective agreements. A leave of 14 weeks is most common in public sector agreements but less than 3% of agreements in the private sector provide for 14 weeks or more. These marked differences between the public and private sectors suggest minimal change in private sector bargaining outcomes. We conclude that the legislative context does influence bargaining outcomes, but that this effect is felt more in public sector than private sector bargaining.

Australian trade unions in the 1980s and 1990s sought to influence and guide the restructuring of vocational and workplace education policy, to widen participation in education and training, and establish partnership arrangements with government and business in order to promote international competitiveness. Since the mid 1990s, however, the changed contours of the labour market, and a steady decline in both the numbers of union members and density rates, accompanied by legislative attacks on the right to organise, led many unions to shift their emphasis to organising new members. Education was identified as a critical factor in preparing unions to undertake this new effort and as a means of changing union culture. This article studies the changes in union education that flowed from one union’s new concentration on developing capacity for organising for growth, and examines the new ways of knowing that resulted among officers and activists.

In this article we consider the Australian Football League Players’ Association (AFLPA) initial fixed percentage of revenue pay request for the 2012–2016 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the Australian Football League (AFL) in the context of theoretical predictions of models of player salaries in both settings of profit-maximising and win-maximising clubs. We then explore the AFL data from 2001–2009 and show that the declining share of player salaries as a proportion of revenue is consistent with the predictions from these theoretical models. This poses the question of what the league and the clubs do with the additional revenue if they are not paying it to the players. We explore alternative talent investments (better coaching, improved facilities) as a club strategy and the changing spending on game development as a league strategy.

The institutions of industrial relations have proved to be more malleable than I expected in the mid-eighties, and the ‘system’ has, for better or for worse, been transformed.

Underlying forces conducive to change have been the economy’s exposure to external competition, related changes in the structure of industry and employment, the pervasive free market ideology and a sustained decline in union density. More fortuitous factors, such as the antipathy of an ACTU Secretary to members of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, a Prime Minister’s entrenched hostility to the ‘system’, the Coalition’s unexpected capture of a Senate majority in 2004 and the High Court’s validation of WorkChoices, have also contributed to the present state of play.

Labour market ‘deregulation’ is a major economic policy issue in Australia. Some of the desire for deregulation has been part of a worldwide trend in OECD countries whilst some comes from more localised disquiet about the alleged effect of Australia’s industrial relations institutions on the economy. This article looks at the evidence em Australian labour market regulation and its relation to economic performance. The article finds that Australian labour market institutions have had little effect on efficiency but have provided important distributional outcomes. Furthermore it is argued that with ‘globalisation’ there is more reason to continue labour market protection not less to enhance Australia’s capacity to trade and invest in the global economy.

This study explores the impacts of the 2008–2009 economic crisis on joblessness in Turkey, incorporating into the analysis the marginally attached who would like to work if the opportunity existed, but are not actively searching for a job. We find that women were more likely than men to have a marginally attached status over the whole period of analysis, and during the time of the crisis, the number of marginally attached grew significantly faster for women than for men. The transition probability for the employed to become marginally attached and move out of the labour force rose substantially more for women than it did for men. The results obtained have important implications. Using conventional criteria, it is not possible to identify the degree of motivation to work or search for work in the case of women in Turkey, where the possibilities of shifting the care of burden to someone else or an institution are very limited, as a result of inadequate provisioning of public care services.

This article adopts a labour process theory approach to analysing distinct circuits of labour control in platform video game work in China, a novel manifestation of the platform economy rooted in the special formation of Chinese gaming infrastructure as well as in precarious labour regimes. Platform game work encompasses a broad range of online video game services such as live game streaming, paid boosting, and game companion, matching customers’ demands to workers who provide entertainment or assist play. Platform game work has drawn an estimated seven million young workers into precarious employment during the past decade. The article outlines three interwoven features defining the fragmented control of platform game work: the crucial function of extra-platform intermediaries in regulating labour processes; the deployment of relationship labour in order matching and community management; and the mutual reinforcement of platform diversity and fast-moving platform architecture. These three features co-create a decentralised yet resilient structure organised by a network of platform and non-platform, human and machine agencies. Positioning platform game work in the broad spectrum of gig work, the article illuminates new modes of labour control and workers’ embedded agency, adding to the nascent literature on diverse labour regimes and subjectivities in the platform economy.

This article examines the process of financial deregulation in Australia during the decade when Australia’s financial system changed from a highly regulated system to a system with few quantitative or qualitative controls, a freely floating exchange rate and a deficit fully financed by the market. While existing accounts have tended to focus on a single explanatory variable (such as an ideological shift or economic pressures), this article argues that policy outcomes were the result of a more complex interaction of ideology, economic forces, institutional structures and political interests. In analyzing the effect of these significant influences, the article provides a more complete picture of the deregulatory process and places the Wallis Report in context.

This research note focuses on the situation of workers classed in Canada as low-skilled. Using data from the Labour Force Survey conducted by Statistics Canada, we seek to answer the following questions: are workers classed as low-skilled disproportionately affected by rising unemployment rates? What types of jobs are classed as low-skilled? Are these jobs predominantly full-time or part-time? Within this category of low-skilled workers, we will also focus on the situation of women who, according to several recent studies including those by the OECD, are increasingly employed in precarious jobs.

The experience of industry policy in the wider Asian region contrasts significantly with many of the neoliberal policy prescriptions prevalent in Australia today. Using the automotive industry as a comparative case study, this article compares industry policy in three demographic and geographic giants of the region: China, India and Indonesia. China’s dominant position has benefited from a highly ‘interventionist’ industry policy which places strict conditions on foreign carmakers in joint ventures. This policy has also influenced the emergence of a thriving domestic industry, with state-owned enterprises leading the way. While India has also emerged as a major auto producer, its industry policy has moved away from the joint venture model since the 1990s, with fully foreign-owned operations now playing a much bigger role. In contrast, Indonesia retains a version of the joint venture model while local industry is dominated by Japanese capital. The record of industry policy in these countries challenges the idea that more ‘liberal’ economic systems lead to stronger domestic industries or firms.

In 1999 Tony Blair, the UK Prime Minister, promised to end child poverty within a generation. What does this mean? Can it be achieved? What progress has been made so far? The paper starts by placing UK child poverty at the end of the 20th Century in historical and international context. It reviews the policies that have been introduced in order to meet specific interim targets - of reducing child poverty by one quarter by 2004/5 and halving it in ten years - and discusses the prospects for success in meeting these targets. The second part takes a step back and reflects on why child poverty - rather than poverty more generally - has become the political and policy focus. It then considers whether such an emphasis - together with the particular policy directions that have been taken - may be counter-productive in meeting the eventual goal of ending child poverty. The ‘end to child poverty’ has now been translated as meaning having achieved a relative child poverty rate that is ‘among the best (i.e. lowest) in Europe’. The final part of the paper considers what this might involve. To what extent can the policy approaches taken by the current ‘best in Europe’ countries be seen as recipes for success for the UK, or indeed elsewhere?

It is widely agreed that there is a crisis in labour/employment standards enforcement. A key issue is the role of deterrence measures that penalise violations. Employment standards enforcement in Ontario, like in most jurisdictions, is based mainly on a compliance framework promoting voluntary resolution of complaints and, if that fails, ordering restitution. Deterrence measures that penalise violations are rarely invoked. However, the Ontario government has recently increased the role of proactive inspections and tickets, a low-level deterrence measure which imposes fines of CAD295 plus victim surcharges. In examining the effectiveness of the use of tickets in inspections, we begin by looking at this development in the broader context of employment standards enforcement and its historical trajectory. Then, using administrative data from the Ministry of Labour, we examine when and why tickets are issued in the course of workplace inspections. After demonstrating that even when ticketable violations are detected, tickets are issued only rarely, we explore factors associated with an increased likelihood of an inspector issuing a ticket. Finally, we consider how the overall deterrent effect of workplace inspections is influenced by the use or non-use of deterrence tools.

This paper describes and analyses aspects of Australian income support and service arrangements for the aged in the context of broader issues relating to privatisation. It is argued that much of the welfare privatisation debate is overly simplistic and does not recognise the important role which the non-government sector already plays in aspects of support for the age. Analysis of income data shows, for example, that transfer income currently accounts for less than half of the income of the aged. The trend towards superannuation is apparent in the data, although some doubts are raised about the impact of superannuation expansion on the finance of population ageing. In the area of community services, the paper describes the development of policy over the last few decades in order to illustrate the complexity of existing arrangements. The switch from institutional to community care is identified as a major trend, particularly during the 1980s, and some of the implications of this development for privatisation are drawn out and analysed.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the Australian union movement’s Organising Works programme, this article introduces a symposium discussing potential ways forward for unions. It overviews research regarding the challenges of union organising and renewal, both in Australia and internationally. It provides a broad historical perspective on the origins and progress of the grassroots Organising Works agenda initiated by the peak union bodies, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Unions NSW. It explores how trade unions can best generate and sustain their spirit of mobilising and organising, while also ensuring the institutional legitimacy they require to effectively represent workers. Unions have had to manage the tension between two dynamics of trade union growth – the sense of movement involved in mobilising workers, and the institutional stability and legitimacy needed to represent workers. Unions have faced both the need to confront global capital restructuring through their own restructuring, and the need to renew and maintain a strong and democratic community base. To do so, they have built new networks and campaigning approaches, in order to organise an increasingly diverse and insecure workforce and build strong community links.

In 1998, a private member’s Bill, the Paid Parental Leave Bill, was introduced into the New Zealand Parliament. Although it was subsequently defeated, the Bill stimulated debate over paid parental leave in both New Zealand and Australia - two countries conspicuous in international terms for their lack of such provisions. It showed that a progressive approach could be devised to fit the New Zealand context, and raised hopes that increasing political pressure would stimulate a move towards extension of parental rights in the Antipodes. Ultimately, the Bill proved too much of a challenge within the present New Zealand system, and the potential for change was confounded by lack of political support. However, future political compromises around the issue of paid parental leave remain a possibility in the volatile New Zealand political system.