For more than a decade, employer-driven changes in work organization have been spreading in all industrialized countries. The changes often involved greater opportunities given to workers at shopfloor for participating in work-related decision-making as individuals or as groups of employees. Debates among researchers and practitioners on such development tend, however, not to be well focused, due to the ambiguity surrounding such direct participation. This paper therefore attempts to clarify the various forms of direct participation, the objectives they seek to attain as well as their effectiveness. The author also calls for greater union role in the regulation of direct participation.

Economists have long thought that an increase in minimum wage rates would lead to higher unemployment of unskilled workers. The higher minimum rates would cause employers to substitute other classes of labour or capital for unskilled labour and to contract output. Situations in which an increase in minimum wage rates will not increase unemployment do not seem to be practically relevant. The results of Card and Krueger have reopened this question. In their major study a survey of fast food outlets suggested that an increase in the minimum wage rate actually increased employment. Unfortunately, closer inspection of their results has not justified the attention paid to their study. The quality of their data is suspect and other data support the traditional view. In addition, the interpretation of their results is very questionable. The new material actually gives economists no reason to revise their traditional view on this subject.

The past decade witnessed a wide range of industrial relations reforms in Australia. Employee participation and industrial democracy was espoused by the Labor government (1983–96) as a key element in its workplace reform program. It was also embraced by the trade union movement and, to a lesser extent, by leading employers and their associations. A case study of employee participation in the Ford Motor Company is used to illustrate the process of workplace reform in Australia during this period While Ford Australia provides a positive example of workplace change, it is argued that the promise of employee participation has not generally been fulfilled in Australian industry. Contributing factors identified in the paper include economic recession, the decline of trade union membership and a lack of ‘people’ skills in managerial ranks.

Increasing income inequalities in Australia increase the need to protect the incomes of low income families. It is difficult for the taxation and social security system alone to do this. Minimum wage rates have a role to play. Thus, the question of their effects on employment can not be sidestepped Traditional analysis of this question is flawed by the assumption of perfect competition and the use of particular equilibrium analysis. Labour markets have many features which distinguish them from perfectly competitive markets and feedbacks from other markets can not be ignored. Theory alone can not settle this question. A large number of empirical studies are surveyed. A widespread consensus exists that effects of minimum wage rises on adult employment are virtually non-existent A number of studies find effects on teenage employment. A number of others do not. However, even those who find statistically significant effects agree that they are small.

Employee representation in decisions affecting work organisation in the UK has traditionally been handled through collective bargaining although the reluctance of employers to negotiate such issues, combined with the reactive and economistic nature of decentralised unions has limited the scope and significance of such bargaining. In the 1980s the decline of collective bargaining, with no growth in effective alternative means of employee representation, reduced this already limited involvement. At the same time employer strategies were directed at recovering unilateral control over work organisation in their drive for flexibility. A case study of a major bank reveals employer indifference or hostility to significant union involvement in work reorganisation and serious union problems in translating general national policies on job protection and technological change into effective bargaining strategies. A conclusion suggests that a stronger voice for employees can only come via guaranteed rights with companies, which may require legislative action.

An important aspect of the process of microeconomic reform is the improved operational efficiency of public trading enterprises. This paper argues the importance of appropriately distributing the efficiency dividend amongst the key players including the owners (ie., Governments which expect greater dividends), producers of the output (ie., workers and management who expect greater wages and salaries) and consumers (who expect better quality output at lower prices). The paper first evaluates the currently available measures of the efficiency dividend in public enterprises, including factor productivity and performance indicators. It then demonstrates that inappropriate use of these measures by management and/or workers during the wage bargaining process can lead to misunderstanding of the extent of the dividend and how it should be distributed. This in turn can undermine the reform process. Amongst the conclusions reached are that single factor productivity measures should not be used during the wage bargaining process.

This paper examines the concept and application of comparative wage justice in the transition to a more decentralised wage bargaining system in Australia. Although it is widely assumed that comparative wage justice now has little or no role in the system, the paper demonstrates that it continues to be major factor in the adjustment of wage rates within and between awards, particularly as a result of the national wage case decisions of 1988–89. The question still to be determined is whether it will also have an application to the growing disparities between the award wage structure on the one hand and the outcomes of enterprise bargaining on the other, which are addressed in the ACTU’s 1996 ‘New Living Wage Case’. The conclusion of the paper is that failure to apply the concept to these disparities will transform awards and tribunals into a ‘low pay ghetto’ with diminishing relevance to the overall dynamic of wage fixation.

In the United States, as in other advanced industrial countries, worker participation in management has taken on increasing importance, placing pressures on employers and unions to change how they deal with employees/members, and with each other. This paper examines two of the most impressive cases in the U.S.: the partnerships between General Motors (G.M.) and the United Autoworkers union (U.A.W.) at Saturn and between BellSouth and the Communication Workers union (C.W.A.). We outline the evolution and the basic features of these innovations, as well as highlighting certain ongoing problems. These problems, we argue, confront the parties to employment relations in the U.S. more generally, reflecting profound ambivalence about such experiments, and their continued isolation as ‘islands of excellence’. As such, these cases both illustrate the vast potential for labor-management partnerships as well as the dampening effect of the employment relations context in the U.S.

The establishment of a minimum wage, a wage below which no employer can pay able bodied full-time employees, is a common feature in most industrialised societies. In many of these societies the minimum wage is determined by government fiat. In Australia, the prevailing method of minimum wage determination has been by way of industrial tribunals. In their minimum wage role both governments and industrial tribunals need to determine minimum wage criteria as well as mechanisms for operationalising the criteria This paper proposes ‘reasonable living’ needs criteria for minimum wage determination. By analysing the Household Expenditure Survey it also suggests the amount which would constitute a ‘reasonable living’ minimum wage for labourers in Australia.

Retrenchment is a significant element of current labour restructuring in Australia. This article situates retrenchment and the experiences of retrenchees since the late 1980s within a broader context of labour market flows. The article refers to labour flows at the level of the individual enterprise but it concentrates on the aggregate level ofthe national economy, drawing mainly on official Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data. It points to several important factors that are neglected in contemporary discussion of the experience of retrenchment — the effects of periods of job expansion and job contraction, industry patterns of retrenchment and labour turnover, enterprise-level retrenchment and recruitment practices, and the place of ‘precarious’ employment as an increasingly significant point of departure and destination in labour flows.

This paper examines the arguments for the privatisation of airports in Australia. The general arguments for privatisation are evaluated and found not to be universally applicable. There is no a priori argument in that all activities operate optimally in the private sector. Rather, the costs and benefits of each particular case need to be examined. This is then done with respect to airports. Firstly, the question of whether airports should be operated as networks or as individual optimizing entities is considered. It is shown that with respect to both pricing and investment decisions, efficiency requires retention of the network. Due to the nature of the product, the market will not deliver an efficient, competitive outcome. In this light the specifics of the Australian privatization proposals are examined, and found wanting. The case for privatization of airports is extremely weak.

Since the late eighties, a new model of public sector employment has swept a number of the States in Australia, initially at the senior executive level and now increasingly at non-executive level. This model of ‘contract’ employment is one in which employees may be terminated at short notice, for no reason, and with very limited termination compensation. This paper analyses the consequences of this new model and, specifically, of dramatically increased exposure to the risk of arbitrary termination or termination flowing from the impact of an ‘exogenous’ financial or policy shock upon Government. It also reflects on the prospects for the construction of a new ‘implicit contract’ which might mitigate the adverse consequences of the new model by facilitating the re-establishment of trust in the public sector employment relationship.

This paper identifies a model of enterprise bargaining which has recently been advocated by some Australian employer groups. Under this ‘autonomous enterprise’model, ‘genuine’ enterprise bargaining is supposed to produce comprehensive agreements which set terms and conditions of employment which are company-specific. The experience of enterprise bargaining in the Australian domestic airline industry is then compared with that model. It is found that, contrary to the model, the two major airlines have negotiated enterprise agreements which are remarkably similar, with wage increases and workplace reforms following strong industry-wide trends. The explanation offered for the lack of enterprise autonomy focuses on both institutional factors and structural features of the industry’s product

The 1988 sector-based industry plan for restructuring of the Australian Textiles Clothing and Footwear industries accelerated the decline of employment in the TCF sector. Many of those thrown out of work by TCF plant closures were women, older workers, and workers from non-English speaking backgrounds who would find it difficult to re-establish themselves in the labour market. The Hawke government provided a package of labour adjustment assistance designed to help the retrenched TCF workers find jobs in other industries. This paper examines the rates of participation by retrenched TCF workers in the TCF Labour Adjustment Package. Drawing on both statistical and case study evidence it explores the different take-up rates by different subgroups of retrenched TCF workers. The paper concludes by exploring the implications for labour market interventions more generally.

The 1995 Congress was unusual. It was considerably shorter than all recent Congresses and there was only one substantial policy item: the recruitment and retention of union members. Nonetheless, the Congress provided the platform for important speeches from government and ACTU leaders. These reaffirmed the Accord process and, with an election looming, contrasted it with the Opposition’s approach. The Congress also provided for a smooth transition, with Jennie George endorsed as President-elect to replace Martin Ferguson on his anticipated departure to Federal Parliament.