Suchergebnisse

In October 1992 the newly elected Victorian state government (a coalition of the conservative Liberal-National Parties) under the leadership of Jeffrey Kennett introduced its legislative programme for deregulating the Victorian state industrial relations system. The most important in a series of enactments was the Employee Relations Act 1992 1 (the ERA) which sought to implement a revolutionary new system of industrial relations inspired by the ideas of the "New Right" as they have emerged in Australia, and elsewhere, over the past twenty years (Mitchell, 1993a). These ideas, founded upon a supposed "economic rationalism", advocate the regulation of labour markets by voluntary agreement between employers and employees to the total, or at least substantial, exclusion of unions and state intervention

Over the past decade Australia has struggled to come to grips with the decline of its traditional economic and industrial structures, and the need to accommodate itself to the international context. Since 1900 Australia has had an industrial relations system highly regulated by law. Economic and political pressures are challenging the continuing relevance of this system, and particularly its ability to adapt to the need for an "enterprise-based" industrial relations culture. This article examines the type of industrial relations system erected under compulsory arbitration in Australia, its impact upon various aspects of the labour market, and the incremental nature of the process of reform to the system.