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Industrial Relations Policy (industrial + relations_policy)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	80%

Selected Abstracts

Unnatural Extinction: The Rise and Fall of the Independent Local Union

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2001
Sanford M. Jacoby
This article analyzes what happened to independent local unions (ILUs), also known as company unions, since 1935. After providing a statistical analysis of ILU membership since 1935, the article looks at the factors that shaped membership trends: changes in labor law, the characteristics of ILUs, worker attitudes toward ILUs, and employers' industrial relations policies. New evidence is presented that suggests that even those employers who still favored ILUs in the 1950s were orienting them away from collective bargaining and toward the "new nonunion model" of the 1960s and 1970s. [source]

Gender Mainstreaming: The Answer to the Gender Pay Gap?

GENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 5 2009
Joan Eveline
This article examines the argument that gender mainstreaming offers the way forward for closing the gender pay gap. It juxtaposes research on the process of gender mainstreaming with our account of the processes involved in Australian state government Inquiries into the gender pay gap since the late 1990s. We indicate that the continuous process of analysis and response that gender mainstreaming can offer demands political will, intensive links between research and action, and adequate resources , which means that gender mainstreaming is seldom delivered in practice. We use our account of the Australian Inquiries to argue that, provided adequate political and financial resources are in place, the gender pay gap can be narrowed through the institutional mechanisms of an industrial relations system but that the regulatory approach is limited by its vulnerability to changes in industrial relations policy. The article concludes that, whatever strategy is used to narrow the gender pay gap, it must be able to show those who use and observe it that gender itself is a continuous, effortful and political process. [source]

Representation at Suncorp , what do the employees want?

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 3 2006
Paul J. Gollan
It is apparent from existing research that little is known about the effectiveness of non-union employee representation (NER) voice arrangements in Australian firms. This article examines both the non-union Suncorp-Metway Employee Council (SMEC) and union voice arrangements at an Australian financial services firm, Suncorp, and assesses their effectiveness in representing the needs of employees. This study is unique because it is one of the few examples of dual representation channels at a single firm. Overall the findings suggest that the effectiveness of union and NER arrangements is dependent on the union and NER voice channels being perceived by the workforce as both representative and able to act effectively or independently. However, while trade unions may provide greater voice than non-union arrangements, the strength of voice is dependent on the legitimacy and effectiveness of trade unions in representing employees' interests at the workplace. The findings also suggest that the marginalisation strategy used by the union in excluding SMEC from its industrial campaigns, coupled with employees' perception of a lack of effective union voice, could impact negatively on the influence that unions may have on management decision-making. This could also be perceived by employees as an inappropriate response by the union to management substitution strategies. As a consequence, any changes to industrial relations policy or trade union strategies regarding NER should be considered in the light of these findings. [source]

RESEARCH AND EVALUATION: WorkChoices and Howard's Defeat

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 3 2010
Dennis Woodward
This article seeks to perform two tasks. It seeks to first detail the changes to the industrial relations system entailed in WorkChoices (set against the background of previous Howard government policies in this field), analyse the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU's) campaign against it and the Australian Labor Party's (ALP's) industrial relations policy in response to it, and belated changes to WorkChoices. Second, it seeks to examine the extent to which WorkChoices (and the industrial relations issue) was decisive in Howard's defeat. This will be done by using Newspoll surveys to plot the revival of ALP electoral support against salient events leading up to the election, drawing upon early post election assessments and existing studies, and also examining the results of the Australian Election Study 2007 to see whether this new evidence confirms the importance of industrial relations in the election outcome. [source]

Is There a Third Way for Industrial Relations?

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 1 2004
Chris Howell
There has been little systematic analysis of what the ,Third Way' means in the sphere of industrial relations. This paper examines the record of the New Labour government in order to evaluate the distinctiveness, innovation and coherence of its industrial relations policy. It argues that many of the limitations of this policy result from the institutional context within which it was introduced. In comparative perspective, Third Way industrial relations can be thought of as a policy adaptation specific to centre,left governments in weakly co-ordinated liberal market economies. [source]