This paper addresses a research gap on the role of employee participation in motivating workplace climate change mitigation activities. Drawing upon a survey of 682 Australian employers and an analysis of 1329 enterprise agreements, we find strong associations between organisational activities for the reduction of carbon emissions and employee participation in motivating, developing and/or implementing these measures. Engagement with emissions reduction at the workplace level is more likely where employee participation has a substantive role involving deeper and wider influence in organisational decision-making. This is especially the case when a range of approaches, including collective bargaining through trade unions, are utilised. Reflecting extant research on employee participation, this study confirms the importance of the concepts of depth and scope in evaluating the extent to which employee participation is substantive, and that different forms of participation have mutually reinforcing impacts over workplace decisions to reduce carbon emissions. The findings presented suggest that the form of participation may be less important than the way in which it is implemented and the degree of substantive influence that employees have in practice.

The role of unions in achieving a family-friendly organization can be pivotal through bargaining for family-friendly provisions. This role is determined not only by union monopoly power and the gendered structure of collective voice of the workforce, but also by national trends in the organization of work and the role of trade unions, as well as the relationship between individual unions and organizations. This case study of a New Zealand local government organization particularly focuses on the contrasts in family-friendly provisions of collective agreements negotiated by different unions at the same workplace. Using Gregory and Milner’s (2009) framework of ‘opportunity structures’, the article confirms that unions may have a key role in the provision of family-friendly policy, and provides a contextual picture of the relationships between family-friendly policy and organizational and union characteristics. This article suggests that strengthening the positions of unions and collective bargaining may be an effective route for the instigation of family-friendly policy.

The international trend in the growth and incidence of “non‐standard employment”, and its highly gendered nature, is well documented. Similarly, interest in employee involvement or participation by academics and practitioners has seen the emergence of a rapidly growing body of literature. Despite the continued interest in each of these areas, the literature is relatively silent when it comes to where the two areas intersect, that is, what the implications are for employee participation in the growth of non‐standard employment. This paper seeks to redress this relative insularity in the literature by examining some broad trends in this area in Australia. The literature lacks one clear, accepted definition of “non‐standard” employment. For ease of definition, and because of the nature of the available data, we focus on part‐time employment in this paper. The paper analyses data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey of 1995 (AWIRS 95). It tests the hypotheses that part‐time employees enjoy less access to participatory management practices in the workplace than their full‐time counterparts, and that this diminishes the access to participation in the workplace enjoyed by female workers in comparison with their male colleagues, since the part‐time workforce is predominantly feminised. These hypotheses were strongly confirmed. This has major implications for workplace equity, and for organisational efficiency.

Employee involvement and participation have been at the heart of industrial relations since its inception, although much of the contemporary terminology has moved away from ‘industrial democracy’ employed by the Webbs in 1898. The labels and terms for employee involvement and participation have expanded and varied over time, reflecting different disciplinary bases (industrial relations, human resource management, psychology and political science), changing socio-economic contexts, competing goals between management, labour and government, and a variety of practices. This complexity has become problematical because not all terms are equivalent in their meanings and their different parameters are not always clearly defined. We attempt to provide some clarity by defining ‘employee voice’ or ‘participation’ as umbrella terms denoting a wide range of practices. The article also clearly delineates direct and representative approaches to employee participation, and their interrelationship. Two critical contemporary issues are the role of the state and the link between participation and organisational performance. The article concludes that the sphere of employee involvement and participation is likely to remain contested, but that its strategic viability is enhanced when linked with employee well-being as well as performance. Successful state intervention requires public policy integration and dialogue between government, employers and employee representatives.

The rise of precarious and non-standard working arrangements has received substantial attention in recent times. In Australia precarious work has been particularly associated with the phenomenon of casual work, defined as employment without the leave benefits provided by the National Employment Standards. Casual employment status is at the employers' discretion. It may be long term and involve short shifts of less than 4 hours. In the recent Modern Awards Review by the Australian Fair Work Commission, the Australian Council of Trade Unions submitted proposals to limit employers' ability to unilaterally determine the employment relationship and to reduce the degree of precariousness associated with casual employment. The Australian Council of Trade Unions sought the right for long-term casuals to convert to permanent employment and to extend minimum hours for shifts. This article surveys the evidence, primary and secondary, regarding the extent and nature of Australian casual employment, including its impact on flexibility, earnings security and productivity. In this context, we explore the implications of the Australian Council of Trade Unions claims and Fair Work Commission decision, and present data from a survey of casual employees regarding employment preferences. Whilst some employees prefer casual status, we find that many would benefit from protective regulations, and that most casuals support such regulation.