Electrolux in Australia: Deregulation, Industry Restructuring and the Dynamics of Bargaining

Abstract

This paper provides a critical assessment of state deregulation policy, industrial restructuring and the erosion of union‐based bargaining by analysing the role of the Swedish whitegoods transnational corporation, Electrolux, which bought out the last remaining Australian whitegoods manufacturer in November 2000. We contend that analysis of the global strategy of a transnational corporation provides insight into the dynamics of competition and changing power relations in a deregulated environment. Our research shows how deregulation intensifies global competition in a way that accelerates mergers and acquisitions, which create a high degree of concentration, further rationalisations and workplace restructuring. The latter has been facilitated by the 1996 Workplace Relations Act (WRA), which disorganises trade unionism and undermines solidarity cultures. This we illustrate through a short analysis of the restructuring Electrolux has implemented at a refrigeration plant in Orange, New South Wales. The corporation's mode of bargaining a new enterprise agreement is explored. The power imbalances this process reflects will only be redressed when there is ‘a new social organisation of labour’.

Multinational enterprises in Australia: Two decades of international human resource management research reviewed

“…The author deduced from this, 'that individualised employment relations may only be a transient phenomenon at the Bengalla mine' (Waring 2001, 280). Lambert, Gillan and Fitzgerald (2005) examined the experience of industrial restructuring and its effect on trade union bargaining in the Australian refrigeration plant owned by the Swedish-owned MNE Electrolux. They found that Australian legislation, namely the Workplace Relations Act, allowed the company to suppress the response of the trade union in changing the employment conditions.…”

Re-visiting ‘country of origin’ effects on HRM in multinational corporations

“…e.g. Cooke, 2001; Bair and Ramsay, 2003; Lambert et al ., 2005). The potential for MNCs to use segmentation in this way is, though, dependent on the ability to separate the national location of the workforce from that of the market; where serving the market still depends on face‐to‐face contact, as in some frontline service work, then MNCs can still choose whether to apply country of origin HR systems or to use the routines of the host country, but the lack of connectedness between different parts of the workforce reduces the opportunity to employ segmentation strategically.…”

From ‘opportunity’ to ‘insecurity’: the psychological contract of highly skilled immigrants in Western Australia

“…to reduce costs, maximise production and consolidate their position in the global market; at the same time, economic and financial deregulation triggered waves of takeovers, mergers and closures among small firms, resulting in a more highly concentrated industry with stronger corporate power (Lambert et al 2005).…”

“…Research has shown, for example, how quickly the appliances industry became concentrated and global in character (Lambert et al 2005;Segal-Horn et al 1998;Weiss & Gross 1995). In 1982, there were 350 producers of major household appliances in Europe; by 1992, there were about 100 (Weiss & Gross 1995).…”

“…This market restructuring was supported by a number of changes in labour processes, including increased automation, just-in-time techniques, intensified labour, downsizing, flexibility and casualisation, which in turn led to rising levels of unemployment and precarity across the world (Kalleberg 2009;Lambert et al 2005). The secure and long-lasting organisational career supported by a 'welfare state' (Standing 1997), which prevailed in the three decades following World War II (Kalleberg 2009), gave way to an employment relationship extremely sensitive to labour market conditions (Cappelli 1999).…”