Unions and collective bargaining in Australia in 2019

Abstract

Early in 2019, in anticipation of a change in Federal government, the fate of unions and collective bargaining in Australia appeared likely to take a new direction. However, the re-election in May of the Morrison-led Coalition government changed all this. This article reviews the year in three main sections, focusing respectively on unions and union strategy; collective bargaining and collective agreements; and public policy, unions and collective bargaining. Despite some interesting twists, the overall themes are more of the same – the continuation of political partisanship towards unions and collective bargaining, and the reinforcement of adversarialism in the workplace.

Trade Union Legitimacy and Legitimation Politics in Australia and New Zealand

“…The main exception to this was a pledge to address union non‐compliance with the Fair Work Act. Soon after the election, the government introduced legislation into the Commonwealth Parliament, the Ensuring Integrity Bill, “an unambiguously anti‐union piece of law” that aimed to further restrict the industrial activities of unions (Macneil and Bray 2020: 395). Unions continued to be excluded from government policymaking.…”

Labour and megaprojects: Rethinking productivity and industrial relations policy

“…lawful) industrial action in these bargaining periods (Australian Mines and Metals Association, 2015, 2019; Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, 2014). The national government shares these concerns (Attorney-General’s Department, 2019; Macneil et al, 2020).…”

Australian industrial relations in 2019: The year wage theft went mainstream

“…(p. 80)In this way, the government has criticised both wage-stealing employers and unions in almost equal measure. It has consigned wage theft reform to additional public consultation while introducing legislation to further regulate union activity (Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill; Bray et al., 2020; Schofield-Georgeson and Rawling, 2020).…”

“…Jonathan Hamberger (2020) presents his practitioner review of Australia’s collective bargaining system. This is a timely analysis in light of its decline (Bray et al., 2020; Sheldon and Thornthwaite, 2020) and serious questions raised by both employer and employee representatives about its viability. He revisits the original vision for enterprise bargaining of the system’s patron, then Prime Minister Paul Keating, and considers whether the system is meeting its original aims.…”

“…A number of the Annual Review articles (Birch and Preston, 2020; Bray et al., 2020; Schofield-Georgeson and Rawling, 2020; Sheldon and Thornthwaite, 2020) identify the government’s regulatory response to wage theft, in particular its proposal to create criminal sanctions, as a defining feature of Australian industrial relations in 2019. This introductory article will thus examine these developments before providing an overview of the eight articles that follow in this 2019 Annual Review of industrial relations in Australia.…”