The Conversation is running a series, Class in Australia, to identify, illuminate and debate its many manifestations. Here, David Peetz and Georgina Murray look at divisions within capital over the future…
- Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow at the Centre for Future Work, Melbourne; and Professor Emeritus, Griffith Business School, Griffith University
If you were to choose one buzzword that, despite its vagueness, has dominated industrial relations debate over three decades, it would be “flexibility”. It has emerged again in rhetoric surrounding Toyota’s…
In a speech appropriately titled Industrial relations after the 30 years war, employment minister Senator Eric Abetz made the controversial and widely reported claim that “we risk seeing something akin…
Two unexpected disclosures have refocused attention on the Coalition industrial relations policy before the election. The first was further detail from workplace relations shadow minister Eric Abetz about…
“Wages in Australia are moving reasonably at between 3.2 and 3.5%. We are not getting overrun by wage claims in Australia. Secondly, the assumption that everyone is on strike is not correct. The average…
The good thing about Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s proposal for “a new national competitiveness agenda” to be approached with “a new sense of national urgency” is that it is an advance on much of the meaningless…
The Prices and Incomes Accord, that historic agreement between government and unions born 30 years ago, may have disappeared into history. But its most enduring and important lesson arises from its role…
More than jobs, inflation, security or disputation, the Coalition’s just-released policy on industrial relations claims to be about productivity. The policy is replete with over 30 references to “productivity…
Increases in humidity caused as a result of climate change are reducing labour productivity and it’s only likely to get worse over time, argue researchers from America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric…
The shifts worked by mining and energy employees are detrimental to sleep patterns, mental health and family life, the preliminary findings of an Australian study have shown. The Australian Coal and Energy…
The Fair Work Australia (FWA) decision on the Qantas industrial dispute makes it clear the action by the three unions was not enough to trigger a decision by FWA to terminate the bargaining periods. A…
Business leaders are insisting changes be made to the Fair Work Act to boost productivity. Retailers apparently face a crisis because of penalty rates, and an MP agrees that penalty rates stymie productivity…
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