Enterprise Bargaining, Wage Norms and Productivity

Abstract

Since 1991 Australia's arbitral system of wage determination has developed into a bybrid supplemented by the processes of collective and individual bargaining at the workplace level. This paper seeks to examine the development of that bybrid. First it seeks to estimate the extent to which enterprise bargaining displaced award-based wage adjustment between 1990 and 1995. Second, it looks at the prospects for the further growth of enterprise bargaining within the existing regulatory System. Third, it looks at the use of workplace productivity as a criterion in wage fixing relative to the previous norms developed under wage indexation and the Accord. Fourth, the paper looks at some arguments and evidence on the role of enterprise bargaining in inducing workplace productivity growth. The paper concludes tbat major institutional changes bave taken place since 1990 largely because of government policy. However, the role of the new institutional framework in linking pay to productivity and in inducing productivity growth remains limited and uncertain.