Gendering the Bricks and Mortar: Building an Opportunity Structure for Equality Bargaining

Abstract

Research in the United Kingdom and Europe has found that an ‘opportunity structure’ enabling collective bargaining for the inclusion of family provisions into a workplace agreement occurs when a range of national, industry and organizational factors converge. Limited research in this area, however, has been conducted in Australia. This article addresses this gap by analysing collective bargaining for family provisions (such as paid maternity leave) in two female-dominated organizations in Australia. This article shows that an opportunity structure – built on public policy development and democratic, feminist union leadership – also existed in Australia in 2008 and 2009, making ‘equality bargaining’ possible for public sector workplace negotiations. The case studies also show, however, that factors including the economic environment and a centralized union leadership weakened an opportunity structure for workplace negotiations in the retail sector.