Industrial Relations in Western Australia

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to provide an overview of West Australian industrial relations that is succinct, comprehensive and useful for students, practitioners and others interested in the subject. It sets the scene with a short survey of the history of Western Australian industrial relations. The principal parties in the system are identified and their major features discussed. The main processes used in Western Australian industrial relations are analysed, and the major outcomes, in the forms of wages and conditions, are outlined. The paper concludes that the dynamic and developing nature of the Western Australian system of industrial relations is evidenced by the emergence within the past twenty-five years of the leading actors in the system, the Trades and Labor Council, the Confederation of Western Australian Industry, the Office of Industrial Relations, and the Industrial Relations Commission. The present operations of the system are complex, and there are pressures for change in the system. Although the long-term effects of the 1986-87 Robe River dispute and related developments are yet to be seen, further reforms in Western Australian industrial laws seem inevitable.