Retrospect and Prospects for Collective Regulation in the Australian Public Service

Abstract

The article examines changes in the collective regulation of employment relations in the Australian Public Service over the last three decades. While federal Labor Governments in the 1990s briefly experimented with agency bargaining before returning to a service-wide approach to wage bargaining, the Howard Coalition Government encouraged federal public sector managers to individualize employment relations through the widespread offer of Australian Workplace Agreements and non-union collective agreements. This agenda was reinforced by policy parameters overseen by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, which placed constraints on the flexibility available to managers to negotiate agency-specific employment arrangements. Despite concerted efforts to marginalize the role of the Community and Public Sector Union since 1996, the union has maintained approximately 70 percent collective bargaining coverage within the Australian Public Service. Nevertheless, the 2005 amendments to the Workplace Relations Act (1996) imposed further restrictions on unions' right of entry to public sector workplaces, made the taking of industrial action more difficult, and sent a clear signal to the Government's managerial agents to adopt a more hostile approach to public sector unions. This hostile environment has brought to the fore issues of union organization and effectiveness and the concomitant need to maintain union democracy and an active voice for members in union decision-making processes.