The Changing Face of Australian Industrial Relations: A Survey*

Abstract

SummaryIn 1994 David Metcalf, writing about Britain, reached the following conclusion: ‘There can be no doubt that the institutions and processes of British industrial relations has [sic] changed fundamentally in the last decade or so’ (Metcalf 1994, p. 152).This description seems perfectly apt in describing recent change in Australia. The spread of enterprise agreements, the increased scope for individual agreements, the marked fall in trade union membership, the restructuring and rationalization of trade union structures, and the dramatic fall in levels of industrial action and persistence of relative industrial peace have all been relatively recent phenomena and mark the last 10 to 15 years as a period of significant change, certainly as compared with the relative stability of the industrial relations institutions throughout most of this century.Despite this, whether the volume and nature of change experienced to date can be judged as transformational is still questionable. The Commission, for example, despite legislative change designed to limit its influence, continues to act as an arbiter of national and award‐based minima in pay and conditions and as a means of conciliation and arbitration. Furthermore, while the introduction of enterprise and individual agreements within the awards system is a significant change, it does not yet constitute a break with past centralized practices since agreements remain subject to approval by either the Commission or the newly formed Office of the Employment Advocate. Moreover, it is not clear that enterprise agreements are necessarily delivering outcomes that are greatly different from that which would have been delivered in their absence, either through awards or through over‐award bargaining. Only the changed role of the trade union movement can clearly be judged as transformational. Even the most die‐hard unionists have long since given up hoping that the downward trend in union membership might be reversed. The best they can hope for is that the haemorrhage is staunched.