Women and Enterprise Bargaining: The New Zealand Experience of Labour Market Deregulation

Abstract

In many countries there has been a drive to determine wages and conditions at the level of the enterprise rather than at the industry or national level. In both Australia and New Zealand, governments have pursued policies that have at tempted to decentralize their collective bargaining system to the enterprise level. Although in each case the approach to the process of decentralization has been different, both countries have sought to lower the level at which bargaining takes place. The decentralization of bargaining has implications for actors in the industrial relations system. This paper examines the impact of decentralization on women workers by updating information that has been collected on an ongoing basis at the Industrial Relations Centre at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. The paper presents the New Zealand data in the context of their implications for equity. The analysis concludes that decentralization has disadvantaged women workers in New Zealand and that these findings have significant implications for policy makers in Australia. It notes that while the Employment Contracts Act in New Zealand holds little commitment to equity, in Australia the rhetoric of equity and fairness is still evident in policy pronouncements. The paper concludes that even with a greater commitment to issues of equity indicated by the Australian government, decentralization of bargaining is likely to exacerbate gender in equalities at work.