Work Reorganisation in Two Australian Open-Cut Coal Companies

Abstract

Commonly, employer efforts to reorganise work appear as a response to increasing market pressure. Market pressure is said to flow from globalisation and the saturation of mass production markets. Thus, in order to remain competitive, employers must target niche markets that require devising new methods of production. If employers implement new methods of production that allow them to adapt to changes in consumer demand, then they also require flexible work practices. This logic ties the introduction of work reorganisation to the new production concepts debate. This paper examines cases of reorganisation in an industry striving to remain internationally competitive where there was no corresponding effort to introduce new methods of production. The paper seeks to explain the successes and failures of work reorganisation in two chosen case studies using three variables developed by Geary (1993) in a previous reorganisation study. These variables are product market pressure, managerial commitment and worker resistance. The case studies demonstrate how these three variables combined along with other, more subtle, factors to produce interestingly different results in the two companies. Taken overall, however, the cases suggest that employers may experience difficulties in implementing schemes of major work reorganisation that do not correspond with the introduction of new methods of production.