Restructuring of public utilities has been a response to the competitive pressures of internationalisation in many parts of the world. In Australia, the states of Victoria and New South Wales have taken rather different approaches with respect to electricity generation. Both have fragmented their industries, establishing autonomous corporate entities, but in Victoria these bave been sold—to multinational companies, as it happens—while in New South Wales ownership remains in tbe hands of the state government. This paper attempts to discover the repercussions for labour—management relations of the restructuring of electricity generation in the two states and, particu larly, whether the different forms of ownership have affected these relations.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Australia, Industry Commission (1991) Energy Generation and Distribution, Canberra: AGPS.
2.
Australia, Industry Commission (1996) The Electricity Industry in South Australia 1996, Canberra : AGPS.
3.
Bailey, E.E. and Pack, J.R. (1995) 'Introduction', in E. Bailey and J. Pack (eds) The Political Economy of Privatization and Deregulation, Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
4.
Benson, J. (1991) Unions at the Workplace: Shop Steward Leadership and Ideology, Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
5.
Boreham, T. (1997) 'Power play', Australian, 9 January.
6.
Carson, A. (2000) 'Power cuts loom after stand-down', Age, 11 January; p. 3.
7.
Colling, T. (1991) 'Privatisation and the management of IR in electricity distribution', Industrial Relations Journal, 22, 2: 117-29.
8.
Domberger, S. (1993) 'Privatisation: What does the British experience reveal?', Economic Papers, 12, 2, pp. 58-68.
9.
Dunning, J. (1993) Multinational Enterprises in a Global Economy, Wokingham: Addison & Wesley.
10.
Eggar, T. (1995) 'The regulation of the former nationalised utilities: A government view', in D. Helm (ed.) British Utility Regulation: Principles, Experience and Reform , Oxford: Oxera Press.
Fairbrother, P. and Macdonald, D. (1999) 'The role of the state and Australian public sector industrial relations: Depoliticisation and direct intervention', New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, 24, 3: 343-64.
13.
Fairbrother, P., Svensen, S. and Teicher, J. (1997) 'The ascendancy of neo-liberalism in Australia ', Capital and Class, 63, pp. 1-12.
14.
Ferner, A. and Colling, T. (1991) 'Privatization, regulation and industrial relations ', British Journal of Industrial Relations, 29, 3: 391-401.
15.
Ferner, A. and Colling, T. (1993) 'Electricity supply', in A. Pendleton and J. Winterton (eds) Public Enterprise in Transition: Industrial Relations in State and Privatized Corporations, London: Routledge, pp. 100-33.
16.
Hall, D. (1999) 'Electricity restructuring, privatisation and liberalisation: Some international experiences', commissioned by Public Servces International (PSI) and presented at Energy conference in Romania organised by Univers andPSI, October.
17.
Hall, D. and Lobina, E. (1999) 'Energy trends in EU', Public Senvices International Research Unit Paper presented at the EPSU Energy Conference, Brussels, 15 March.
18.
Johnson, M. and Rix, S. (1991) Powering the Future: The Electricity Industry and Australia's Energy Future, Leichhardt, NSW: Pluto Press Australia.
19.
Martin, S. and Parker, D. (1997) The Impact of Privatisation: Ownership and Corporate Performance in the UK, London: Routledge.
20.
Pendleton, A. (1997) 'What impact has privatization had on pay and employment? A review of the British experience', Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations52: 3: 554-79.
21.
Public Services Privatisation Research Unit ( 1996) 'The privatisation network—the multinationals bid for public services', 1 Mabledon Place, London WCIH 9AJ-PSPRU.
22.
Quiggin, J. (1999) 'Crossed wires in the privatisation debate', Australian Financial Review, special report, 17 May.
23.
Ruigrok, W. and van Tuelder, R. (1995) The Logic of International Restructuring, London: Routledge.
24.
Smith, S. (1997) Electricity and Privatisation, Briefing Paper no. 17/97, Sydney:NSW Parliamentary Library Research Service.
25.
Victoria, Department of Treasury and Finance Energy Project Division (1997), Victoria's Electricity Supply; Towards 2000, Melbourne: Energy Projects Division, http://www.energy.dtf.vic.gov.au
