Abstract
Marian Baird, Keith Hancock and Joe Isaac (eds), Work and Employment Relations: An Era of Change. Leichhardt NSW: The Federation Press, 2011, xxxii + 224 pp., AUD $59.95 (pbk).
This excellent short book performs two valuable functions. In the first place, it provides a fitting tribute to the academic career of Russell Lansbury. The book opens with an introductory essay by Joe Isaac that reviews Russell’s career and contribution to the field of Industrial Relations. Isaac makes the point that Russell’s life is a story of social mobility; that he was one of many in the post-war generation who used the public education system as a means to build a career and escape from modest circumstances – an upward route, incidentally, that is less available in the more unequal society Australia has become. In Russell’s case, mobility also embraced geographical movement, first to Europe to complete a doctorate at the London School of Economics, and then from Melbourne to Sydney, where he formally retired as Professor of Industrial Relations in 2009. Despite retirement, Russell’s career continues to unfold and another striking feature to emerge from Isaac’s essay is his sheer productivity as a scholar. This can be seen in the range of topics that Russell has studied, embracing inter alia organizational behaviour and the study of management, job design, comparative industrial relations, the auto industry, airlines, public policy, and the impact of globalization. It can also be seen in the staggering volume of his published output: at the end of Isaac’s essay, there is a list of ‘selected’ publications that runs to 13 pages of fine print. In the chapters that follow, the multiple references to Russell’s work attest to his contribution to Australian Industrial Relations scholarship and, in particular, to his role in promoting the comparative analysis of Australia alongside other national systems. His work is identified by Nick Wailes as marking a break with the hitherto dominant ‘exceptionalist’ current in Australian IR, with its inward focus and assertion that Australia could only be studied in its own terms without reference to systems, themes or theories developed elsewhere.
The other contribution of the book consists of its remaining 15 essays, reviewing contemporary developments in Australian industrial relations or, in the case of contributions by Greg Patmore, William Brown, Tom Kochan and Peter Auer, providing a comparative context against which those developments can be interpreted. Among the specifically Australia-focused pieces are concise reviews of developments in public policy, trade unionism and collective bargaining, employers, legal regulation, skill formation, high-performance work systems, and productivity. In combination, these form a succinct exposition of recent trends in Australian industrial relations and constitute an invaluable resource for anyone – researcher, teacher, policymaker – seeking to keep abreast of the rapidly changing Australian employment scene.
Most of these chapters deal with the reforms introduced by the Rudd–Gillard Labor government, at the centre of which is the Fair Work Act 2009. For a British reader, much, though not all, of this reform package is familiar, with distinct echoes of New Labour’s industrial relations policy of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Rudd–Gillard reforms embody elements of an international centre-left prescription for industrial relations. There are some distinctive themes, however, that grow from Australia’s ‘exceptional’ history, most notably the system of awards. Mark Bray’s crystal clear account of ‘modern awards’, the latest incarnation of a distinctively Australian form of regulation, is one of the highpoints of the book.
Other elements of Labor’s reform have strong parallels elsewhere. Rae Cooper and Bradon Ellem note that the Fair Work Act is distinctive in the degree to which it seeks to promote collective bargaining, but, just as under New Labour in Britain, this support seems to be qualified both in the sense of maintaining restrictive conditions on the right to strike and continuing to accept non-union employee agreements as a legitimate form of regulation. Good industrial relations seemingly are no longer assumed to be just union-based industrial relations for parties of the centre-left. Another element is the switch towards closer regulation of minimum standards, towards the creation of a regulatory safety net below which no employee should fall. In Australia, this has occurred through the elaboration of 10 statutory New Employment Standards, supplemented in a distinctive policy mix with the system of modern awards. It is through the latter, not the former, that minimum wages are now determined. This development raises the question of the relationship between collective bargaining and statutory or quasi-statutory forms of regulation. In his chapter, Willy Brown advances a replacement thesis: that the era of collective bargaining has given way decisively to one in which statutory regulation holds sway. An alternative view would be that hybrid systems of regulation may develop, in which collective bargaining complements legal standards – not least because it provides an acceptable means through which the latter can be applied flexibly and tailored to industry or company circumstances. Finally, the reform package has a strong equality and family-friendly component, exemplified by the Paid Parental Leave Act 2010, which is the subject of a separate chapter by Marian Baird. Labour market inequality is often obdurate in the face of reform, as the chapter on equal remuneration by Gillian Whitehouse and Tricia Rooney makes clear, but what might be termed ‘diversity legislation’, intended to make it easier for carers to combine work and domestic life, is now a core feature of centre-left public policy.
In his long career, Russell Lansbury has been not just a scholar of the first rank, but an academic manager and entrepreneur. He has built departments, launched research programmes, served as an editor, created networks and acted as a mentor to many emerging academics. This book attests to the vibrancy and good health of Australian Industrial Relations scholarship. Much of this is due to Russell’s nurturing of the field through often difficult times. In this further and final aspect, Work and Employment Relations is a fitting tribute to his achievement.