Unions and collective bargaining in Australia in 2012

Abstract

In 2012, the big issues for unions were working hours, insecurity, supply chain intervention, collective rights, public sector employment and, of course, organisation and membership. Membership and density were fairly stable. Disputation rose but was well below the levels of the Workplace Relations Act era. Disputes became longer and retained their focus on bargaining under the Fair Work Act. Unions continued to attempt to widen sources of collective power that had been severely constricted during the Howard years. They developed new policies and a slightly broader range of tactics, and undertook some internal restructuring at the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The unions’ relationship with the federal government was relatively stable. In contrast, in state public sectors there was increasing unrest, with unions using a variety of tactics to counter attacks on job security and long-standing conditions. Unions also faced challenges from restructuring and redundancies in industries such as airlines and coal.

Keywords

Collective bargaining Fair Work Act industrial disputes trade unions

Introduction

If your main source of information about unions was the mainstream media, you would think that as far as unions were concerned, 2012 was the year of sleaze. Under the spell of a political narrative based around linking the Australian Labor Party (ALP) government to the evils of contemporary corruption in the Health Services Union (HSU), or to the creation of ‘slush funds’ in the Australian Workers Union (AWU) two decades earlier, or the alleged ‘thuggery’ of a construction union picket line, the image presented of unions in the media world was relentlessly negative (e.g. Ergas, 2012; Merritt, 2012; Packham, 2012a). In the real world inhabited by most unions, however, the challenges were very different. The big issues were working hours, insecurity, supply chain intervention, gender-based undervaluation, collective rights, public sector employment and, of course, organisation and membership. In this review, we look at union matters through, in order, statistics on union membership and industrial disputation, developments in collective bargaining, union governance and regulation, union strategy, and union relations with state governments.

Union membership

Late in April 2012, the trade union membership estimates for August 2011 were released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, 2012a). These estimated union density (the proportion of employees in a union) at 18.36%, up slightly from the 18.29% recorded in August 2010, though that had been lower than any other survey since the ABS commenced this data collection in the 1970s. Practitioners and observers sometimes pore over changes in annual estimates to draw inferences on union gains and retreats, but the ABS data are ill-suited to this task, being based on surveys and subject to sampling error. This can have quite an impact from one year to the next. So, in this section, we discuss trend estimates of the membership data, to tease out underlying patterns. We use a methodology akin to that used for a number of ABS series – a 7-point Henderson weighted moving-average series (explained in more detail elsewhere; see Peetz, 2005); the estimates are subject to revision in later years.

In trend terms, there were 1.820 million union members in Australia in 2011, almost identical to the 1.818 million in 2010 but not reversing the pattern of small annual increases in total membership since the trough of 1.746 million in 2007, the last full year of WorkChoices. As a proportion of total employees, however, the trend continued to be slightly downwards: from 19.4% in 2007 to 19.0% in 2008, 18.7% in 2010 and 18.5% in 2011. Over the past three years, trend densities among women and men have been virtually identical, finally closing the gap that had been 10 percentage points two decades earlier.

These aggregates, however, disguised some sectoral shifts. Trend union density in the private sector was stable between 13.5% and 13.6% through 2008–2011, and it rose in the public sector from 42.6% to 43.1%. Yet a decline (by 1.4 percentage points over three years) in the share of public sector employment meant that overall density fell by 0.5 percentage points. Casual employment as a share of total employment is now relatively stable, having declined from 21% to 19% of employed persons since 2007 (ABS, 2012b), so the public–private sector shift is the main structural change problem for unions. Current attacks on public sector employment in state jurisdictions (discussed later) may intensify this difficulty.

Industrial disputation

In the world inhabited by the mainstream media, 2012 was a year of soaring industrial conflict (Packham, 2012b) that showed the failure of the Fair Work Act (FW Act). In the real world inhabited by unions, the story was more prosaic. At the time we went to press, data became available for the 12 months to the end of December 2012, showing 273,200 working days lost through 204 disputes over that year (ABS, 2013). This was an increase on the 241,500 days lost (but still through 192 disputes) over the preceding year, and 20% above the average volume of days lost annually through the FW Act period (from July 2009 onwards), but slightly below the number of disputes. The FW Act period in turn averaged 38% fewer working days lost than the Workplace Relations (WR) Act years (1997–2007) through 63% fewer disputes. The data include lockouts, for which separate current data are not available (though we know that in the 1998–2003 period, lockouts accounted for just 2% of disputes but about 9% of working days lost; see Briggs, 2006).

The demonised construction industry accounted for about 23% of working days lost in the year – similar to its share of 24% in the previous year, but above its long-term average of 15% over the period from 1985. (Some disaggregations are not published by the ABS, which is why we say ‘about’.) By far the major source of disputation was the largely public sector collection of industries referred to as ‘education, health and community services’: they accounted for about 46% of days lost in 2012, well over their share of 26% in the previous year and their long-term average of 17%. This sector accounted for four-fifths of the increase in days lost that year, and this in turn reflected major issues with state governments, discussed later, some of which were outside the realm of the FW Act. Other contributors to total days lost in 2012 were ‘other’ (i.e. non-metals) manufacturing (13%) and coal-mining (10%).

Data on dispute causes that we were able to analyse only covered the year to June 2012, but they confirmed that, as has been the pattern through most of the FW Act years, the majority of disclosed working days lost (64% in the year to June 2012 and 71% through the period of the FW Act) have been in enterprise bargaining disputes. By contrast, under the WR Act only a minority of days lost were through enterprise bargaining. That is, unions have reduced their use of illegal industrial action. Yet, while in the world of the mainstream media wage costs had apparently been driven to uncompetitive levels by union action (e.g. Elks, 2012), in reality, only a small portion of working days lost were in disputes over wages (around 6% of days lost in the year to June 2012 and 12% through the FW Act). By contrast, 53% of working days lost in the year to June 2012 (and 56% through the period of the FW Act) were due to bargaining disputes over conditions of employment. The action in bargaining, as we shall see, has been focused around working time and other non-wage issues.

Disputes are also lasting longer in the face of the procedural requirements surrounding disputation that were intensified during WorkChoices and amended only slightly under the FW Act. These procedural requirements lead unions to incur substantial expenses in arranging industrial action and emphasise their need to provide a strong signal to employers when action is taken (Peetz, 2012). In the year to June 2012, 20% of disputes lasted for five or more days, similar to the average under the FW Act to date (17%) but over double the proportion (9%) under the WR Act over the 2003–2007 period.

Collective bargaining

As reflected in the disputation patterns, collective bargaining in much of the private sector was orderly. That said, there were some notable disputes, reflecting wider issues such as some employers’ push for longer hours, and attempts by unions to exert agency over the difficult area of subcontracting. Private sector agreements negotiated during 2012 provided annualised wage increases averaging 3.8% in the year to December, but the public sector average at 3.2% was much lower (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), 2013). A smaller gap, but in the same direction, was shown in the Wage Price Index (3.4% growth in the private sector and 3.2% in the public sector over the year to December 2012), which covered both union and non-union workers and is more retrospective in nature.

Coal-mining continued to be one of the most industrially volatile sectors as employers sought to intensify the use of labour. An 18-month bargaining impasse between BHP Billiton Coal and mining unions in Queensland’s Bowen Basin (Brigden, 2012) – ‘more about conditions and operational issues than pay’ (Chambers and Maher, 2012) – led to extended strikes. It eventually saw former Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Bill Kelty mediating in July and a deal reached in October that omitted BHP Billiton’s original proposal of maximum shift lengths of 15 hours (Workplace Express, 2012a). Insecurity returned to the industry when, in April, BHP Billiton announced closure of its Norwich Park mine in the Bowen Basin, and later that it would put on hold plans to expand Olympic Dam in South Australia (SA) and other projects in Port Hedland and Peak Downs (Chambers, 2012; Chambers and Maher, 2012). The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) commented that if profits were down, it was only because the previous year had set a record, adding that ‘mining companies love to announce they will delay projects that haven’t started yet’ (Maher, 2012).

In manufacturing, Schweppes locked out 150 employees at Tullamarine for eight weeks until February, over plans for a six-day, 12-hour roster. United Voice members objected due to reductions in safety and earnings. Fair Work Australia (FWA) ended the lockout under section 423 (on grounds of significant economic harm to the parties) and embarked on a section 266 workplace determination (Drill, 2012). This resulted in the parties commencing a trial of the roster (with volunteers), and in increased shift penalties, a one-off payment for those moving to the new arrangements and an 11% wage increase, including 3% for the lengthy bargaining period.¹

In retail, hospitality and fast food, unions were more active on the arbitration front than in bargaining or taking industrial action. Employers sought to reduce or eliminate penalty rates in modern awards – for unions, a fundamental strike at the ‘safety net’ (Lucas, 2012a). KFC and Pizza Hut bid, unsuccessfully, to overturn FWA’s decision to bring them under the modern Fast Food Industry Award 2010.²

In air transport, Qantas made headlines with repercussions from its earlier actions (Brigden, 2012). A Federal Court ruling in May 2012 found that its October 2011 grounding and lockout was not required to be proportionate, rational or reasonable.³ In February, Qantas announced 500 job cuts in heavy maintenance and elsewhere (Workplace Express, 2012b) and a further reduction of 400 later in the year, with the Tullamarine maintenance base closing (Workplace Express, 2012c). Arbitration continued in FWA, with mixed results. The principal union in the 2011 dispute, the Transport Workers Union (TWU), received a major setback in August when FWA rejected its key claims for contracting restrictions and identical site rates between subsidiaries and parent. The union’s 5% pay claim was also rejected in favour of the 3% offered by Qantas (Gittins, 2012). Australian Services Union (ASU) delegates endorsed an agreement delivering annual pay rises of 3% as well as some reclassification arrangements (Workplace Express, 2012d). Technical employees, represented mainly by the Association of Licenced Aircraft Engineers of Australia (ALAEA), received an interim 3% pay rise in July in a consent agreement, pending the negotiation of new classification and pay structures (Workplace Express, 2012e). At year’s end, the pilots were still awaiting their workplace determination.

While many other unions focused most of their collective bargaining efforts at the enterprise level, United Voice used a mix of industry strategies and bargaining, notably, in the cleaning industry. Its ‘Clean Start’ campaign, launched in 2006 (Aguiar and Ryan, 2009), gathered momentum in 2012. Consistent with United Voice’s push for ‘Responsible Contractors Policies’, the Building Service Contractors Association of Australia and the Shopping Centre Council of Australia endorsed a joint code of conduct regarding fair wages and conditions and a safe working environment (Workplace Express, 2012f). Using public ‘naming and shaming’ strategies (Australian Associated Press (AAP), 2012a), the union pushed further for a sector-wide agreement with large contractors, including those servicing shopping centres (Workplace Express, 2012f).

A volatile environment continued in construction, particularly in Victoria and Queensland. The South Brisbane children’s hospital project (the principal contractor being Abigroup, with Lend Lease and others involved) saw long-running industrial action, as well as a ‘community picket’ led by activist Bob Carnegie, over site rates and the perennial issue of subcontractors paying principal contractor conditions (AAP, 2012b; McCarthy, 2012). FWA issued unions with an unusually long (six months) order against industrial action in September (Workplace Express, 2012g), which was on appeal at the time of writing. Further south, the Grocon dispute was played out on television screens. A 16-day blockade of its Melbourne Emporium site in August and September, in which protestors clashed with police (Gillett and Devic, 2012), led to Grocon filing a AU$10m common law suit against the CFMEU and officials, as well as contempt applications, which the Victorian government joined (Workplace Express, 2012h). The newly established replacement for the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the Fair Work Building and Construction Inspectorate, launched proceedings in October under the FW Act against the CFMEU and 10 officials, claiming that Grocon was being forced to employ union-nominated shop stewards (Workplace Express, 2012i). Decisions on most of these matters were still pending at the year’s end. In November, however, the CFMEU won a case before the Victorian Building Industry Disputes Panel that Grocon had underpaid site allowances (Lucas, 2012b).

In the communications sector, Telstra had long resisted unions and so with 60-plus agreements due to expire in September 2012, the company and communications unions (the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU), the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) and the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia (APESMA)) spent 2012 flexing industrial muscles. Unions opposed Telstra’s proposals to freeze pay and/or introduce performance-based increases, while in June, FWA rejected Telstra’s claim that the organisation should be covered by the industry’s Modern Award rather than a replacement agreement.⁴ A single agreement covering 22,000 employees was still being finalised late in 2012. However, as a legacy of Telstra’s use of individual agreements during the Howard years (Ross and Bamber, 2000), over 10,000 Telstra staff remained on Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), due to expire in late 2012 and early 2013 (Workplace Express, 2012j), so the firm, in the short term at least, remained on a mix of collective and individualised arrangements.

Collective bargaining was under threat in other quarters. Equipment hire company Coates sought to test good-faith bargaining (GFB) requirements by offering to back-pay a 4.5% increase if workers voted for a non-union collective agreement, following a breakdown of negotiations with the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU). In the end, a union agreement was concluded in June (AMWU, 2012).

More broadly, the FW Act’s bargaining provisions, including the GFB arrangements, continued to be a source of disagreement when things did not go the way of one or other of the parties. The Cochlear bargaining case, for which the AMWU won a majority support determination more than three years ago (Cooper and Ellem, 2012: 148–149), continued to drag on in 2012, with the company holding the line against collective bargaining despite being subject to GFB orders, a matter discussed elsewhere (McCrystal and Orchiston, this issue).

Issues of insecurity dogged unions in some industries, such as airlines, cleaning and construction, and led to their seeking to prevent contracting out, or to regulate the conditions of those on contracts or supply chains themselves. The JJ Richards case was considered by appeal courts and the legislative review, while the legal fate of the ADJ Contracting agreement was also of great interest to unions. Both of these cases are considered elsewhere (McCrystal and Orchiston, this issue). The prospect for disputation around ‘contractor’ claims in bargaining remains open. This will no doubt be an area of burgeoning litigation and campaigning for unions.

Some aspects of noteworthy initiatives in collective bargaining crossed more than one industry. New ‘bargaining issues’ were one example. Family or domestic violence came to the fore as a bargaining issue in 2012, in the context of a significant report released during the year (Australian Law Reform Commission, 2012). Domestic violence leave was steadily being introduced into bargaining agendas, with around 700,000 (mostly public sector) workers eligible (Schneiders, 2012a, 2012b). On the other hand, DEEWR reported that fewer agreements incorporated environmental sustainability clauses (Workplace Express, 2012k), which had previously held promise of being a ‘new’ bargaining issue.

Overall, though, the disputes discussed here focused on some well-traversed issues. We saw a number of sectors where conflict related to working time and shift arrangements, particularly in resources and manufacturing (including the Schweppes dispute). Inter-union disputation over hours also reached the tribunal in matters relating to greenfields agreements, for example, two between the AWU and the companies John Hollands and Thiess, regarding the WA Wheatstone Liquid Natural Gas construction project. (There, FWA dismissed other unions’ objections to the agreed rosters.⁵) Collective rights were the focus of attention in Telstra, Coates and Cochlear, though overall, unions were not responding to any general upswing in employer militancy. And, as mentioned earlier, it was the perennial issue of job insecurity that had led to union action in air and road transport, cleaning, and construction.

Promoting industry-level regulation

A number of unions faced problems of gender-based, historical undervaluation of their members’ skills, which could not be redressed through enterprise bargaining. The FW Act, and a more sympathetic federal government, provided some opportunities to push back some barriers and enabled some notable achievements in 2012. These included in the social and community services industry, where a final decision by the FWA Full Bench in February, regarding a claim by the ASU, increased rates in the relevant Modern Award in line with an earlier Queensland decision (Charlesworth, this issue; Cortis and Meagher, 2012). The ASU won the ACTU’s award for workplace campaign of the year, alongside a New South Wales (NSW) Nurses Association campaign at Griffith Base Hospital (ACTU, 2012a). Another ongoing union strategy, though yet to see such spectacular wins, was the ‘Big Steps’ campaign in child care, which saw United Voice making a budget submission and meeting Prime Minister Gillard in September. Firm government commitments were yet to be placed on the table (Shanahan and Packham, 2012).

Sectoral regulation resulting from union campaigning assisted textiles, clothing and footwear workers who faced special difficulties due to the tortuous supply chain. Prolonged international and local campaigning (Burchielli et al., 2009), involving the Textiles Clothing & Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA) and community groups, led to the March passage of the Fair Work Amendment (Textile, Clothing and Footwear Industry) Act 2012. The Act delivered improvements in right of entry and recovery of unpaid earnings, held all outworkers to now be employees, required employers to provide them with at least 20 hours’ work per week, and allowed an outworker code to be formulated (TCFUA, 2012). Ironically, in Queensland, protests were provoked by the state government’s November abolition of a new outworkers’ code of practice within its own jurisdiction (Agius, 2012). Supply chain regulation was also evident in the long-running campaign (Rawling and Kaine, 2012) by road transport unions, which led to the creation of the Federal Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal in July (McCrystal and Orchiston, this issue).

Union governance and strategy

The HSU was an ongoing source of embarrassment for unions and titillation for the media. After suspending the union in April, the ACTU subsequently set up a union governance and accountability panel chaired by former Federal Court judge Rodney Madgwick. Michael Williamson resigned as HSU president following a report by Ian Temby QC; he subsequently faced criminal charges over use of union funds. Tasmanian Branch Secretary Chris Brown was made acting president. Former national secretary Kathy Jackson was lauded as a ‘whistleblower’ by herself, the mainstream media and the HR Nicholls Society, whom she addressed in June. She, in turn, became the subject of multiple allegations of impropriety over use of union funds, leading to Brown charging her with misconduct (Wicks, 2012). An administrator was appointed. Elections were held in the key branches and, in two out of three, were won by candidates who appeared to be tied to neither the Jackson nor the Williamson factions (the ballot in the third was delayed).

The major personnel change at the ACTU was the retirement of Jeff Lawrence after a five-year term as secretary, and his replacement by Dave Oliver, formerly secretary of the AMWU. The move was seen by one observer as ‘enabling the union movement to gear up for a fight over industrial relations to coincide with the next federal election’ (Coorey, 2012). Ged Kearney was re-elected, unopposed, as president. Her speech at the three-yearly Congress in May emphasised unions’ role in advocating an alternative economic vision, and tackling the challenge of insecure work by ‘campaign[ing] industrially, through our organising, and in the community’ (Kearney, 2012).

Congress’s new policy platform (ACTU, 2012b) called for amendments to the FW Act, including to provisions on industrial action that remain, by international standards, quite restrictive (McCrystal and Novitz, 2012). Other policies included supporting easier rules on pattern bargaining and secret ballots, progressive elimination of junior rates after age 18, increases in first-year apprentice wages, minimum entitlements for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island workers’ bargaining claims, increased paid carers’ leave, improvements to paid parental leave and, on skilled migration, support for independent, permanent migrants rather than temporary or employer-sponsored entrants.

A major ACTU initiative carrying over into 2012 was the Insecure Work report (ACTU, 2012c) presented to Congress in May by enquiry chair Brian Howe, a former deputy prime minister. The ACTU Congress passed a ‘Secure Jobs, Better Future’ resolution to develop campaigns to give agency and labour hire workers better protection, prevent sham contracting, and extend the current ‘joint responsibility’ provisions in occupational health and safety (OHS) laws to all workplace laws. This initiative contributed to international union efforts to expose global problems with agency work (IndustriALL, 2012). It seemed that Australian unions were set to campaign in a more systematic way about those workers described by some as the ‘precariat’ (e.g. Standing, 2011). There may be some limited government will to address this issue; sham contracting was the subject of an Australian Building and Construction Commissioner (ABCC) enquiry reporting late in 2011, with further activity in 2012 laying the parameters for legislative reform (ABCC, 2011; Roles and Stewart, 2012).

Job cuts hit the ACTU itself. Twenty of the ACTU’s 108 employees lost their jobs late in the year, following an external review. Job losses were concentrated in its largest division, the organising and campaign centre, responsible for, among other things, the delivery of union education and training (Workplace Express, 2012l). Anticipating the possibility of a hostile federal government and the reality of mostly conservative state governments, the ACTU set up a permanent campaign fund to raise AU$4m annually – financed by affiliates donating AU$2 per member (ACTU, 2012b).

The public sector

Conservative state governments – led by NSW, Queensland and Victoria – took tough stances against some of their own employees in relation to pay increases (beyond a set minimum) and/or on industrial rights such as striking and job security. A strong degree of ‘pattern bargaining’ across borders was apparent. While wage restraint was enforced on pejoratively defined ‘public servants’, in contrast, state governments sought to appear to understand the plight of nurses, ambulance officers, police and other occupations viewed sympathetically by the public. Both low-wage and high-disputation outcomes in the public sector reflected strategies of state governments as employers. By contrast, disputation was largely absent from federal government bargaining and wage increases were generally higher than in state public services (with defence and its 23,000 employees finalising a 4.2% increase in April; see DEEWR, 2012: 25).

In Queensland, the conservative Newman government, which came to power in March with an overwhelming majority, incurred the ire of unions with tough stances regarding public sector conditions and substantial job cutbacks (detailed in Brace, this issue) that dominated state politics and prompted various legal ructions as well as an unusual early decline in government popularity (AAP, 2012c). A 2.7% offer to teachers was accepted ‘in principle’ by Queensland Teachers Union (QTU) members in October (Chilcott, 2012). However, a 2.35% wage offer for the principal collective agreement covering 120,000 Queensland public servants, which expired in July, was put to the vote in November, with the unions strongly urging, and securing, a ‘no’ vote (Elmes, 2012; Scott, 2012). The matter was then heading for arbitration.

Further south, the NSW O’Farrell government had been keen to use its Industrial Relations Amendment (Public Sector Conditions of Employment) Act (NSW) 2011 and its policy limiting pay increases to 2.5% per annum unless funded by employee-related savings (Workplace Express, 2012m). The High Court in December upheld the Act’s legality in the face of a union challenge.⁶ Another element of the government’s ‘reform’ agenda was legislation encouraging ‘competitive unionism' and increasing penalties for unions defying industrial action orders (Workplace Express, 2012m). The NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) awarded 2.5% in July to employees under the main public sector award.⁷ In contrast, in September, police were awarded 3.5% for the first year and 3.2% for the following two years. The government in August applied to the NSW IRC to have a range of public service benefits reduced or eliminated, including shift penalties, additional annual leave entitlements for shift workers, leave loadings for all workers and some conditions for remote work (Patty, 2012a).

The NSW Public Service Association (PSA) held ‘stop-work’ meetings around the state on 8 October in defiance of IRC orders (Patty, 2012b).⁸ Some parts of the public sector were particularly volatile; the NSW Teachers Federation was fined for ignoring, in December 2011, a no-strike order from the IRC, that union’s fourth penalty in two years.⁹ Major cuts were inflicted in education and services (Hall, 2012). Especially in transport, these cuts helped mobilise support for the Sydney Alliance, a recently formed quasi-coalition of Unions NSW and community groups, which gained widespread publicity for its map highlighting transport ‘black spots’ (Saulwick, 2012) and with potential to broaden the base of union action.

The Victorian government had also set a wages cap of 2.5%, again with higher increases to be paid from ‘productivity savings’. Unions, however, retained some negotiating leverage. After a nine-month campaign, Victorian nurses preserved most nurse–patient ratios and received pay increases of between 14% and 21% (or 3.3–4.8% annualised) in a four-year deal. However, the outcome increased the allowable ratios for enrolled nurses, so was described by Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) Victorian Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick as ‘bittersweet’ (Hagan and Medew, 2012). July also saw the state’s 35,000 public servants receive a negotiated 12.5% pay increase over 42 months (3.4% annualised), plus a AU$1500 lump-sum payment.¹⁰ Mental health workers – after imposing bans and stop-work actions – received increases of between 3.5% and 4.6% a year and some other benefits (Health and Community Services Union (HACSU), 2012). The Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU), covering public sector teachers, and its private sector counterpart, the Independent Education Union, walked off the job on 5 September for 24 hours (following a June strike by the AEU). Key sticking points included a performance pay system, with the government offering 2.5% and a ‘substantial bonus’ for the best 70% of teachers. Unresolved at the year’s end (Topsfield, 2012), this significant mobilisation unusually involved both the public and private sectors, including school support staff, and further action was endorsed for early 2013.

In SA, in July, the PSA won a High Court decision that the Supreme Court was wrong to refuse to hear an appeal regarding a refusal by the SA IRC to deal with a dispute about long service leave entitlements.¹¹ The SA government and the PSA agreed to a 3% per annum two-year agreement, with a one-off bonus of AU$1000 (Kelton, 2012).¹²

Overall, there appeared to be a strong degree of ‘policy emulation' by state governments (Colley, 2012), which may gain further traction in 2013. Clearly, some state governments were engaged in efforts similar to those in the UK (Bach, 2012) to undermine long-standing systems of public sector employment relations, with arguments couched in terms of ‘fiscal discipline’ and ‘austerity economics’. However, unions were vigorously resisting via legal manoeuvres and appealing to public opinion, with industrial action on the increase.

Conclusion

By the standards of the 21st century, 2012 was probably a good year for unions. They made major gains in addressing undervaluation and continued to attempt to widen their sources of power that had been severely constricted during the Howard years. There was some limited action on alliance-building and it was clear that ‘critical institutional hurdles to recognizing the undervaluation of feminized work’ were being challenged (Cortis and Meagher, 2012: 383), albeit unevenly. While the FW Act has been a ‘mixed bag’ for unions, it provided a better framework than its predecessor for orderly bargaining. Unions’ relationship with the federal government, while somewhat fraught (Peetz and Bailey, 2012), did not deteriorate as the government largely ‘held the line’ in its response to the FW Act Review, making few substantive changes. In contrast, there was increasing unrest in state public sectors, a union stronghold, with unions using a variety of tactics to counter attacks on long-standing conditions. There was no strong upswing in employer militancy except in traditionally conflictual areas such as black coal and construction, although in some industries, such as airlines and coal, restructuring and redundancies remain a key part of the employer armoury.

The ACTU developed a new policy platform with a range of new issues. Regulating work in supply chains and how to confront the ‘triangular trap’ of labour hire work are key foci for the coming three years, with critical industries being construction, cleaning, transport, and textiles and clothing – and doubtless others emerging. Wages were not an explosive issue outside the state government sectors, but unions continued to face major battles on working time and employment security as economic uncertainty spread.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the research and editing assistance of Sue Ressia and Maureen Todhunter.

Notes

Biographical notes

Janis Bailey works in the Department of Employment Relations and Human Resources, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. She is also a member of the university’s research centre Work, Organisation and Wellbeing (WOW). Her research interests include union strategy and culture, vulnerable workers including youth and women, and teaching and learning in industrial relations. She is currently working on projects on comparative retail union strategy, gender equity in universities, and campaigns for better wages in the social and community services sector. She has previously worked as a union industrial officer and for a state industrial commission.

David Peetz is Professor of Employment Relations at Griffith University, in the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing. He previously worked in the then Commonwealth Department of Industrial Relations, spending over five years in its Senior Executive Service. He has been a consultant for the International Labour Organisation in Thailand, Malaysia and China, and undertaken work for unions, employers and governments of both political persuasions. He is the author of Unions in a Contrary World (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and Brave New Workplace (Allen & Unwin, 2006) and co-author of Women of the Coal Rushes (UNSW Press, 2010), as well as numerous academic articles, papers and reports.

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