The Economic and Labour Relations Review

In October 1992 the federal coalition released Jobsback, a statement of its industrial relations policies. The article situates Jobsback in the context of the evolution of the coalition's industrial relations policies since the Fraser years, outlines its major features, and provides a critique. Jobsback erects a new regulatory schema under a banner of deregulation. Three key elements are contained in Jobsback. They are tribunal avoidance and the use of the common law, legislatively imposed employment rules to ‘aid’ the transition from an award to a non-award system, and enterprise confinement. The article draws attention to the coalition's views concerning industrial conflict, constitutional issues, transitional problems associated with establishing legislatively imposed workplace rules, minima in workplace agreements, the Office of the Employee Advocate, equality before the law and good faith bargaining.

The economic implications of enterprise bargaining depend critically on the precise version of enterprise bargaining being contemplated. One version sees enterprise bargaining as an add-on process, with the existing bank of awards retained, and trade unions playing a central and protected role. Another version sees enterprise bargaining as an holistic process, wherein all terms and conditions of employment can be negotiated subject to some minimum conditions. Trade unions may play some role, but not to the exclusion of other bargaining agents. Add-on enterprise bargaining may have only a small impact on productivity; there is a danger that wage (and price) inflation could increase; and the impact on employment is uncertain. Holistic enterprise bargaining is likely to have a more substantial impact on productivity; is unlikely to lead to inflation; and employment growth should be boosted. However, power-reducing policies and the abolition of awards are necessary correlates of holistic enterprise bargaining.

The implications of the Liberal-National Party Coalition's policy with regard to wage determination in Australia are assessed in relation to appropriate goals for wages policy. Although the current Accord-based system has shifted its focus over the last decade, from generally applied wage determination principles aimed at inflation control to an enterprise based system aimed at productivity enhancement, the Coalition's policy should not be seen as merely an extension of the current system. This is because, in pursuit of faster productivity gains, the Coalition policy aims at the permanent exclusion from the wage determination process of the two institutional elements which provide the scope for an anti-inflation incomes policy in Australia — the Industrial Relations Commission and the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

This paper argues that previous discussion of this question has erred when it looks for a particular provision of the Constitution to support the Coalition's policy. It may be a matter of depending on several sources of power. The relevant question is: to what extent can this power help to achieve the policy? The author's opinion is that, when considered in this light, the achievement of the Coalition's policy is not beyond the constitutional competence of the Commonwealth.

The primary aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the merits of enterprise bargaining by providing a wideranging overview. It provides a comprehensive definition of enterprise bargaining which enables a broad range of perspectives to be encompassed and helps to structure the discussion of the immediate context and the wider policy settings of the debate. The paper demonstrates that enterprise bargaining is not new. It identifies a number of current or proposed systems of enterprise bargaining the present federal system, the New South Wales model the BCA proposal the Federal Liberal/National Party approach, and the New Zealand model. These are then evaluated, making use of a simple conceptual framework. The analysis indicates that each system has its advantages and disadvantages, its supporters and critics. Its findings suggest that positive and negative features of all models should be taken into account, not only in the continuing debate on enterprise bargaining, but also in me improvement of existing enterprise bargaining systems and in the design of new models.

The main objective of this paper is to measure changes in living conditions in one hundred and ten countries of the World during the period 1961 to 1990. Our concern is whether the economic and social gap is narrowing or widening. We also examine in which countries has there been a consistent improvement in average living standards. The standard of living is measured in terms of (a) per capita income, (b) life expectancy at birth and (c) infant mortality rate. The justification of these indicators is provided in terms of functionings and capabilities.

This paper examines two issues pertinent to the effective implementation of monetary policy: firstly, the ability of the monetary authorities to control interest rates and secondly, whether interest rates have exhibited a leading, relationship with economic activity since deregulation of the financial markets. If expenditures are unresponsive to changes in interest rates it is shown that the monetary authorities have the ability to determine the interest rate but if the authorities attempt to push interest rates into regions in which expenditures become interest rate elastic, a role for liquidity preference in determination of the interest rate is restored. This limits the effects of discretionary monetary policy to the short-term. Previous empirical studies, graphs and correlation coefficients indicate only limited evidence for a negative association between interest rates and changes in economic activity whereas Granger causality tests indicate that predictable relationships between interest rates and economic activity have existed in Australia for the period in which financial markets have been deregulated.

There has been growing concern over the role of industrial relations arrangements in the workplace in Australia. In response more industrial relations research has focused on the workplace over the recent past. Although this work has centred on a range of themes, it has however relied on essentially the same theoretical framework or industrial relations paradigm. The basis of which is the analysis of bargained rules — the result of the joint-regulation of employment and workplace practice. In other words, the bargaining paradigm focuses overwhelmingly on one type of labour-management relation — viz. bargaining. This paper proposes a typology based on a number of types of social relations in order to broaden the basis of industrial relations analysis. It is used to analyse the characteristics and dynamics of a number of industrial relations systems currently under debate in Australia over the reshaping of industrial relations.