Journal of Industrial Relations

Industrialized countries have experienced a considerable expansion in the white-collar sector, particularly at the professional, technical and executive level. This study is concerned with various technical specialists, known collectively as management services, which are representative of a group of emergent technical specialists not readily falling into traditional occupational categories. It examines the attitude of technical specialist staff employed in management services toward future careers and how their career orientations influence their membership of occupational associations. The study supports the view that membership of professional associations and trade unions, increasingly, is regarded as complementary rather than contradictory. Furthermore, the results contain implications for the future organization of technical specialists.

The literature on the economic evaluation of manpower programs is virtually unanimous in preferring the use of the control group design for measuring the program effects on participants, to that of the alternative "before-after" comparison. This paper attempts to redress the balance of argument, more in favour of the "before-after" approach. The efficacy of the control group experiment in many instances is marred by the biassing effects of the self-selection of the experimental group. On the other hand, it is argued that the use of computer simulation techniques can transfer the before-after comparison from a somewhat naive method into a technical tool at least as powerful as the control group. An illustration of the approach is provided relating to an evaluative study of Skillcentres in Britain, using a Markov chain simulation model in lieu of a control group.

This paper examines the formation of the Victorian Football League Players' Association and gives an account of their development during 1974. The emergence of the V.F.L.P.A. is set against the background of an industry circumscribed by a series of monopsonistic controls which severely limit the employment opportunities of footballers; of the growth of similar associations in a number of overseas professional sports; and growing industrial tensions in a number of Australian sports. For students of Australia's system of industrial relations the emergence of the V.F.L.P.A. should be of interest in the sense that it appears that collective bargaining will be the method through which rules of the workplace will be determined.

Both the internal activities and the external machinations of the V.F.L.P.A. are examined in some detail. Particular attention is paid to the V.F.L.P.A.'s concern with internal communications and to reasons for the V.F.L.'s rather lukewarm opposition to the formation of the V.F.L.P.A. The conclusion, on the basis of overseas experience, offers some policy recommendations to help improve the cohesiveness and effectiveness of the V.F.L.P.A.

In New Zealand, from 1905, there has been progressively. repressive legislation against strikes. The Industrial Relations Act of 1973, however, reversed this trend by reducing both legislative measures and penalties, and gave the impression that strikes became legal. The aim of this paper is to show that this impression was mistaken, and to account for the probable cause of this mistaken view. It is argued that all strikes, including those over disputes of interest, are illegal except for one very rare exception. In fact, an analysis of the historical development of legislative measures shows that when the Labour Government removed the explicit penalties for strikes, it was merely removing the more recent and severe penalties imposed by the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Acts. Furthermore, after assessing the value of strike penalties it is argued that they fail to fulfil either a deterrent function, an acceptable punitive function, or a reformative function. Therefore, strike penalties should be removed from legislation, in both explicit and implicit form and it should be explicitely stated that sirikes are not considered illegal.

Disciplinary action by union councils often have been invalidated by the Australian Industrial Court because rules of natural justice were not followed. The major decisions of the Industrial Court, and other courts dealing with natural justice, are examined to demonstrate when natural justice must be accorded and to show what must be done to satisfy the requirements of natural justice. Most of the cases considered are characterized by the desire of the union council to act swiftly to penalize an official or member who has come into disfavour. However, this swiftness has meant that the accused member has not had an adequate opportunity to present his side of the story. Thus, if union councils wish to avoid a great deal of costly litigation a number of simple rules regarding natural justice should be observed.

Labour turnover, despite attempts to reduce it, has largely remained an intractable problem. This study aims to establish a deeper understanding of labour turnover by analysing it in the context of ten organizational variables. The study highlights the significance of labour turnover as a behavioural measure, by showing that it is one of the most sensitive variables in depicting organizational deterioration. It is shown that labour turnover is not so much a problem within a work organization as a problem pervading the entire work organizarion. Thus, long-term solutions to the problem of labour turnover are more likely to be found in substantive programs of organization development rather than in personnel practices directed at remedying particular sources of dissatisfaction.