Is the system of collective bargaining under the Fair Work Act broken? Both employers and unions think that it is, and that the legislation requires significant amendment. Are they right?
This collection answers this question by examining the operation, effects and impact of the framework for enterprise bargaining established by the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) nine years after it was enacted. This legislation, introduced by the Rudd Labor Government, was ostensibly intended to restore a collectivist focus to the system of industrial regulation following the Howard Coalition Government’s ‘Work Choices’ experiment. The ‘Fair Work’ model is now sufficiently mature to permit an informed examination of its practical operation, including its response to continuing rapid social, economic, structural and labour market change, and an evaluation of how it can and should respond to these changes in the future.
Comprising contributions from leading Australian scholars in the fields of law and industrial relations, and critical reflections on the operation of the Australian model from North American and United Kingdom contributors, this collection provides that evaluation, exploring the critical successes and failures of the Fair Work Act and setting out directions for future change.
Preface
About the Contributors
Union Abbreviations
Table of Cases
Table of Statutes
1. Evaluating the Australian Experiment in Enterprise Bargaining
Breen Creighton, Anthony Forsyth and Shae McCrystal
2. Getting to the Bargaining Table: Coercive, Facilitated and Pre-Commitment Bargaining
Breen Creighton
3. Has the Australian Model Resisted US-Style Anti-Union Organising Campaigns? Case Studies of the Cochlear and ResMed Bargaining Disputes
Anthony Forsyth and Bradon Ellem
4. The Role of Trade Unions and Individual Bargaining Representatives: Who Pays for the Work of Bargaining?
Rosalind Read
5. Bargaining, Cooperation and ‘New Approaches’ under the Fair Work Act
Mark Bray, Andrew Stewart and Johanna Macneil
6. Deadlocked Bargaining Disputes: Industrial Action, Agreement Termination and Access to Arbitration
Shae McCrystal
7. Employer-Controlled Agreement-Making: Thwarting Collective Bargaining Under the Fair Work Act
Umeya Chaudhuri and Troy Sarina
8. General Protections: Industrial Activities and Collective Bargaining
Joellen Riley
9. The State Strikes Back: Supervision and Sanctioning of Unlawful Industrial Activity by Federal Government Agencies in Australia
Tess Hardy
10. Access to Collective Bargaining for Low-Paid Workers
Fiona Macdonald, Sara Charlesworth and Cathy Brigden
11. Collective Bargaining under the Fair Work Act from the UK (and European) Perspective: Ideology, Individualisation and the State
Lizzie Barmes
12. Welcome to the Bottom: A North American Perspective on the Fair Work Act
Eric Tucker
Bibliography
Index
