Employment Relations 4th Edition by Mark Bray -Test Bank

Formal rules ‘are usually written and the result of a deliberate social process‘. For example: awards; individual and collective agreements; union rule books; company policy manuals.

Informal rules are sometimes consciously negotiated, but are unwritten agreements between parties or even accepted social practices at work, the origins of which no-one really knows. For example: custom and practice; unwritten agreements between union delegates and supervisors.

Agency acknowledges that parties to the employment relationship are not passive and predictable. Parties exercise choice and these choices are influenced by their values, resources, expectations and desired outcomes, and these choices influence the employment relationship.

Contexts are the external circumstances in which parties to employment relations find themselves and which are largely beyond their control. They operate at a number of levels and they influence, but do not determine, the actions and choices of those parties.

Individual; work group level; company or enterprise level; industry or regional level; national level; international level.

Lewins’ three ‘higher levels’ of explanation move progressively closer to complete causal explanation, but employment relations rarely reaches such heights. Abercombie, Hill and Turner (2006, p. 47) offer three reasons: (i) most social phenomena are extremely complex; (ii) one cannot generally set up an experimental procedure with proper control groups; (iii) causal explanations cannot succeed because they assume that humans are like natural objects when they are not. The employment relations or industrial relations literature has often been criticised as ‘excessively descriptive’ or accused of failing to ‘make clear the cause or reason for’ observed phenomena. There are two broad defences to this criticism: on the one hand, complete causal explanation is not possible; on the other, this criticism fails to understand the type of explanation that is provided in employment relations.

This occurs when one party is able to create and enforce rules independently of the other parties, e.g. the exercise of managerial prerogative.

Bilateral rule-making occurs when two parties jointly make and enforce rules, whereas multilateral rule-making occurs when three or more parties jointly make rules.

Because members of the arbitration tribunals worked with employee and employer representatives to resolve disputes and thereby make awards.

Because it indicates where the power lies in the employment relationship, and also because it can have important consequences for the effectiveness of rules in influencing the behaviour of the parties to the employment relationship.

Formal rules are usually written and the result of a deliberate social process: for example, a collective agreement or a modernised award.

Informal rules are unwritten agreements between parties, or even accepted social practices at work—often with unknown origins. Examples include unwritten agreements between union delegates and supervisors, such as free meals at certain times or locations.

Because people both individually and through their participation in organisations create and enforce rules. They are the social agents, or the actors, in the rule-making process. Different ‘actors‘ confronted with the same context can make different choices about how to respond.

1.       Technology

2.       Market or budgetary constraints

3.       The power relations and statuses of the actors.

1.       The number of contexts

2.       The link between external contexts and the internal operation of the industrial relations system

3.       The arbitrary separation between the industrial relations system and other societal sub-systems

4.       The level of analysis

5.       The assumption that actors cannot influence the context

6.       The inability of the theory to accommodate employment relations history.

Because of its close links to other areas of social analysis such as sociology, politics, history and economics.

Because the notion of agency recognises the capacity of social actors, like individuals and organisations, to take action, as causal explanation can only come through a combination of context and agency.

A representation of something that exists in the world. Models do not exist themselves but, by their simplified nature, provide a clear(er) picture of the world.

Managerialism is the application of private-sector management techniques to the public sector—for example, the decentralisation of decision-making, performance management, user-pays systems and delayering of management.

The separation of powers is an important part of the Australian Constitution, in both its structure (the first three chapters of the Constitution focus on the parliament, the executive and the judiciary respectively) and in its interpretation by the High Court.

Efficiency: Reduce costs, improve service delivery, improve the asset value of the public-sector businesses pre-privatisation, avoid the difficulty of recruiting specialised staff, introduce contestability principles to service provision, concentrate on core business operations.

Political: Reduce the size of the public sector, see the public sector as inefficient, redefine the role of the public sector, reduce public-sector unionism, discipline public-sector workers, shift difficult decisions.

Marketisation is the increasing exposure of the public sector to market competition while minimising political direction and intervention. Examples: privatisation and contracting-out.

Corporatism is the state’s integration of ‘organised socioeconomic producer groups through a system of representation and cooperative mutual interaction at the leadership level, and mobilisation and social control at the mass level’. In employment relations, some see it as characterised by centralised wage-bargaining arrangements and large ‘encompassing’ union federations and employers’ organisations. Others see it as the existence of societal consensus and the formation of ‘social partnerships’ between the state, employers and union representatives. The Accords between the federal Labor government and the trade union movement between 1983 and 1996 is an example of corporatism.

The uniqueness of the Australian system was a result of the ‘historical compromise’ between the state, labour and capital forged in the early part of the twentieth century. This, in turn, was the result of the development of the Australian economy and trade. The policy framework that resulted entrenched the state as a key actor in employment relations, particularly through conciliation and arbitration.

During the Accord years the relationship between the Labor government and the union movement was unlike that in the US or the UK. It involved the state more directly in the provision of a ‘social wage’ at the cost of real-wage increases.

The neo-liberal years have seen a move away from a centralised and collectivised system of employment relations regulation. Some have argued that this represents deregulation of the labour market, but in some cases there has been an increase in regulation; for example, restrictions on trade union activity.

It is a constitutional principle in Western liberal democracies, keeping separate the functions performed by the three arms of the state through a series of checks and balances preventing the abuse of state powers. In Australia, the separation of powers is applied in both the structure of the Constitution (the first three chapters of the Constitution focus on the parliament, the executive and the judiciary respectively) and in its interpretation by the High Court.

The legislature is the law-making body comprising representatives elected by people at periodic elections. It determines the statute law (legislation) that regulates employment relations in Australia at both the state and the federal level.

The Minister has specific responsibility for ‘national policies and programs that enable all Australians to access … fair, safe and productive workplaces’. The Minister has a statutory right to intervene in employment relations disputes before the Fair Work Commission. Finally, the Minister exercises substantial influence in employment relations by making appointments to various tribunals and statutory agencies, such as the Fair Work Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Safe Work Australia, the Fair Work Commission, the Federal Magistrates Court, the Fair Work Ombudsman, the ABCC, the Federal Court, the Australian Public Service Commission, the Department of Employment, the High Court, the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner, the Remuneration Tribunal.

The Fair Work Commission began not as a tribunal or commission but rather as a court. It became a commission in 1956, with both conciliation and arbitration powers, as well as wage-fixing and award-making powers. The Industrial Relations Reform Act (1993), the Workplace Relations Act (1996) and the WorkChoices amendments in 2005 profoundly reduced the role of the tribunal during the 1990s and 2000s. Its role was reduced by WorkChoices to the conciliation and arbitration powers of settling industrial disputes, handling termination of employment claims, rationalising awards and making orders with respect to industrial action.

The judiciary is comprised of the court system, its judges and the supporting infrastructure. It is responsible for interpreting and enforcing the law in order to resolve disputes.

1.       Facilitates accumulation of profit

2.       Ensures the legitimacy of the system.

·         Legislator

·         Labour-market regulator

·         Conciliator, arbitrator and mediator

·         Employer of labour

·         Provider of collective public goods.

They formally determined most aspects of wages and working conditions in Australia through regulatory instruments like awards, and also influenced the structure and operations of the other parties such as unions and employer associations.

·         Belief that the public sector is inefficient

·         To reduce the size of the public sector

·         To redefine the role of the public sector

·         To decrease the role of public-sector unions

·         To discipline public-sector workers

·         To shift difficult decisions.

First, their legal systems were based on the ‘common law’ model of Britain, whereby the foundational laws of the land were based on the decisions of the judges according to their interpretations of past decisions, or precedents. Second, common law could be overruled by statutes or legislation passed by parliament and the parliamentary systems of the colonies.

Traditional (1904–83): Compulsory conciliation and arbitration provides the basis for a pervasive role in the making of rules by industrial tribunals.

Corporatist (1983–96): The Accord between the Labor government and trade unions heavily influences the making and enforcement of many rules.

Receding state under neo-liberalism (1996–2007): The Howard government’s reforms severely curtailed the state’s capacity to intervene in industrial disputes and determine pay and conditions.

Restoration of state’s capacity to intervene (2009–13): Labor revives the state’s arbitral powers, although not to pre-1996 levels. State intervention over minimum employment conditions and rights at work expands as a result of restoration of unfair dismissal rights, general protections and national employment standards.

The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) is a Commonwealth agency that investigates complaints and alleged breaches of federal workplace law and, if warranted, prosecutes for such breaches. It also has an educative role in assisting employers, unions and employees on compliance with federal workplace law (FWO 2017). The FWO may appoint Fair Work Inspectors (pursuant to section 700 of the Fair Work Act).

In traditional models of policy-making, the state operates independently and separately from private interest groups, such as trade unions and employer associations; corporatism sees the state incorporating these private interest groups into the making and enforcement of public policy.