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Participation, Fragmentation and Union Response: The 1998–2000 ACT Public Sector Bargaining Round and the Workplace Relations Act
Author(s) -
Junor Anne
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8500.00183
Subject(s) - public sector , distrust , business , decentralization , public administration , private sector , bargaining power , collective bargaining , labour economics , economics , market economy , political science , economic growth , law , economy , microeconomics
The current Australian Capital Territory (ACT) public sector workplace bargaining round lasted more than two years with most agreements involving a trade‐off between low wage outcomes and protection of job security within performance improvement measures. The main focus of this paper is on government and agency experiments with bargaining structures and processes. The first was a limited and largely unsuccessful attempt in 1998 and 1999 at participative agreement making without the involvement of the key unions. The second, a selective decentralisation of bargaining to parts of a single business, was more successful: of 50 agreements, over 40 have been achieved. The procedural success of the decentralisation strategy is a significant outcome. However, the fragmentation strategy contained internal contradictions and required strong centralised policy control of bargaining agendas and outcomes, leading to delays and breeding distrust. Unions conducted effective defensive campaigns against non‐union agreements and involuntary redundancies, but face their own dilemmas in finalising this round and preparing for the next.