Can Alternative Industrial Relations Methods Work?

it would be less difficult to address the question of whether the Australian arbitral system can work than that of whether alternatives can do so. Given that the legislation was intended, however unwisely, to prevent strikes, one must surely conclusion that the experience of the past eighty years leads, ineluctably, to the conclusion that the system does not work. It does not work in securing the major purpose for which it was created, which is not to suggest that it does not work in other ways. In administering a wage policy, it is effective in subverting the provisions of the constitution, and in nullifying the expressed wishes of voters in referenda. Perhaps it has been helpful in turning the attentions of trade unions awayfrom the concerns of their members and towards those of governments, tribunals and central bodies of employers and unions, Under the guidance of a resourceful government, we have seen that the tribunals can achieve this, andperhaps it is patty and ungracious to treat these as slight achievements. It is to be noted that this paper is written as though the Federal system is the only industrial relations method in Australia. Obviously the various State systems do regulate industrial relations as well, and they probably directly influence more workers than does the Federal body. It can be argued that the Federal tribunal does tend to provide leadership to the State bodies, and that its domination of the rest is on the agenda of some influential groups, if that process is not yet complete. Concentration o fihe Federal tribunal can be a distorting injluence, and the absence of detailed comparative study of the State bodies is a matter of some regret. Nevertheless this factor is the norm in Australian industrial relations, and that convention at least is observed here.