Three Australia Labour Law Regimes in Historical and Comparative Perspective

Abstract

In 2022 the Australian Labor Party returned to government after almost a decade out of power and proceeded to implement a set of industrial relations reforms, which together represent the most comprehensive reform package since the 2009 Fair Work Act. The goal of the overall paper is to analyse the logic, coherence and prospects of the 2022-24 industrial relations reforms, both within the long-term historical trajectory of Australian industrial relations and from the comparative perspective of a generalized neoliberalisation of industrial relations across the advanced capitalist world.

The purpose of this presentation, however, is narrower in that it focuses two main tasks.

First, we present a theoretical framework that builds upon recent work on neoliberalism in advanced capitalist political economies, and an exploration of the literature on “Left-neoliberalism”. This emphasises the universal features of neoliberalism (namely, increased employer discretion resulting from: statutory deregulation; decentralization of bargaining closer to the firm level; individualization of the relationship between employer or manager and employee within the firm; and decollectivization of class organizations, particularly labor organizations), but also acknowledges its idiosyncratic manifestations in each nation. Particularly interesting in the local variations are instances of Left-neoliberalism.

The second task explores whether the theoretical framework provides insights that help to understand three historical “moments” of labour law reform led by Australian Labor governments before the amendments of 2022-2024:

1. the Accord under Hawke (1983-1991);
2. Keating and the origins of enterprise bargaining (1991-1996); and
3. the Fair Work Act (2009+) under Rudd/Gillard.

Throughout, the aim is to ask whether and how the theoretical framework contributes to an understanding of these three Australian examples of previous of labour law regimes associated with Labor governments.

Speakers

Mark Bray is currently Emeritus Professor of the University of Newcastle and Honorary Professor at both RMIT and the University of Sydney. His scholarship is in the field of industrial relations, mostly focusing on Australia but also involving comparisons with other countries. He is the co-author (with Johanna Macneil and Andrew Stewart) of Cooperation at Work: How Tribunals Can Help Transform Workplaces (Federation Press, 2017) as well as many other books and articles in academic journals.

Chris Howell is currently the JY Pillay Visiting Professor in the Social Sciences at Yale-NUS College, and Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oberlin College. His scholarship is in the field of comparative political economy. He is the author of several books, most recently Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation: European Industrial Relations Since the 1970s [co-author Lucio Baccaro], and numerous articles on industrial relations, the state, and left parties.