- Title
- The mysterious productivity question
- Creator
- Waring, Peter; Burgess, John
- Relation
- The State of Industrial Relations p. 29-40
- Relation
- Evatt Papers 5:1
- Relation
- http://evatt.labor.net.au/publications/books/204.html
- Publisher
- Evatt Foundation
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2008
- Description
- Between our 2005 review and the defeat of the Howard government in the 2007 federal election, the WorkChoices legislation passed through parliament and became operational (March 2006), survived a High Court challenge (November 2006) and was amended twice (December 2006 and May 2007). The Australian Fair Pay Commission also issued its first minimum wage decision under the new laws (October 2006) and the award review taskforce released its report recommending a significant rationalising of awards (November 2006). The debate over the merits of WorkChoices only intensified as the 2007 federal election approached and opinion polls confirmed that industrial relations remained an issue of great sensitivity in the electorate. The ACTU continued its campaign of highlighting how the new legislation disadvantaged many workers, especially the low-paid and the vu1nerable. State government election campaigns demonstrated the division over the legislation, with the NSW Labor government highlighting the ' Liberal-National Party coalition's policy of handing residual industrial relations powers over to the Commonwealth. The Victorian government established the workplace rights advocate to monitor and report on the impact of WorkChoices on employees and vulnerable groups. The federal Labor opposition drew an adverse response from some business groups and elements of the media by announcing that its industrial relations program would include the abolition of statutory individual contracts known as Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAS). For its part, the Howard government announced in May 2007 that it was amending WorkChoices for the second time by reintroducing a type of 'no disadvantage test' (labelled the 'Fairness Test') which sought to ensure that workers earning less than $75,000 under AWAs received fair compensation for trading off protected award conditions such as penalty rates. All this suggested that industrial relations remained an area of electoral weakness for the coalition and, as such, there was also a continuation of extravagant claims about how the arrangements affected employees, workplaces and the economy. One of the Howard government's persistent claims was that the WorkChoices legislation had improved productivity and would continue to do so. In this chapter, we review the industrial relations changes between our 2005 assessment and the 2007 federal election and examine the productivity consequences. Further, we review the Labor opposition's policy alternative and the recent research on how workplace productivity growth may be stimulated.
- Subject
- WorkChoices; industrial relations; legislation; Howard government; Australian Workplace Agreements
- Identifier
- uon:6739
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/804815
- Identifier
- ISBN:1320-5498
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