The Ambiguities of
Workplace Co-operation
Professor Mark Bray
The University of Newcastle
Public Lecture sponsored by
the Fair Work Commission & The University of Melbourne Law School
24 May 2013
Overview
1. The importance of workplace cooperation
2. Ambiguity in the meaning of workplace cooperation
3. The Pluralist Vision
4. The Unitarist Vision
5. Conclusions
6. References
2
1. The importance of co-operation
• Almost everyone thinks co-operation in the workplace is a
good idea!
3
1. The importance of co-operation (cont.)
4
National laws and
systems of ER
Workplace
co-operation
Governments of both political persuasions see co-operation as a central
goal of national laws:
•
Fair Work Act 2009:
→ S. 3 makes ‘co-operative and productive workplaces’ an object of the Act
→ S. 577 and S. 682 as well
•
Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005:
→ S. 3 retained ‘co-operative workplace relations’ the principal object of the Act
•
Workplace Relations Act 1996:
→ S. 3 “The principal object of this Act is to provide a framework for co-operative
workplace relations”
1. The importance of co-operation (cont.)
National laws and
systems of ER
National economic
performance
Workplace
co-operation
Organisational
performance
• These legislative provisions reflect the views of the political leaders
who created them
• These politicians also frequently claim that workplace cooperation
ultimately produces both:
→ improved organisational performance (including productivity), and
→ better national economic outcomes
5
1. The importance of co-operation (cont.)
National laws and
systems of ER
National economic
performance
Workplace
co-operation
Organisational
performance
• Much research supports their views
ie. there is a positive relationship between workplace co-operation
and organisational performance,
... although I do not have the time to detail this research today
• But any causal link with national economic outcomes is less well
proven in research
... but it remains an article of faith
6
1. The importance of co-operation (cont.)
National laws and
systems of ER
National economic
performance
Workplace
co-operation
Organisational
performance
• Conclusion?
• Co-operation in the workplace is desirable and important
• We need to understand what workplace co-operation means
... and how it might be linked to public policy
• This is my ambition today!
7
2. The ambiguous meaning of workplace
co-operation
• One of the challenges is that “workplace co-operation” is an
ambiguous concept
• It means different things to different people
• How do we understand the many meanings of cooperation?
8
2. Ambiguous meaning (cont.)
9
• The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary defines ‘co-operation’ as:
“working together to the same end”
• To embellish a little, on the basis of common sense:
→ “working together” is both a process and an end product
→ “working together” is about “relationships” involving “mutuality” and
“reciprocity”
→ “the same end” implies some consensus about a common interest or goal
→ both the process and the end imply choice and willingness,
... something positive and active that goes beyond mere compliance
2. Ambiguous meaning (cont.)
10
• However, many unanswered questions, including:
→ Who is working together?
→ What is the “same end”?
→ Who determines what the “same end” is?
→ How does working together work?
• We also need to focus more specifically on co-operation in the
workplace
2. Ambiguous meaning (cont.)
11
• Long history of scholarship on “workplace co-operation”
• Although much of it uses different (but related) concepts:
→ Industrial goodwill
→ Industrial peace
→ Industrial relations climate
→ Joint consultation
→ High performance workplaces
→ Collaboration
→ High involvement workplaces
→ The mutual gains enterprise
→ Union-management partnerships
→ Industrial harmony
• All of these concepts are relevant and deserve attention, but not today!
• My (very selective) account:
→ is informed by (but does not systematically review) this scholarship,
→ keeps an eye on its relevance to recent Australian public policy
2. Ambiguous meaning (cont.)
12
• Two different meanings of workplace cooperation, distinguished by:
→ the values that underlie different approaches to workplace cooperation
→ the role they give to employee representation in workplace cooperation
• I will refer to these two approaches to workplace cooperation as:
→ The Pluralist Vision:
Co-operation marked by independent employee representation (usually unions)
based on pluralist values
→ The Unitarist Vision:
Co-operation conceived as purely involving direct relationships between managers
and employees, based on unitarist values
• Analytically, the “visions” are ideal types
... ie. extreme simplifications designed to characterise
Overview
1. The importance of workplace cooperation
2. Ambiguity in the meaning of workplace cooperation
3. The Pluralist Vision
–
–
–
–
Underlying values
Definition
Implications for Public Policy
Application to Australia
4. Co-operation based on direct management-employee relations
–
–
–
–
Underlying values
Definition
Implications for Public Policy
Application to Australia
5. Conclusions
6. References
13
3. The Pluralist Vision of Workplace Co-operation
14
•
Ironically perhaps, the best accounts of the pluralist vision come
from the USA
(eg. Commons 1919, Golden & Parker 1955, Walton & McKersie 1965, Kochan & Osterman
1994, Kochan et al. 2009)
•
Less of a scholarly tradition in Britain,
... but the Blair government’s “union-management partnerships” generated
valuable research
(ie. Ackers & Payne 1998, Oxenbridge & Brown 2002, Stuart & Martinez Lucio 2005, Stuart et
al. 2011; see also Mitchell & O’Donnell 2008)
•
I will come back to evidence of the practice and research in
Australia
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
UNDERLYING VALUES
•
The concept of “pluralism” will be familiar to many in the audience
•
It is most famously associated with the British scholar Alan Fox (1966),
... and more recently, John Budd and others (eg. Budd & Bhave 2008)
•
Key elements of the pluralist “frame of reference” include:
→ Organisations comprise individuals and groups with competing and
sometimes contradictory interests
→ Each group and its interests are considered legitimate and respected
→ Competing interests can sometimes produce conflict,
... which must be managed through appropriate procedural mechanisms or
governance arrangements
→ Common interests and cooperation can be established and developed,
... but they require joint decision making and active consent by all groups
15
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITIONS
•
I could find no explicit pluralist definition of “workplace cooperation”
•
I’ll try to bring together contributions on alternate concepts
•
Golden (1955) provides a starting point when he defines “industrial
peace” as:
“the product of the relationship between two organised groups – industrial
management and organised labour – in which both coexist, with each retaining its
institutional sovereignty, working together in reasonable harmony in a climate of mutual
respect and confidence.” (p. 8)
•
Strengths:
→ “institutional sovereignty” recognises competing interests, acceptance of
separation and the need for organisational security on both sides
→ “reasonable harmony” is a measured concept that recognises that “working
together” may have limits because of potentially conflicting interests
→ “mutual respect and confidence” reflects both reciprocity and the need for
tolerance of the other side
16
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITIONS (cont.)
•
Weaknesses:
→ Conflates cooperation as a process and an end product
→ While later recognising that “peace is something more than the mere
absence of conflict” (p. 7),
... he does not capture the more positive, active engagement essential in
“cooperation”
→ The pre-occupation with “two organised groups” assumes an exact
coincidence of interest between unions and workers/members
... this over-simplifies the complex range of interests in workplaces
17
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITIONS (cont.)
•
Walton & McKersie’s (1965) account of “integrative bargaining” is useful,
… although it focuses exclusively on the process of cooperation
•
They distinguish between:
→ “integrative bargaining” (later became “interest-based negotiation”, IBN)
→ “traditional”, “distributive” or “adversarial” bargaining.
•
The process of IBN focuses on the common interests in a pluralist relationship:
→ identify common problems
→ explore the interests that underlie them
→ develop joint solutions
•
“Traditional bargaining” is also pluralist, but:
→ focuses on distributional issues
→ involves fixed claims and defending positions
→ employs more adversarial bargaining process
See Macneil and Bray (2013)
18
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITIONS (cont.)
Later American writings focus more on the end product than the process
… by using the term “mutual gains” (Kochan & Osterman 1994):
“We use the term ‘mutual gains’ because it conveys a key message: achieving and
sustaining competitive advantage from human resources require strong support from
multiple stakeholders in an organisation. Employees must commit their energies to
meeting the economic objectives of the enterprise. In return, owners (shareholders)
must share the economic returns with employees and invest those returns in ways that
promote the long-run security of the work force. And everyone involved in decision
making must behave in ways that build and maintain the trust and support of the work
force.” (p. 46)
19
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITIONS (cont.)
Employee representation?
•
Pluralists consistently emphasise unions. Why?
•
Freeman & Medoff’s (1984) “two faces” of unionism suggests:
→ Collective Voice Face:
o
o
o
Unions provide an independent and collective mechanism by which
employees can voice their opinions to managers
Allows employees to be less guarded in their feedback to management
Potentially valuable role for external union officials
→ Power/Monopoly Face:
o
Without the power of a union, employees may not be taken seriously by
managers
o
Union power provides some protection in the distribution of economic benefits
20
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITIONS (cont.)
•
This pluralist approach’s reliance on unions raises other issues:
→ Unions must accurately representing the views of employees/members
→ The acknowledgement and accommodation of different groups on the
employee side:
o
Employees
o
Workplace union representatives
o
Union officials working outside the workplace
• Is it possible for non-union forms of employee representation to
perform the same role in pluralist workplace cooperation?
→ maybe, but they must be independent of management
→ and they have some power vis-à-vis management
→ eg. statutory works councils
21
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITIONS (cont.)
Conclusion?
•
My summary of the pluralist vision of workplace cooperation sees it as:
“... a relationship in which managers work willingly with employees and their
independent representatives in a process that supports the creation of jointly
agreed goals and solutions. They do this through governance structures that
recognise the separate but inter-dependent interests of the constituent groups.
The outcome is the achievement of mutual gains, benefiting all constituent
groups.”
22
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICY
How do governments promote the pluralist vision of cooperation?
•
It is not possible to mandate or compel cooperation,
… because of its voluntary nature (see Mitchell & O’Donnell 2008, pp. 103-4)
•
“Hard regulation”:
The law used to establish employee rights and compel employers to
... inform, discuss, consult or bargain with employees and/or their unions,
... based on an assumption this will encourage greater cooperation
•
“Soft regulation”:
Non-binding initiatives used to encourage changes in behaviour including:
→ financial incentives and grants;
→ the provision of training, expert information and advice;
→ demonstrations of “best practice” (eg. Stuart et al. 2011; Macneil et al. 2011).
23
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
APPLICATION TO AUSTRALIA
Have Australian governments tried to promote the pluralist vision
of workplace cooperation?
Conservative governments: No
→ The Howard governments (1996 – 2007) were anti-union and saw little
value in promoting union-management cooperation
→ The May 2013 Abbott/Abetz Workplace Relations policy statement says
nothing about cooperation, with only one exception
→ The exception is a point about “harmonious” productivity bargaining,
... which seems more about productivity than cooperation
•
The answer is more complicated for Labor governments
24
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
APPLICATION TO AUSTRALIA
Labor government (1983 – 1996): Yes
•
“Co-operation” was a central rhetorical theme under the Accord,
.. especially during the period that Bob Hawke was Prime Minister
•
It was “pluralist” because it recognised competing interests of unions
and employers
... and sought to engage unions and employers in decision making
•
It was, however, mostly centralised cooperation before 1986,
... focusing above the workplace on national policy making
•
One exception:
decisions of tribunals to oblige employers to consult with employees and
unions in the event of technological change and/or redundancies (Markey 1987)
25
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
APPLICATION TO AUSTRALIA
Labor government (1983 – 1996) continued...:
•
Workplace cooperation became a stronger theme after 1986,
... with several mechanisms used to promote it:
→ “Managed decentralism” in wage policy:
... wage increases were dependent on managers and unions to bargaining
over ‘second tier’, ‘award restructuring’ and then ‘structural efficiency’
(Bray 1994, Mitchell & O’Donnell 2008)
→ The Keating govt’s Industrial Relations Reform Act (ss. 170MC(1)(d) and
170NC(1)(f)):
... insisted that all EBAs include provisions about consultation between
employers and unions on “efficiency and productivity” within the enterprise
(Mitchell et al 1997)
→ Did “good faith bargaining” under the IRR Act promote of cooperation?
(Patmore 2010, pp. 85-6)
26
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Labor government (1983 – 1996) continued...:
•
•
•
Another feature of the labour laws of the time was their collectivism
All the legal supports for cooperation relied exclusively on unions for
employee representation (eg. Bray & Macneil 2011, Bray & Stewart forthcoming)
The exception was non-union collective agreements (EFAs),
... which were rarely used
•
Labor governments also used “soft regulation” (Macneil et al 2011):
→ The Hawke/Keating government’s Best Practice Program during 1990s
(see. Rimmer et al. 1996)
→ This again promoted unions as the mechanisms for employee
representation
27
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Labor government (1983 – 1996) continued...:
•
In summary, the Hawke and Keating Labor governments:
→ adopted pluralist visions of cooperation,
→ promoted unions as a largely uncontested form of employee
representation, and
→ provided both “hard” and “soft” mechanisms to promote cooperation
28
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Labor governments (2007 – 2013): Maybe
• Key Labor politicians advocate cooperation
• Then-Minister Julia Gillard:
“In the Government’s view, we simply have to move beyond the destructive conflictbased model of workplace relations that was Work Choices and instead build a
productive new workplace relations system based on promoting consultation and cooperation at the enterprise level.” (Gillard 2008)
• Minister Bill Shorten:
“What we need is no nonsense leadership in the workplace from employers and
employees. Unions can and do promote productivity and have a big role to play in
building productive workplaces. It starts with cooperation... We need to move away
from the purely transactional model of workplace relations and to a much more
collaborative approach. Valuing the contribution that employees have to make is an
obvious starting point for improving workplace productivity.” (Shorten 2012)
29
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
30
Labor governments (2007 – 2013):
• Cooperation became an object of the Fair Work Act,
... but there are few mechanisms by which this is promoted:
→ Consultation and dispute resolution clauses back in awards and EAs,
... although now rights lie with employees without independent union rights
→ FW Commission obliged to perform its functions in a manner that
“promotes harmonious and cooperative workplace relations” (s. 577)
→ FW Ombudsman obliged to perform functions in a manner that “promotes
harmonious, productive and cooperative workplace relations” (s. 682)
• Both the FWC and FWO are trying, but they have little legislative
support
• This is, in Forsyth & Smart’s (2009: 142-3) words, a “lost opportunity”
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Labor governments (2007 – 2013)… cont.:
•
Is “good faith bargaining” designed to promote cooperation?
•
Troy Sarina (2013) says yes:
“Collective bargaining under Fair Work [was] modeled on a mutual gains or ‘win-win’
approach to bargaining.” (p. 404; also 398, 405, 406, 409, 414, 415)
•
I disagree:
→ “Good faith bargaining” advances traditional, adversarial bargaining
→ It is about guaranteeing basic rights for employees to be heard by their
employer
→ These rights are “necessary” but not “sufficient” for cooperation
→ Pluralist cooperation requires more active and positive participation by
both parties
31
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Labor governments (2007 – 2013)… cont.:
•
Unions are also much more vulnerable under these Labor
governments
•
After more than a decade of hostility from the Coalition government,
the FW Act gave some renewed support
... but not much
(eg. Cooper & Ellem 2011, Bray & Macneil 2011, Bray & Stewart forthcoming)
•
In the absence of organisational security, can unions be expected to
embrace workplace cooperation?
32
3. The Pluralist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Labor governments (2007 – 2013)... cont:
•
Conclusion?
•
The current Labor government may adhere to a pluralist vision of
cooperation, but:
→ the absence of implementation mechanisms in the legislation reveals
little about how cooperation is to be promoted
→ cooperation is mostly conceived as between employees and
employers
→ the limited recognition of unions (ie. other than as the bargaining
representatives of employees) creates organisational vulnerability
33
Overview
1. The importance of workplace co-operation
2. Ambiguity in the meaning of workplace co-operation
3. The Pluralist Vision
–
–
–
–
Underlying values
Definition
Critics
Application to Australia
4. The Unitarist Vision
–
–
–
–
Underlying values
Definition
Implications for public policy
Application to Australia
5. Conclusions
6. References
34
4. The Unitarist Vision of Workplace Co-operation
•
A long history in management theory from the USA and Britain,
… from Scientific Management through Human Relations to ‘soft’ HRM
(Klare 1988, Keenoy 2013)
•
The most recent version in both countries focuses on “employee
engagement”
•
The term “employee engagement” first emerged about 20 years ago
and has quickly become commonplace (Macey & Schneider 2008)
“‘Employee engagement’ is now a vital and everyday part of the vocabulary of
human resource management... The term... now routinely pervades the
discourse of HRM across the English-speaking world, yet it was virtually
unheard of a decade or so ago.” (Arrowsmith & Parker 2013)
•
Its popularity promoted by the Conservative government in Britain
(see MacLeod and Clarke 2009)
35
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
UNDERLYING VALUES
•
Rests unambiguously on what Fox (1969) and Budd & Bhave (2008)
called “unitarist” values
•
Key elements of unitarism include:
→ Organisations are unitary bodies in which employees and managers
share a common interest represented by the organisational goals
→ There is a single source of authority; namely, management
→ Conflict is illegitimate and occurs only if:
o management fails to lead effectively, or
o external influences enter the organisation and disrupt the natural
harmony between managers and employees
→ The realisation of common interests and cooperation will flow
naturally from effective leadership by management
36
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITION
• There is still great diversity in the meaning attributed to employee
engagement (eg. Macey & Schneider 2008, Keenoy 2013, Arrowsmith & Parker 2013)
• Two components, often conflated:
→ “Employee engagement” as an outcome:
“Engagement is above and beyond simple satisfaction with the employment
arrangement or basic loyalty to the employer... Engagement, in contrast, is about
passion and commitment – the willingness to invest oneself and expend one’s
discretionary effort to help the employer succeed.” (Erickson cited in Macey & Schneider
2008, p. 7)
→ “Direct engagement” is more the process by which management deliver
policies and practices which produce engaged employees
“Engagement is about creating opportunities for employees to connect with their
colleagues, managers and wider organisation. It is about creating an environment
where employees are motivated to want to connect with their work and really care
about doing a good job…” (MacLeod Report cited in Keenoy 2013)
37
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITION (cont.)
• As a form of “cooperation”, then, employee engagement:
→ focuses mostly on employees responding positively
[ie. with cooperative attitudes and behaviour]
→ ... to the leadership of managers and the organisational
policies and practices they implement
38
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITION (cont.)
•
This leadership comprises both:
→ the personal attitudes and actions of the managers, and
→ the policies and practices of the enterprise
•
The relevant policies and practices are broadly those associated with
sophisticated HRM,
... ranging from effective recruitment and selection of employees
... to performance management and employee development
•
By explicit statement or by omission, the exclusion of “third parties” is
clear,
... allowing management to deal directly with employees
39
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
DEFINITION (cont.)
•
Employee voice mechanisms include:
→
→
→
→
→
Employee surveys
Teams
Performance management
Consultation committees
Informal one-on-one discussions with managers
•
“Teams” and “consultation committees” can give employees genuine
decision-making power
•
But the other voice mechanisms focus on employees providing managers
with the information they need to make better decisions,
... which will improve the performance of the enterprise, and
... reinforce the engagement of employees
40
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICY
Some very simple implications for governments:
→ If they are left alone to deal directly with each other,
… managers and employees will naturally work cooperatively
→ … because managers will provide the appropriate leadership, and
→ “Third parties” (ie. unions and tribunals) must be excluded from the
workplace
Government therefore should use:
→ “hard regulation” (ie. the law) to exclude “third parties”,
→ and possibly “soft regulation” to promote appropriate leadership by
managers
41
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
APPLICATION TO AUSTRALIA
•
Cooperation through direct engagement has been promoted in
Australia since the 1990s by:
→ managers of individual companies (eg. Rio Tinto, BHP)
→ employer associations (eg. BCA, AMMA)
→ Coalition politicians (eg. John Howard, Peter Reith)
•
Arguably, the Coalition was inspired by this approach in both:
→ the 1996 Workplace Relations Act and
→ the 2005 Work Choices amendments
•
Let me briefly discuss some examples
42
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Australian Mines & Metals Association (AMMA):
•
AMMA has advocated direct engagement for nearly two decades
•
AMMA’s (2007) “Employee engagement – A lifetime of opportunity” is
an unusually extended exposition of the concept
•
The underlying notion of the enterprise is clearly unitarist:
“...the essence of a successful work organisation is its ability to operate systems which
allow people who are otherwise unrelated to come together to achieve its goals...” (p. 31)
•
The definition of “employee engagement” embodies the conflation of
end product and process:
“Engaged employees willingly work to the best of their capability in the interests of the
organisation and are encouraged to do so through the leadership, structure and systems
of the organisation.”
43
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Australian Mines & Metals Association (AMMA)… continued:
•
Clear aims:
“This report contends that improving and maintaining organisational effectiveness is
dependent on the level of employee engagement in the workplace. A high level of
engagement can be achieved through the leadership, structure and systems. If an
organisation actively commits to employee engagement as a means of lifting its
business performance, it cannot delegate the work involved to a third party.” (p. 9)
•
Need to isolate the enterprise from external influences or “third
parties” (ie. unions and tribunals)
•
“Trust” between employees and managers is vital and flows from:
“the personal integrity, behaviour and values of individuals, especially the leaders of
the organisation.” (p. 30; see also p. 31)
44
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Australian Mines & Metals Association (AMMA)… continued:
•
By far the most important organisational policy/practice, is
Performance Management Systems, which:
“... ensure that each employee is clear on: the work expected in the role; how the role
fits in to the wider purpose of the business; how they are performing in the role; and
how they can improve their performance.” (p. 326 see also pp. 33 & 34)
•
Employee voice is not mentioned at all, ... only brief or superficial
references to:
→ the importance of “communication”;
→ the personal involvement of site managers in negotiating individual
contracts (p. 32); and
→ “building internal fair treatment systems to resolve individual concerns
without recourse to third parties”. (p. 27)
45
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Coalition governments (1996 – 2007):
•
Without using the “direct engagement” language,
PM Howard and his Ministers supported the Unitarist Vision
•
The debate surrounding the introduction of the 1996 WR Act revealed
strong support for cooperation in the workplace:
“This policy is about ensuring that the focus of industrial relations is where it
belongs – at the level of the individual enterprise where employers and employees
can see clearly that they have a common interest in the success of the enterprise.”
(Reith 1996: 1)
•
Within the enterprise, “third parties” were considered unnecessary:
“The bill rejects the highly paternalistic presumption that has underpinned the
industrial relations system of this country for too long – that employees are not only
incapable of protecting their own interests, but even of understanding them, without
the compulsory involvement of unions and industrial tribunals.” (Reith 23/5/96)
46
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Coalition governments (1996 – 2007)...cont:
•
The Treasurer even more explicitly articulated the Unitarist Vision:
“We say to them there is the opportunity for cooperation and consensus in the
workplace... We also say to those in the work force that there is an opportunity to
build that consensus and come to that agreement with a new system of industrial
relations which can become the model for cooperation and which can allow the
opportunity, free of third-party intervention, for employers and employees to agree.”
(Costello 1/5/1996)
•
In July 2005, Prime Minister Howard summed up the aims of his
government’s reforms as changing:
“... the culture of the remote, adversarial and legalistic way employment relations
were handled in the past”, replacing it with a system in which workers “grasp that
high wages and good conditions in today’s economy are bound up with the
productivity and success of their workplace” and ongoing productivity growth turns
on “a continuous process of cooperation and commitment to implementing change”.
(cited in Mitchell & O’Donnell 2008, p. 113)
47
4. The Unitarist Vision (cont.)
AUSTRALIA (cont.)
Coalition governments (1996 – 2007)...cont:
•
The “hard” regulatory changes introduced by the Howard government
are well known, aimed at (see Mitchell et al. 2010):
→ Reducing the role of unions
→ Sidelining the industrial tribunals
→ Promoting individual contracts between employers and employees
•
Mitchell & O’Donnell (2008) summed them up by arguing that:
“...the Liberal government... did little to support the rhetoric [of cooperation], apart
from dismantling or subduing almost all the legal institutions and legal rights which
supported the adversarial model historically” (p. 113)
•
One minor form of “soft regulation” was the promotion of private
“alternative dispute resolution” agents
... as competitors to the industrial tribunals
... in assisting employers to resolve employment disputes internally
(Reith 1998, Forbes-Mewett et al. 2005)
48
6. Conclusions
•
Co-operation in the workplace is desirable and important
•
If public policy is to be committed to promoting workplace
cooperation, we must understand it better
•
A first step is to clarify the competing meanings of this ambiguous
concept
•
The two visions of co-operation reviewed in this lecture embody very
different:
→ Value systems
→ Approaches to employee
•
I hope I have shown how recognising these two visions helps to
better understand Australian public policy
49
6. Conclusions (cont.)
•
My examples, however, have mostly been historical
•
I’ll finish with a current matter of public policy where the issues raised
in this lecture are vital:
→ the Centre for Workplace Leadership proposed by Minister Bill Shorten
•
In September 2012, the Minister proposed the establishment of a
such a Centre, funded with $12 million over four years (Shorten 2012b)
•
The focus of the Centre is to be the “leadership, workplace culture
and management practices” required to improve productivity
•
The role of the Centre includes training and education, research and
public advocacy
50
6. Conclusions (cont.)
•
This Centre can interpreted as “soft regulation”,
… aimed at encouraging the growth of workplace practices conducive to
improved productivity,
… including cooperation between employers and employees
•
My question is:
→ Which vision of cooperation will drive this activities of this
Centre?
•
The answer will affect:
→ Whose leadership is to be developed, and
→ The model of leadership to be advanced
→ The types of workplaces the government is promoting
51
6. Conclusions (cont.)
•
The future direction of the Centre for Workplace Leadership is just
another example of
… how recognising the ambiguities of workplace cooperation
… helps us to better understand the trajectory of Australian public
policy
52
7. References
Acknowledgement:
53
Thanks for Dr Johanna Macneil for sharing so generously her ideas and feedback.
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