(1994) Faithful Rally to the Cause: Is the ILO a Threat to Sovereignty or a Doddering Bureaucracy?
The International Labour Organisation may be suffering a crisis of relevance but this is not halting the procession to Geneva.
(1994) Brereton Switch Opens Way for Industrial Law Tinkering
Sooner or later it had to be faced. The unintended consequences of the operations of the Industrial Relations Reform Act preoccupied the minister, Mr Brereton, for some months. Last Monday he acknowledged that “the unfair dismissal provisions of the new act have been the subject of a great deal of exaggeration, misrepresentation and scaremongering”. This was not part of the script.
(1994) The ILO to the Rescue? A Note on Japanese and Australian Experiences
In the aftermath of the Victorian State election in 1992, the election of a conservative administration and the enactment of new State labour laws, momentum gathered within the labour movement to utilise ILO Conventions as a means of striking down the Victorian laws.
(1994) Rumpus Looms Over Employee Share Benefits
Employee share benefit arrangements were one of the casualties of this year’s federal Budget. The government proclaimed that it would stamp out tax avoidance arrangements posing as employee share arrangements. Some doctors and other types were cited as typical rorters.
(1994) Good While It Lasted: The Position and Prospects of Australian Unions in 1993
Co-written with Tom Forrest, Economics and Labour Relations Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, June 1994, pp. 117-136. Another version of this paper appeared under the same title in Jim Hagan & Andrew Wells, editors, Industrial Relations in Australia and Japan, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards [Sydney], 1994, pp. 153-164.
(1993) Future Directions of Trade Union Peak Councils
This article was co-written with Michael Costa and Tom Forrest, probably in mid-1993, and was for internal discussion in the Labor Council of NSW.
(1993) Options Concerning Trade Union Training
Some of the early history of trade union training in Australia is covered in an article by Peter Mathews in an article in the Journal of Industrial Relations in 1966.
(1993) Labor Heart Change to Wage-fixing System
Whoever thinks that anything the Prime Minister said last week on industrial relations reform was accidental or merely imperfectly phrased is kidding themselves.
(1992) Employment Ideas: 9 Points Worth Fast Tracking
The NSW government should be more ambitious in tackling the problems of unemployment in NSW. The release of recent unemployment figures consistently show that NSW accounts for the vast majority of job losses.
(1992) Industrial Relations: The Year Ahead
It is difficult at the best of times to speak with certainty about the future. It is particularly difficult to do this with industrial relations at this time.