Impact of Neo-liberalism on Australian Employment Relations

This essay discusses the impact of neo-liberalism on Australian employment relations, including the decentralization of wages and rise of part-time and casualized employment. The government has implemented measures to control the negative effects of neo-liberalism, such as flexible work arrangements and protection of employee rights.

Running head: NEO-LIBERALISM AND AUSTRALIAN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
IMPACT OF NEO-LIBERALISM ON AUSTRALIAN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
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Introduction
The term neoliberalism is used in a variety of senses by the scholars of various doctrines.
The term was initially used by the scholars to refer to the various social sciences and practices.
The term “neo-liberalism” majorly refers to the resurgence of the several 19th century ideas that
bear relevance in the economic liberalism that separates the private transactions from the
intervention of the governmental bodies (Giroux 2018). In the present market scenario, the term
neoliberalism is generally used to deal with the elimination of the price control features within
the country, the de-regulation of the capital markets within the various territorial boundaries. The
term also deals with the lowering of the barriers to the trade as well as the reduction of the
influences of the state on the economy of the country (Mirowski 2014). The employment
relations refer to the efforts that are made by the concerned company in order to maintain proper
relationships among the employers and the concerned employees of the organization in
discussion. The proper employee relations within the company tend to help the company to
provide the employees within the consistent and the fair treatment. The following essay aims at
the discussion on the various impacts of the neoliberalism on the employment relations that exist
within the political boundaries of Australia. The essay opens with a discussion on neo-liberalism
at large. The essay proceeds to discuss the employment relations in Australia and nears the
conclusion with the discussion on the impact of the neo-liberalism on the Australian employment
relationships.
Neoliberalism
Neo-liberalism majorly refers to the resurgence of the several 19th century ideas that bear
relevance in the economic liberalism that separates the private transactions from the intervention
of the governmental bodies. The neoliberalism is distinguished by the presence of these ideals in

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the 20th century as well. The ideas of neo-liberalism include the various policies of economic
liberalization like austerity, the de-regularization, the policies of free trade as well as the policies
that tend to enable the privatization. These proposed ideas were majorly based on the then
market situations and were observed to be responsible for the shift of the paradigm away from
consensus of Kenyesian views that were presented in the post war conditions. This is known to
have lasted from the year 1945 to the year 1980 (Giroux 2015). The term neoliberalism is used in
a variety of senses by the scholars of various doctrines. The term was initially used by the
scholars to refer to the various social sciences and practices. However, the usage and the
definition of the term faced huge changes over the due course of time.
The major reason behind the implementation of the neoliberalism within the economics
was to prevent the repetition of the various economic failures that had taken place during the
early 1930s. The scholars who promoted the neo-liberalistic thoughts were generally known to
have been blaming the various economic policies that were portrayed by the scholars who
promoted the economic policies of the classic liberalism (Davies 2016). The present situation
within the global economy however, observes the scholars to have been discarding the neoliberal
thoughts of the global economy and thus attempting to spend researches on the development of
the alternate policies in order to find solutions of the economic crises that are being faced by the
majority of the nations of the world.
The neoliberal thoughts generally deal with the various matters influenced by the
demands of the changes that were needed within the social as well as the democratic conditions
within the concerned country. The major factor that has been related to the neoliberalism is the
implementation of the policies related to the free market conditions. The propounders of this
theory claim that the free conditions within the given market aims at the allowance of the greater

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efficiency, the growth of the economy, the proper and justified distribution of the income among
the concerned employees of an organization (Veltmeyer, Petras and Vieux 2016). The scholars
further argue that the free market conditions would also lead to the occurrences of the various
technological processes that are related to the concerned businesses. In the present market
scenario, the term neoliberalism is generally used to deal with the elimination of the price control
features within the country, the de-regulation of the capital markets within the various territorial
boundaries. The term also deals with the lowering of the barriers to the trade as well as the
reduction of the influences of the state on the economy of the country (Otero 2018). This is
generally obtained through the implementation of the austerity and the privatization within the
firms that have been operating within the concerned organization.
The term neoliberalism also aims to discuss the various economic policies that had been
discussed by Margaret Thatcher in the country of the United Kingdom as well as Ronald Reagan
in the country of the United States (Bruff 2014). The neoliberalism views the concerned market
to be the greatest processor of information as compared to the human beings. The market is thus
considered to be arbiter of the truth for the potential clients of the company. The concerned
thinkers of the neo-liberal theory maintain a distinction of their own by abhorring from the
advocacy of the economic policies that are related to the laissez-faire (Venugopal 2015). The
major point of distinction of the neoliberalist thinkers lie in the highly constructivist nature of the
concerned economies. The neo-liberalist thinkers are known to be the advocators of the strength
in the state that helps in the bringing about the reforms that are in alignment to the market in all
the spheres of the concerned society.
Australian employment relations

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The employment relations refer to the efforts that are made by the concerned company in
order to maintain proper relationships among the employers and the concerned employees of the
organization in discussion. The proper employee relations within the company tend to help the
company to provide the employees within the consistent and the fair treatment. This helps the
company to retain the staff of the organization (Forrest and Hirayama 2015). The proper
employee relations within the company helps in motivating the concerned employees to serve the
organization in a better manner as well as remain loyal to the concerned company. The
employment relations within Australia is maintained through the implementation of a variety of
laws within the country.
The Australian employment relations are heavily dependent on the Fair Work Act of
2009 (Clibborn 2015). The salient features that were depicted by the Fair Work Act of 2009 dealt
majorly with the promotion as well as the enforcement of the compliance with the various new
laws that were maintained by the concerned organizations functioning within the territorial
boundaries of the country. The Fair Work Act of 2009 or the FWA (2009) aimed at the extension
of an additional safety net to the concerned employees of the organization (French, Boyle and
Muurlink 2014). The FWA also helped in the introduction of the protection of the employees
against the unfair dismissals. The employees who were excluded from the coverage of the
benefit were the employees who have been employed on probationary basis and the employees
who have been working in the organizations that have less than 15 employees in total
(Farbenblum and Berg 2017). The FWA also led to the formation of the unions among the
employees of the various organizations that have been functioning within the territories of the
country. The employment relations within the country have been facing a huge amount of
changes in the present times. The inclusion of the employee unions within the work culture

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within the organization aims to deal with the various issues that are raised by the employees of
the organization.
The present situations within the work culture of the Australian companies tend to
discuss the decentralization of the wages and the other forms of remuneration that is made
available to the concerned employees of the organization. The other issues that are faced by the
current workforce members of the organization are the ones that are related to the equality of the
genders within the workplace. The inequity within the labor force of Australia tends to have an
influence on the overall economy of the country (Ball 2016). The undervaluation of the service
provided by the concerned female employees of the organization tends to influence the labor
market within the country. The researches have revealed that though there has been a significant
rise in the female members within the Australian labor force, there are certain negative forces
that have been barring the women from joining the workforce. This tends to lead to the
implementation of the inequality among the various genders within the organization thereby
leading to the inequality among the payments that are offered to the concerned employees of the
organization. this is expected to have been leading to the conditions wherein the concerned
members of the organization might be facing various issues on the grounds of the gender
discrimination within the organizations.
Impact of Neo-liberalism
The various companies that have been functioning within the Australian boundaries have
been known to be affected by the various matters that are related to the lower rates of
unemployment among the concerned residents of the country. The Australian workforce has
been facing a huge rise in the service industry that has been active within the country. There has
also been noted a significant amount of rise in the matters that are related to the part-time

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involvements as well as the casualized style of employment within the country (Howell 2016).
This change in the work environment within the country is noted to be driven not by the
employers but by the changing lifestyles of the concerned residents within the given territorial
boundaries of the nation. The women members of the workforce are observed to have been under
recognized and often face undervaluation by their peers or even the employers (Silva 2018). This
often leads to the enactment of the various laws for the promotion of the gender inequality within
the concerned workplace. The implementation of the neo-liberal thoughts within the concerned
work environments tend to influence the work environment as well as the overall performance of
the companies that have been operating within the given political territories. The Australian
government has implemented the legislations in order to safeguard the rights of the female
employees of the organization who might have been taking leaves on the grounds of maternity.
The emergence of the thoughts of neo-liberalism tend to provide the employees of the
organization with more power than has been vested in their employers. This has resulted in the
conditions wherein the employees have generally been opting for the various non-standardized
modes of employment rather than opting for the standardized modes of payment. This has led to
the increase in the matters that are related to the policies that are driven by the market (Godard
2014). The implementation of the changes in the legislation of the work choices have led to the
deeper ingraining of the neo-liberalistic approaches of the market towards the formulation of the
policies. The implementation of the neo-liberalistic approaches further restricted the collective
bargaining within the market. This helps in the promotion of the work contracts that were
retrieved within the concerned industry among the concerned individuals. The employee unions
that have been active within the Australian market have been observed to be opposing the stated
reform of introducing the collective bargaining within the given market. The employee unions

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commented that this might lead to the conditions wherein the employees who have been serving
at the lowest levels of the organizational hierarchy would be exploited due to their lack of proper
skills of bargaining (Greer and Doellgast 2017). However, the trend of the implementation of
neo-liberalism within the workplace was finally brought to an end during the times of the
financial crisis that had struck all the economies that have been operating in the world. The
Australian government had implemented certain measures that were controlled by the state in
order to put a check on the neo-liberalist trends that were followed by the multitude of
organizations that have been operating within the political boundaries of Australia. The
implementation of the control by the state government helped in implementing the measures that
helped in the retention of the employees of the organization by extending certain benefits and
rights towards them. The employees of the concerned business organizations were allowed the
scope of flexible work arrangements. This helped the companies to retain the staff who would
otherwise have resigned due to their personal issues (Ford and Gillan 2016). This has majorly
helped in the retention of the female employees of the organization who majorly resigned due to
their duties of caregiving towards their own family members. This was majorly observed in the
cases of the female employees who had been facing motherhood especially during the initial
days after the birth of the child.
Conclusion
Thus, from the above discussion it might be derived that the neoliberalism had affected
the work culture within the Australian territories in an immense manner. The Australian
workforce had been facing a huge rise in the service industry that has been active within the
country. There has also been noted a significant amount of rise in the matters that are related to
the part-time involvements as well as the casualized style of employment within the country.

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This change in the work environment within the country is noted to be driven not by the
employers but by the changing lifestyles of the concerned residents within the given territorial
boundaries of the nation. The implementation of the changes in the legislation of the work
choices have led to the deeper ingraining of the neo-liberalistic approaches of the market towards
the formulation of the policies. The implementation of the neo-liberalistic approaches further
restricted the collective bargaining within the market. This helps in the promotion of the work
contracts that were retrieved within the concerned industry among the concerned individuals.

9NEO-LIBERALISM AND AUSTRALIAN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
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