Assessing Stakeholder Impact on Australian Industrial Relations

This report critically evaluates the influence of three key stakeholders—business, trade unions, and the state—on Australian industrial relations (IR) policy. It examines the success of these stakeholders in shaping policy, considering recent changes and their alignment with stated aims. The analysis ex...Read More

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How successful have the three main stakeholders, business, trade unions and the State, been
in influencing Australian industrial relations policy. Have recent changes achieved the stated
aims of the stakeholders? By what measures should the success of changing industrial
relations policy be assessed?
During the recent years, a lot of changes related to employment have taken place in Australia.
These include the shift in favor of precarious work (casual and part-time) the development made
by service and knowledge sectors of economy, the rise of neoliberal economic agenda that
espouses the values of the regulation, flexibility individualism and competitiveness, the rise of
modern HRM with orientation towards performance and better acknowledgment of local
influences that have an impact on the nationwide system of regulation. Under the circumstances,
there can be little doubt that these changes have made an effect on the customary actors and
organizations present in industrial relations. Precipitously there has been a fall in trade union
membership and its influence in the society (Todd, 2014). Similarly, the employers have become
more refined in their practices and the state and government organizations are also progressively
affected by a wide range of global supervisory organizations.
Due to these wider deviations and their effect on work relations, there have been comparable
effects in several other countries, with the basic challenges that are posed by them resulting in
debates regarding the future of this field. Keeping in view of these challenges, most of the
writers have been carefully positive regarding the prognosis for employment relations,

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particularly in case the new theories, methods and conceptual apparatus can be given that for
explaining these changes (Wright, 2016). Closer engagement with other institutions in the society
and also other social sciences, may further strengthen the study related with industrial relations.
There are certain writers who have been more cautious in this regard and have suggested that to
the extent that this field is related with the study of trade unions and collective bargaining, the
employment relations are going to convert more peripheral. Declining membership of trade
unions and collective bargaining cover for the workforces has caused a 'representation gap' for
expressing the voice of the employees.
Therefore is a part of the developments that have taken place in Australia, the Workplace
Relations Act, 1996 at Commonwealth level had played a major role in its attempts to
decentralized and individualize industrial relations, including the tendency of shifting decision-
making, covering conflict resolution towards the level of workplace. Therefore the legislation
has unambiguously decreased the capability of traditionally significant performers for fully
representing their individual jurisdictions, comprising those having a strong collectivist bases
like the trade unions or those having a national level orientation like the Australian Industrial
Relations Commission. Regarding this agency of the State, there is at present, which suggests
that both the employers and the trade unions continue to look for support from the commission
even if the arbitral powers of the commission have been eroded. But this does not basically
change the fact that there has been a reduction in the role and the significance of this customary
actor of the state in the industrial relations of the country.
More recently, and according to the ideology which underpins the 1996 legislation, the
Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act, 2005 has also announced several
changes which include the shifting of national rate setting responsibilities away from Australian

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Industrial Relations Commission and in favor of a new body, the Australian Fair Pay
Commission. Similarly, the amendments made in 2005 continents with the impetus for specific
employment provisions as they created the opportunities for individual bargaining and the
advocacy agents operating outside the trade unions. Therefore it can be that there has been a rise
of 'new spaces' in the labor market of Australia allowing the new actors to play a role (Wright,
2016).
However in this regard, it is worth mentioning that most of the research conducted in work
relations in Australia still privileges the dealings that take place between the managers and their
organizations, trade unions and the government by excluding other social performers that may
have an effect on certain relationship. Under the circumstances, there is the need for extending
the intellectual endeavors for examining the employment actors and the processes that are
sincerely novel and also which have been discovered recently. It could be the case that this
oversight is the result of the contracted notion of industrial relations as being independent from
other territories of the society (Veirs, 2017). However, if this proposition is true for Australia is
hard to create, but it certainly appears that the focus on new actors and processes regarding
industrial relations in Australia has been relatively slow as compared to some other countries.
Body of literature related with new actors and processes in industrial relations is still relatively
small. However there is a clear need which requires that industrial relations, both in theory and
practice should start to embrace a wide range of nontraditional actors if this field is going to
comprehensively and quickly clarify the changes that have affected the regulation and the
knowledge of work. It has been argued that by expanding the range of factors in industrial
relations announces, the group said agencies are going to be included at the level of community

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and also at the international level (Smith & Colvin Stone, 2017). The developments taking place at
the global level, may also affect or may be affected by the changes related to employment taking
place at the national level.
New Actors: in this regard the question arises, what is actor and how the actors are going to be
classified. In case of most of the today's little bit employment relations, actors have been
described in terms of their behavior and also there influence and power as compared to the other
actors. In this regard, the systems theory of industrial relations provided by John Dunlop (1958)
had a great influence in influencing the sphere of scholarly investigation, which founds the
procedural and substantive rules of work. It has been argued in this theory that there are three
clear classes of actors in IR (Baird, Williamson & Heron, 2012). These include the hierarchy of
managers and their representatives related the supervision; the hierarchy of workers; and special
government agencies that are related with the workers, enterprise and the relationship between
the two. It is worth mentioning that these actors do not behave autonomously, but they are
formed by the series of contexts, which include markets, political and technological contexts.
There are many who are determinedly dedicated to the 'tri-actor' model of IR that embody
employers, organizations and the workers and their organizations and the government agencies
(Forsyth, 2017). It has also been acknowledged that the rising trend of the presence of
nongovernmental organizations and society in industrial relations, has to be considered as
subordinate and secondary as compared to the three actor groups and try to locate them in this
tripartite structure. Therefore it is not the role of any new actor in industrial relations to act
autonomously, but the form alliance and collaboration with the three major actors in this
tripartite structure. Therefore it is believed that for example unions and the organizations of the
employers are going to be reinforced in terms of their joint voice and impact. Therefore the

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effect of the model provided by Dunlop is strengthened, because the new actors are really not
envisioned as displacing the part supporting the traditional actors in industrial relations, the
business, trade unions and the state. In this regard, it can be suggested that the new actors are
significant in their own right. It has been argued in this regard that the conventional actors
mentioned in the framework of Dunlop present an outdated view of the structure of current
industrial society and how the arrangement should grow (Burgess, 2015).
However there are certain limitations present in the analytical framework and these should be
acknowledged. First of all the significance and the effectiveness of the activities based on
contribute, instead of permitting for the sporadic interference of the actor or ephemerality of the
actor itself. Therefore, alternatively, the structure apparently from a sustainable model of
industrial relations, particularly as the significance of the active has to be decided by the breadth
of participation at all the three levels. In practice, this is going to be advantageous for the
customary actors. The minor actors and the groups that are pursuing a single issue are not likely
to have the required assets or the power for shaping a variety of work matters at these levels
(Short & Nowak, 2009). However, this overlooks the chances that single issue actors like the
National Pay Equity Coalition are going to be important in their own circle of concentration. In
view of the different work connected changes that have been mentioned above, now it may be
quite unrealistic to expect that directors are going to be persuasive at all the three levels. Some
other experts have also noted similar points. In this regard, the framework provided by Bellemare
is presumably restricted to the contemporary analysis of new actors in industrial relations.
Therefore it has been provided by Bellemare that the significance of the effectiveness of an actor
is going to be established over time. However, the period of time, that is required in this regard
has not been mentioned and therefore it remains indeterminate. As compared to it, it has been

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argued that although this requirement of time is valuable, but it is unnecessary and has been
clearly ignored in the research made by Abbott (Cairns, 2017).
In the present research, examples have been provided regarding the potential new actors that may
rise in the industrial relations system of Australia. Generally these actors can be divided into two
sections. In the first section, the new actors covered are the ones that are located in the Dunlop's
tripartite theory of IR actors. On the other hand, in subsequent section are the actors who are
positioned outer to the customary structure, but need attention for being incorporated in the
system of IR. In the first section, the Australian Fair Pay Commission can be considered. The
Commission has been established as the current industrial relations with new bureaucracy for
supporting its operations (Sathe, 2017). A layer of intervention and regulation that exists in the
system of IR has been shifted to a recently set up organization. In this regard, the rationale was
not yet behind the establishment of the Commission. In the same way, it was also not clear why
the industrial relations legislation of that time would not be commended for ordering the
standards for safety net, which cases that were heard by the AIRC. In this regard some insight
can be obtained from the ministerial press release. It was mentioned in this press release that the
Australian Fair Pay Commission would shift from confrontational and legalistic approach
regarding the resolution of wage; it would not involve ambit and arbitrary wage claims made by
the trade unions; and considered various criteria, mainly the employment of unemployed and the
low-paid. In this regard, it is suggested by the Minister that the establishment of the commission
signifies a shift, which was outstanding for long, from random claims regarding the image is
made by the employers and the trade unions before the tribunals (Baird, Williamson & Heron,
2012).

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Under the circumstances, it can be stated that the three major stakeholders, business, trade unions
and the states have a significant impact on the industrial relations policy in Australia. However it
needs to be noted that new actors are also arising in this field, on account of the recent changes
made in this context. The measures that need to be used for measuring the success of changes
introduced in the industrial relations policy have also been discussed.

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References
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