Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The role of the labor union
Positive impacts of trade unions on labour market
The role of the labor union
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The role of the labor union
Australia has gone from a highly centralized wage determination system to a mainly decentralized one. There has been a move away from accords and awards to enterprise bargaining, through the 96 Workplace Relations Act. Recent policies include changes to unfair dismissal claims and the 2005 workplace reforms package.
Throughout the 20th century, Australia has maintained a system of tribunals to make decisions about wage and non wage outcomes and to help resolve industrial disputes. Institutional forces affect the operation of the free market in order to improve labour market outcomes, such as guaranteeing minimum wages and conditions. The four institutional forces that affect labour markets are Governments, Trade Unions, Employer associations and Industrial Relations tribunal.
Trade unions represent groups of workers on a collective basis. The most important trade union is the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), which is the peak union body to which most unions are affiliated. Trade unions membership has declined substantially from the 1970’s with an average membership of 55% to just 23% in 2003. This is caused by the increase in casual and part time employment, growth in industries with low union membership such as retail and the decentralization of wage determination.
Employer associations represent business groups in similar industries in industrial relations matters. They seek wage moderation to maintain profitability. The head employer association is the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
At the federal level is the independently run Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC). They establish and maintain the fair minimum rates of pay and conditions (award safety net system) for all workers. Award wage increases are determined by the AIRC annually after hearing submissions from the government, ACTU and unions. They apply the no disadvantage test to CA’s and AWA’s to make sure workers are better off than the underpinning award. They also help settle industrial disputes through conciliation and arbitration.
Move Away from centralized
The Accords (1983-1995), were a social contract negotiated between the Federal Government and ACTU on minimum wages and specified working conditions for a number of occupations under Federal awards. This centralised wage system reduced the levels of inflation, industrial disputation and un...
... middle of paper ...
...ver the wage determination role of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC). It is meant to boost productivity by increasing workplace flexibility and placing new constraints on unions. The change is aimed at having workers covered by individual employment agreements rather than collective awards.
Its creation is a big win for employer groups, who have campaigned for decades to strip back the powers of the industrial relations umpire to determine workplace arrangements. However, many believe it will lead to a reduction in pay and conditions.
New legislation will also strip back minimum employment conditions. The current 20 "allowable matters" will be cut to about 16.
The wage determination system has moved from centralised determination through National Wage Cases towardst an enterprise bargaining framework. Safety nets are there mainly for low paid workers who are unable to secure wage increases under enterprise bargaining. There has been sustained moderate wage increases, low inflation, strong productivity growth and employment growth. This system appears to generate the best of both enterprise agreements and centralised wage determination.
I enjoyed your post and agree that the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan were both major foreign policies. In addition to President Truman’s efforts to support democracy he also didn’t want to risk losing access to the Middle East. Like you mentioned “Soviets were trying to get Turkey to allow them access to a waterway linking the two nearby seas.” President Truman’s actions prevented the Soviets from controlling the waterway and helped prevent communism.
Wallerstein, M. & Western, B. 2000. Unions in Decline? What Has Changed and Why? Annual Review of Political Science. 3: 355-377.
Quickly fear began to collect within the public, and it wasn’t before long that the fear translated into support for the new policies of foreign involvement. Truman mentioned in his speech that this investment of U.S. resources paled in comparison to the cost of World War II. Truman insisted it is a necessity to secure the investment in peace achieved through the war by the means of curbing the communist agenda via foreign involvement and aid. This effort was portrayed as a way to prevent further wars, but instead directly contributed to the start of the cold war. Truman’s final lines in his speech stretch from instilling a fear of the communist regime exclaiming “The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died” and portraying the United States as a savior to nations under the scope of the Soviet Union as “The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world -- and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own nation” (Truman). This quote accurately sums up the scope of foreign involvement and relations of the United States during this time period. Truman quickly made the point to
Macintyre, S. (1987), Holt and the Establishment of Arbitration: An Australian Perspective, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, 12(3): 151-159.
Prisons hold offenders with more serious crimes who receive a longer sentence; approximately 72% of inmates are held in prison for 5 years.
Every year, millions of illegal immigrants escape from their homeland to the United States to live an American Dream. Many believe that the U.S is the “land of freedom and opportunity” that can promise you a better quality life for yourself and family members. Its crucial to understand how difficult, one must struggle in order to live in America. The US current policy allows for “..merely 620,000 immigrants to gain citizenship per year” ( Goldsborough 2012) How can this be the land of opportunity if we're the land of no opportunity for citizenship? There are many positive and negative issues that occur with the immigration reform. One can argue that passing the Comprehensive immigration reform can serve our people and country huge success. Work on intro?
In Australia, industrial relations system has been shaped by diverse legislative Acts and political forces coupled with judicial decisions at both the state and federal level. This evident in the sense that there have been diverse amendments of the 1904 Act in light of increased pressures in the industrial sector. This elicited mixed reactions from the employees and employers, among other stakeholders in the industry. However, due to the disadvantages and/or drawbacks of the centralized system of collective bargaining in comparison to the advantages or positive aspects of the decentralized approach of collective bargaining, employers have favored departure from the centralized wage-fixing. Against this backdrop, it behooves us to explore the reasons as why employers have favored the decentralization of Collective bargaining in Australia.
During the Truman and Eisenhower administration a policy of containment served to save the free world from communism. But at times these two administrations put world peace on the line to prove its superiority as a nation. One cannot judge these events to being wrong or right because values of a nation and people change with time, we can just learn from these events and know that the next time United States has a contest of superiority it could cost us the world.
... the safety net of modern awards, the ten national employment standards introduced by the fair work act 2009, and annual adjustments to the National minimum wage provided minimum levels of income and working conditions to workers with low skills and low bargaining power in the labour market. Other components include government spending on public health, education, housing, transport and community services which provide a safety net for low income earners. Macroeconomic policies such as monetary and fiscal policies supports aggregate demand as the GFC and recession impacted adversely on the Australian economy. The main concerns were to support economic growth, household incomes and living standards in the short term, to minimise the increasing rate of unemployment in the medium term, and increase public investment in infrastructure to increase productive capacity.
Are unions in New Zealand (NZ) still useful is a debated issue. Logic suggests that they provide the necessary balance in power between employers and employees so will always be regarded as helpful. Conversely, changes over time mean they are not as valued as NZ’s representational avenues have changed to cope with new characteristics appearing in the workforce. This essay will explain the ideology behind this theory, illustrate evidence that supports it, but also state arguments against it by showing unions changing roles, unionisation levels, and reasons affecting decisions to join or not. It will show that although time has altered aspects of unions that unions in NZ today remain useful to employees in hearing and representing their voice.
The Truman Doctrine was the force for the change in United States foreign policy, from isolationism to internationalism; which was the main reason of the involvement into the two wars of containment and into world affairs. The Truman Doctrine began a major change in U.S. Foreign policy, from its beginning, aid to Turkey and Greece, to its influence on Korea and Vietnam. The aftermath of WWII inspired the U.S. to issue a doctrine that would stop Communist influence throughout the world. However, the U.S.'s passion in the achievement of the Truman Doctrine sent our soldiers to die in Vietnam and Korea for a pointless cause.
In 1997, after ejecting the Conservative Party at the elections, the Labour government made the introduction of a minimum wage its first priority. As a result of the National Minimum Wage Act of 1998, the Low Pay Commission (LPC) was established. This commission is an independent body composed of 9 Low Pay Commissioners representing the different social partners with people chosen amongst employees, employers or with an academic background. The comm...
Trade unions are important in the working environment, they organize and represent the interests of the employees and also ensure that their employment relationship is regulated through processes of collective bargaining (Venter & Levy, 2009). The interests of trade unions are also considered to be of importance because they look after the interests of those in the production processes. As a result models of behavior and collective bargaining were developed by Hicksian.
An arbitrator’s function is usually to interpret the collective bargaining agreement between the parties, not to apply his or her standards of what is right in a given situation. The courts have sought to compel labour and management to a peaceful resolution of grievances through arbitration. The Supreme Court has given support to the arbitration process in a series of decisions, and judicial deferral to arbitration has become a basic tenet of national labour policy. Bibliography Byars, L. L. (1997). The.
With a new war on the horizon America began to disregard some of its values as well as adopt new ones. Following the end of World War II an iron curtain fell across Europe, on one side the capitalist nation of America and on the other the communist nation of Soviet Russia. As a result of the Ideological differences between these two superpowers, America embraced a new value which would drive foreign policy for decades on; containment. The value of containment which, according to George Kennan, can be described as “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of [Soviet] expansive tendencies." was first introduced to American foreign policy through the Truman Doctrine in 1947. Containment was the value which drove U.S. foreign policy post-WWII as seen by the division of Berlin, Bay of Pigs, and Vietnam.