by Nick Wailes & Russell D. Lansbury

I. The types of flexibility introduced

Notes:

¹ The AIRC was known as the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission until 1988.

² Re Ranger Uranium Mines Pty Ltd; ex parte Federated Miscellaneous Workers Union of Australia (1987) 163 CLR 656 (Weeks, P 1994, 81).

³ "The only limitation to the application of this part of the Act, insofar as it excludes some employees from its operation, is found in Section 170CC, which exempts employees who may be proscribed by the regulations to be made under the Act. The regulations can only proscribe classes of employees where there are special problems of a substantial nature in light of particular conditions of employment or of the size and nature of the undertaking that employs them" Reitano, 1993: 61.

⁴ ILO 1995 found that Australia was one of only a few countries that had introduced policies consistent with Convention No. 158.

⁵ See Campbell, 1996a: 54-57 for a discussion of the limitations of using this ABS series. On balance he concludes that this is a robust data series which demonstrates overall patterns.

⁶ See Short and Buchanan, 1995: 121-122 for details.

⁷ The Agreements Database and Monitor (ADAM) is a database of agreements maintained by the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training, at the University of Sydney. The database continues to increase and as of 29 October 1997 included information relating to 1,649 federal awards. This database and the regular reports issued by ACIRRT provide one of the best insights into changes in industrial relations in Australia currently available.