by Nick Wailes & Russell D. Lansbury

III. The sources of flexibility

To a large extent, the position of the new government reflects the attitudes of sections within the business community who have long advocated a radical workplace focus. Employer groups did not play any formal role in the centralized negotiations about flexibility during the Accord era and most major employer associations have advanced the view that the appropriate forum for flexibility negotiations is the enterprise rather than the industry or national level.

While the Accord process constituted a corporatist type framework within which to address a range of issues relating to flexibility, it differed from corporatist arrangements in other countries because it excluded any formal participation by employer representatives in the negotiations. Matthews (1994) argues that the lack of business involvement in the Accord process reflects the relatively fragmented character of business organization in Australia (vis-à-vis organized labour) and the reluctance of business groups to involve themselves in a highly partisan agreement between the industrial and political wings of the labour movement.

Because of the lack of any formal participation, some have argued that business was excluded from the Accord. Nevertheless, it has been suggested more recently that business groups had a significant indirect impact on the shape and nature of the Accord agreements between the ACTU and the ALP. For example, Thornthwaite and Sheldon (1993 & 1996) argue that the award restructuring process of managed decentralization actually originated from industry level negotiations between the Metal Trades Industry Association and the Metal Workers Union. They argue that this agreement was subsequently generalized through the Accord process to the whole federal jurisdiction. On the basis of this argument, Thornthwaite and Sheldon have questioned the traditional characterization of Australian employers' associations as reactive.

O'Brien (1994) argues that the new management model advanced by the Business Council of Australia had an even more profound impact on the direction and nature of industrial relations change. He documents the role that the BCA played in developing and introducing the notion that the enterprise should be the primary focus of all negotiations and regulation of labour processes. While the ALP and the ACTU rejected the BCA's underlying assumptions, the introduction of enterprise bargaining through the Accord process can be seen as a direct response to the challenge that the BCA raised to external regulation. Indeed the BCA has been so successful in shaping the labour market reform agenda that most major employer associations now accept the enterprise focus and are hostile to the notion of sectoral, industry or national level negotiations on flexibility.

This belief that the enterprise should form the primary focus of flexibility bargaining has now become almost universally accepted by all the major employer associations and most of their member companies. The BCA has played a major role in reorienting the views of many employers in this regard. Therefore, Australia has witnessed a dramatic shift in the willingness of employers and the government to accept and facilitate flexibility bargaining at a broad economy-wide or industry-wide level during the 1990s. Whereas under Labour, the Accord became the major vehicle for flexibility bargaining and this gained tacit support from many employers, the intervention of the BCA in the labour market reform debate and the change in government has completely undermined the potential for flexibility bargaining beyond the level of the enterprise.