The fifth in a series of working papers on key issues in industial relations, this paper provides comprehensive analysis of the role that collective bargaining has played in the introduction of labour market flexibility in Australia. the authors, Nick Wailes and Russell D. Lansbury, both of the Department of Industrial Relations, the University of Sydney, Australia, originally prepared this manuscript as a country study contribution for a publication of the Labour law and Labour Relations Branch of the ILO entitled, Negotiating flexibility: The role of social partners and the State.

Wailes and Lansbury recount the push for greater flexibility as a means of improving competitiveness and enhancing efficiency, focusing on the evolution of flexibility in the areas of employment contracts, pay determination procedures and systems, working time and work organization. In an attempt to conceptualize and categorize the substantial changes that have taken place in the relationship between collective bargaining and flexibility since the 1980s, the authors identify three broad patterns: managed decentralization (1987-1991), cooordinated flexibility (1991-1996) and fragmented flexibility (1996 on). They also investigate the role that legislation plays on constraining or facilitating collective bargaining over flexibility.

The analysis of the Australian experience with the introduction of labour market flexibility, as presented by the authors, as well as the data provided by this paper, will no doubt be very useful to industrial relations and to all those involved in similar experiences in other countries.




April 1999

Muneto Ozaki
Chief, Labour Law and Labour Relations Branch