'A Fair Go All Round': Workplace Relations in the 21st Century

The Australian Industry Group’s long history of support for the uniquely Australian approach to workplace relations has been, and remains, bound up with the Australian aspiration of a “fair go all round”.

“Fairness” should be taken seriously. We do not accept, however, that we need to re-regulate workplace relations in the name of fairness. In fact, a return to more centralised approaches would not only damage our economic prospects, it would also reduce our ability to build a fair go.

The usual suspect in the case for ongoing workplace relations reform in the 21st century is higher productivity. Put simply, we need further reforms because we face the twin pressures of intensifying global competition and domestic demographics. These pressures call for a high productivity growth path in the 21st century.

We have seen very strong and remarkably stable increases in Australian living standards over the past decade and a half. This record points firmly to the benefits of the liberalisation of economic policy over the past 20 years. These include productivity benefits flowing from the greater role of enterprise bargaining.

Notwithstanding these benefits, in the name of fairness we face calls for re-regulation of workplace relations. We hear arguments for a reinforcement of the centralised institutions and we face a range of applications to extend the reach of central regulation.

Our approach to “a fair go all round” must be a broad one. Fairness is about a lot more than the immediate size and distribution of material outcomes although these must remain part of the overall equation. Fairness is also about creating opportunities; it is about holding open the door to opportunities to all; it is about recognising and accepting diversity; it is about encouraging and rewarding achievement and it is about the exercise of individual and corporate responsibilities.

In building a fair go all round we must take particular account of the major changes that have occurred, and that continue to occur in our workplaces.

The Australian workforce today is very different from a century ago when Justice Higgins described the typical worker as a husband supporting a wife and three children.

The contemporary workforce is much more complex and much more diverse. There is no longer a coherent “social norm” around which we can standardise our workplace relations. Work is also becoming more knowledge intensive. There are new requirements for flexibility of employment, for education, training and life-long learning.

Without question, employers have a long way to go before we have come to terms with this increasing diversity. Nevertheless, the combination of growing awareness and commercial necessity is accelerating the pace of change. To move with the times businesses need to offer a broader range of positions to suit the diverse circumstances of the workforce. Employers and managers must be able to combine a mix of full-time, part-time and casual work.

There is a tremendous contrast between the demands of diversity and the paternalism behind drives to regulate work design and work practices by raising and extending the minimum safety net.

The shift to an award system that operates as a safety net should have resulted in far fewer test cases and other applications to vary awards. However, over recent years we have seen a concerted attempt to extend the reach of the centralised system into new standardised entitlements and to the real level of the safety net.