The Incompatibility of Decentralized Bargaining and Equal Employment Opportunity in Australia

The Incompatibility of DecentralizedBargaining and Equal EmploymentOpportunity in AustraliaGlenda Strachan and John Burgess

Abstract

Profound changes have occurred in the industrial relations system in Australiasince the mid-1980s as the system of centralized regulation has been replacedby collective bargaining at the level of the enterprise. This has correspondedwith the considerable expansion of women's employment, mainly in part-timeand temporary jobs. At the same time, recognition of the disadvantagedposition of women in the work-force has resulted in the enactment of lawsto promote equal employment opportunity. This article examines the abilityof these laws to achieve equal employment opportunity policies alongsidebargaining decentralization and a growing non-standard women's work-force.

1. Introduction

Australian labour regulation in the twentieth century has been characterizedby a centralized wage and working conditions determination system anda high rate of unionization. Major changes have occurred in industrialrelations legislation, in the labour market and in the internal labour marketsof organizations over the past decade. The IR system has moved from beinghighly centralized to one in which decentralized collective bargaining atthe enterprise or workplace level is promoted. At the same time, legislationto promote equal employment opportunity (EEO) has been promulgated.Women's share of the work-force has increased, with the expansion inwomen's employment being dominated by part-time and casual employmentin the service sector. This article assesses the impact of these changes onEEO objectives in Australia.

Until the mid-1980s, Australia's industrial relations system was based onpermanent industrial tribunals at state and federal level which recognized

Glenda Strachan and John Burgess are in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce, Universityof Newcastle, New South Wales.

British Journal of Industrial Relations38:3 September 2000 0007±1080 pp. 361±381

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trade unions as the representatives of workers, and from which decisionswere made which governed the basic working conditions of approximately80 per cent of workers (Deery et al. 1997: chapter 8). Since then the IRsystem at state and federal levels has moved towards collective agreementsbargained at individual enterprises or workplaces. At the same time, anincreasing percentage of workers is being employed on a casual basis (akinto temporary workers in Europe) or as part-time workers, and this isespecially the case for the growing number of women workers (Campbelland Burgess 1997). The influence of the Australian Industrial RelationsCommission (AIRC) and its determinations (awards) is rapidly diminishing,leaving lower paid and more vulnerable groups of workers with littleindustrial protection. The growth of non-standard work, particularly amongwomen, has increased the likelihood of their lacking protection.Attempts to address the disadvantaged position of women in the

Australian labour market has resulted in anti-discrimination and affirmativeaction legislation. Anti-discrimination legislation exists at the federal leveland in most states and covers grounds of discrimination including sex andmarital status. The coverage of this legislation means that most workers areable to take a complaint about an alleged case of discrimination to a specifictribunal for resolution. In Australia this legislation, which dates from 1975and proliferated across the different jurisdictions in the 1980s, requires thata complaint be made after an instance of discrimination has occurred, andthe resolution is essentially an individual one (Ronalds 1991). Legislationsuch as the federal Sex Discrimination Act 1984 recognizes the phenomenonof structural discrimination, which àrises from the fact that organisationalnorms, rules and procedures, used to determine the allocation of positionsand benefits, have generally been designed . . . around the behaviour patternsof the historically dominant group in public life (Anglo-Australian, able-bodied, heterosexual males)' (Hunter 1992: 5). This type of discriminationis labelled ìndirect discrimination' in the legislation and has enabled groupsof women to pursue remedies after an alleged case of discrimination. Themost celebrated case of indirect discrimination involved women workerssuccessfully challenging the `last on, first off' rule for redundancies at a steelworks which had refused over many years to employ women in operationaljobs, thus ensuring that they had a shorter period of service with thecompany (Scutt 1990). While important in resolving some instances ofdiscrimination, taking a case that meets the terms of the legislation can bedifficult (Scutt 1990) and this legislation by its very nature produces ad hocsolutions that do not alter the widespread patterns of employment dis-crimination.Legislative remedies for discrimination that do not rely on individual

grievance procedures were implemented in the 1980s. The Affirmative Action(Equal Opportunity for Women) Act 1986 is the principal law in this area.In the Australian context, affirmative action ìs the taking of positive steps,by means of legislative reform and management programs, in order toachieve demonstrable progress towards equal employment opportunity'

362 British Journal of Industrial Relations

# Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2000.

(Ziller 1983: 23). The legislation requires organizations with over 100 em-ployees to institute a specific affirmative action programme. In contrast toanti-discrimination legislation, many groups within the work-force are notcovered by this legislation, especially if they work in businesses employingfewer than 100 employees or if they are in part-time or temporary employ-ment or any other work that may not be subject to EEO programmes forfull-time and/or permanent employees. Affirmative action programmes assuch are selective in their application across enterprises and within enter-prises.

This article highlights the contradictory forces that have had a majorimpact on women's working conditions in the last decade. While legislativedevelopments have attempted to enhance and protect the position of womenin the work-force, the shift towards a system of decentralized or enterprisebargaining in Australia in conjunction with growth in non-standard formsof employment has the potential to erode the employment conditions ofwomen workers. The following section summarizes the developments in theAustralian industrial relations system over the past decade. There thenfollows a review of analytical debates over whether a centralized or adecentralized industrial relations system is more capable of removing therelative disadvantage associated with women's employment. This leads to aconsideration of the gaps in the protective legislative and industrial relationsarrangements with respect to women workers in Australia. The articleconcludes that the continued decentralization and de-collectivization of theAustralian industrial relations system will increase both vertical and hori-zontal work-force inequality and will leave many women workers in anincreasingly vulnerable position.

2. Australian industrial relations legislation: centralized wage determinationto enterprise bargaining

The key historical features of the Australian industrial relations system areits centralization and the role of third-party intervention through concili-ation and arbitration (Deery et al. 1997). Relatively high rates of work-forceunionization have supported a centralized wage determination process andsolidaristic employment arrangements codified by the award system. Whilethe system has endured many changes, its essential framework of permanenttribunals setting industry-wide awards of minimum conditions which appliedto all workers in the specified job category and industry, regardless ofwhether they were trade union members, survived from 1904 until the late1980s. Award regulation has acted as a system of protection for individualemployees against the untrammelled operations of the free market,supplementing the much more partial protection offered by individualtrade unions (Dabscheck 1995). Awards were comprehensive documentscovering a wide range of employment matters (Deery et al. 1997: 9.23) andgave access to protection and wage increases for the low paid, the less

Equal Employment Opportunity in Australia 363


unionized and service sector employees. On the whole, this assisted womenworkers, though it should be noted that awards themselves often reproducedgender occupational work-force differences, with male-based industries oftenqualifying for better pay and conditions than female-dominated industries.The centralized system of industrial relations gradually gave way to a

managed process of decentralization from the late 1980s onwards. Thisprocess was orchestrated under the Prices and Incomes Accord between theLabor government and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).Moves towards a decentralized system of industrial relations culminated inthe introduction of the Industrial Relations Reform Act 1993, which initiatedenterprise bargaining. Under this legislation the primary way to get a wageincrease was through a collective agreement negotiated at an enterprise,either with or without trade union involvement (Deery et al. 1997: chapter 9).Safety net wage protection was still provided for the low paid, and the awardsystem protected those who could not enter into enterprise agreements withtheir employers. In terms of gender, the newly emerging system favoured thewell organized and high-productivity sectors such as mining, transport andmanufacturing (all male-dominated), but it did provide an umbrella ofprotection for those sectors in which female employment dominated.The federal conservative (Liberal±National Party Coalition) government,

elected in 1996, pushed further down the path of decentralization. TheWorkplace Relations Act 1996 introduced the individualization of work-place agreements; it severely limits union rights, facilitates non-union enter-prise agreements and prunes back the range of minimum conditions that canbe included within awards (Department of Industrial Relations 1996a). Thegovernment's rationale was that `the new framework supports a more directrelationship between employers and employees, with a much reduced rolefor third party intervention and greater labour market flexibility' (Depart-ment of Industrial Relations 1996a). Individual employment contractsknown as Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) have been incorpor-ated into the Act. Although neither individual nor collective agreementsare supposed to give workers less favourable working conditions than therelevant award or legislation, this has been interpreted very broadly `withrespect to the overall package' (Department of Industrial Relations 1996a).Nothing in the legislation prevents employers from offering new employeesan AWA with pay and conditions inferior to that of existing employees(Catanzariti and Baragwanath 1997: 27).In its efforts to reduce the role of central regulation, the award system

has been reduced to a system of twenty allowable conditions (AustralianIndustrial Relations Commission 1997, 1998a, b; Giudice 1998). One im-portant part of the `award simplification' process is that regular part-timework (defined as less than full-time hours, reasonably predictable hours ofwork and providing the same award conditions as full-time employees on apro rata basis) cannot be restricted; that is, quotas and minimum andmaximum weekly hour's provisions will be removed from the award system.This means not only a loss of entitlements, but also fewer restrictions on



employers for deregulating working hours and expanding non-standardemployment arrangements. As a consequence of this process, workers inmany relatively low paid jobs in the retail, hospitality and health industrieshave lost entitlements that were systematically incorporated into the awardsystem over the past century. While access to safety net adjustments is main-tained, working conditions and non-wage entitlements can be eroded throughthe award simplification process. The definition of `industrial action' hasbeen widened in the Act to cover any deviation from usual practice;industrial action has been circumscribed and penalties for industrial actionhave been increased, making it more difficult for unions to take such action.

Overall, in the space of around eight years (1988±96), the federalindustrial relations system in Australia has shifted dramatically from acentralized to a decentralized system, from a system of extensive minimumconditions or awards to a system of few minima, from a system of activethird-party intervention by the AIRC to a system where the AIRC has alimited role in facilitating enterprise agreements, and from a system of activetrade union participation to one where trade union activity is severelyproscribed. This development matches the extensiveness and speed ofchange in the IR system in the UK over the 1980s (Towers 1997) and in NewZealand in the early 1990s (Hammond and Harbridge 1995). While theprevious centralized system perpetuated institutional biases against womenworkers, the new IR system has the potential to remove safety net andcollective protection available to them under the previous system.

3. Centralized versus decentralized systems

There is a long-standing debate over centralization versus decentralization inindustrial relations, and about the priority between equity versus efficiencyobjectives (Brown 1993; Brown and Zappala 1993; Burgess and Macdonald1990; Colling and Dickens 1998; Green and Macdonald 1991). The central-ized IR system in Australia was largely constructed around male-based andunionized craft employment (full-time) in the primary and secondary sectorsand in the public services (O'Donnell and Hall 1988). This system margin-alized women and overtly discriminated against women's pay and employ-ment conditions (Ryan and Conlon 1989). However, from the 1970s, aswomen's participation in employment expanded, it was the centralizedindustrial relations system that delivered important decisions for pay equityfor women workers (Rafferty 1994). Together with legislative developmentsin the areas of equal opportunity and anti-discrimination, the centralized IRsystem offered the potential for improvement in the wages and employmentconditions of all women workers.

There were gaps within this equality programme. Equal pay was narrowlyfocused on comparisons of the same or very similar jobs, not on com-parisons of dissimilar work, which could be of equal value in terms ofresponsibilities and skills but attracted unequal pay and unequal gender



distribution (Short 1986; Whitehouse 1990). The award system and EEOprovisions were often non-applicable or non-enforceable for women in thesmall-business sector and for women in part-time and casual employment(Campbell and Burgess 1997). In addition, enforcement of award conditionswas very much dependent upon trade union vigilance and representation,something that often was lacking for women workers (Burgess and Ryan1996). Overall, the centralized industrial relations system in concert withlegislated equity provisions possessed the potential to redress genderdisadvantage in employment, despite evident gaps and shortcomings interms of breadth of coverage, application and enforcement (Whitehouse1990).Part of the justification for the decentralization of the industrial relations

system in Australia is that it would more effectively promote gender equityat the workplace across a range of conditions from pay through to careerpath access and the availability of flexible hours of employment (Newman1997). The argument is that a decentralized system more effectively pro-motes flexible employment conditions which in turn facilitates a bettermatching of employment and family care responsibilities (Strachan andBurgess 1998). The `family-friendly workplace' is the embodiment of thisargument, in that employers claim to recognize the important potentialcontribution to workplace productivity by employees who can successfullycombine work and family responsibilities. Accordingly, the optimum `family-friendly' arrangements are both employee and workplace-dependent; henceit can only be through a system of decentralized bargaining that sucharrangements can be effectively negotiated and implemented (Moylan 1998;Newman 1997).Addressing gender inequality within the work-force through decentralized

bargaining involves some dramatic assumptions and shifts in emphasis.First, it assumes that women employees can effectively participate in thebargaining process. Second, it assumes that the employers' bargainingagenda will match the bargaining agenda of women employees. Third, itinvolves a shift from explicit systemic gender disadvantage to the integrationof family caring responsibilities with employment. Fourth, labour flexibilityhas become conflated with gender and equity goals. In particular, theextensive deregulation of working-time arrangements that has accompaniedthe spread of decentralized bargaining has been justified on the grounds thatit contributes to greater flexibility in the intertemporal deployment of labourand better matches the family care responsibilities of women employees(Strachan and Burgess 1998).Beyond these questionable assumptions, there are gaps in the justification

of a decentralized bargaining process as being (more) compatible with genderwork-force objectives. These are even more dramatic when enterprisebargaining without trade union representation or individual contracts isconsidered. While trade unions have not had a good record of represen-tation on gender issues in Australia, it remains to be demonstrated howundermining representation or individual contractual arrangements will



more effectively address gender equity issues in the workplace. In consortwith this, it has not been demonstrated why employers should be moreconscious of gender equity issues in the absence of a trade union, or with aworkplace representative as opposed to a national or industrial unionrepresentative.

4. Women and the decentralized Australian industrial relations system

The ability of women to participate effectively in bargaining is often limitedby the nature of their jobs and employment arrangements. A review of theAustralian literature on gender aspects of enterprise bargaining highlightsthe difficulties women face because of the occupational segregation of thelabour market, women's disproportionate representation in temporary andpart-time work and their relatively low trade union density (Burgess et al.1997; Hall and Fruin 1994; Henry and Franzway 1993; Pocock 1995; Smithand Ewer 1995; Standing Committee of Women's Advisors 1992). Over50 per cent of women in Australia are employed as clerks, salespersons andpersonal service workers. Women comprise a majority of employees in thefollowing industries: retail, hospitality, finance and insurance, education,health and community services, personal and other services (New SouthWales Pay Equity Task Force 1996).

Women have been under-represented in Australian trade union structuresand their interests were not always well served by the previous centralizedindustrial relations system (O'Donnell and Hall 1988; Ryan and Conlon1989). Research by Pocock asserts that à genuine transformation' of theAustralian union movement is needed if women's needs are to be takenseriously and that this would require à shift in perception and examinationof union methods, organizing habits, and support structures for activism'(Pocock 1995: 399). The centralized industrial relations system in Australia,however, provided à reasonable degree of equity for women workers' whencompared with less centralized systems elsewhere (Hammond and Har-bridge 1995: 373). The ability of this system to have changes flow on fromone sector to another was seen as a distinct advantage for women workersand one that is lacking in the decentralized enterprise bargaining framework(Bennett 1994; Whitehouse 1990).

Concern has been expressed that the earnings and employment conditionsof females relative to males could be eroded within an enterprise bargainingframework (Bennett 1994). Cross-national analysis of labour market genderinequality supports the proposition that a more interventionist regime, withcentralized IR processes and union involvement in economic policy-making,is most conducive to higher relative earnings for women (Whitehouse 1993).This centralization of processes allows a degree of wage compression,facilitates strategies to address low pay, and allows comparison across thelabour market when valuing jobs. It also allows decisions to flow throughthe labour market to all women workers, especially the low paid, more



effectively than in a decentralized industrial relations system. Workplacebargaining, the linkage of wage rises to productivity gains and movestowards a more individualized system of pay determination will expandwage disparity across the labour market (Whitehouse 1993).Concern has also been expressed over the ability of women to organize

and participate in bargaining, especially given their low trade union densities,occupational segregation and high degree of employment casualization(Bennett 1994). European research has indicated that there is `a positive linkbetween women's presence in leadership positions and in collectivebargaining arenas and the development and prioritising of equality agendas'(Bercusson and Dickens 1996: 23). Yet the low trade union density ofwomen workers in Australia (Burgess and Ryan 1996) reinforces the viewthat a large number of women workers are marginalized in terms ofworkplace representation and participation. It is not only the relatively lowtrade union density for women workers that is a matter for concern, but alsothe fact that, as in many other countries, the trade union density is declining(Taylor 1994). Trade union density for women employees was 28 per cent in1996, down from 35 per cent in 1990. (For males the decline was from 45 to34 per cent.) For part-time females the density was 23 per cent while for casualfemales it was 12 per cent (Australian Bureau of Statistics 1997).As increases in wages and non-wage benefits gained through enterprise

bargaining are supposed to be achieved through improved productivity,many women are constrained in their ability to realize earnings gainsthrough the nature of their employment and the industries in which they areemployed (Mylett 1994). The service-sector concentration of female employ-ment in Australia suggests that many women workers will have difficulty insecuring wage/conditions improvements in return for demonstrable andmeasurable productivity gains, since productivity is difficult to measure inservice and personal care sectors (Rimmer 1994: chapter 4).The issue of working-time flexibility is of particular interest and concern

for women (Smith and Ewer 1995: 12). On the one hand, functional flexi-bility (the broadening of the skills and task base) has the potential toadvantage many female workers who are occupationally segregated, have nocareer path and are tied to minimum skills-based employment. Inter-temporal flexibility (the spread of working hours) also has the potential toassist women with family commitments who have a need for flexibleworking-time arrangements. However, advantage to the individual workergenerally depends on the extent to which they can choose the hours worked.On the other hand, the employer's flexibility agenda could see many womenworking unsociable hours, working fewer hours than they desire, losingpenalty rates as the spread of working hours is extended and having theiremployment conditions casualized. A national survey of employees showedthat women were more likely than men to report a decline in theirsatisfaction with the balance between work and family life and with their jobsatisfaction over the 12-month survey period in 1994/5 (Department ofIndustrial Relations 1995: 224).



A particular feature of enterprise bargains has been the swiftness with whichthey have broken down the notion of a standard working week. While partof the rhetoric surrounding the introduction of decentralized wage bargain-ing arrangements was that enterprise agreements could respond to localizedconditions, they have come to contain a few standard clauses focusing onwages and the arrangement of working hours. Changes to hours of workwere present in 72 per cent of pre-1995 enterprise agreements and in 100 percent of 1995 agreements examined by the national agreements data base andmonitor (ACIRRT, August 1995). A majority of these agreements (58 percent) provided for a working week longer than 37.5 hours. Longer workingdays, an increase in the number of days on which work can be performed,annualized salaries, overtime paid at ordinary time rates and the averagingof ordinary hours over a number of weeks were commonplace and provided`significant cost benefits to employers' (ACIRRT, August 1995: 6±7).

Flexible working hours arrangements have dominated the bargainingagenda (ACIRRT, March 1998: 39). Over 70 per cent of agreements containclauses that deal with changed working time arrangements such as theintroduction of annualized salaries 12-hour shifts, time off in lieu arrange-ments and trading-off hours regulations for pay increases (ACIRRT, March1998: 40). As a consequence, many employees have longer and/or lesspredictable working-time arrangements than they did a decade ago. Over-time and penalty rates are being absorbed into base pay rates, which meansthat employers have fewer financial disincentives to utilize labour at anti-social times or over long shifts (ACIRRT, June 1997: 29±30).

Where women workers predominate, agreements are more likely tocontain working hours and contract of employment provisions. In 1996/7,11 per cent of agreements provided for hours averaged over four weeks and5 per cent averaged them over a year. The effect of this is that a worker canwork for 20 hours in some weeks and 60 hours in another, as long as itaverages 40 hours per week over the specified period. Averaging of hours ishighest in the female-dominant sectors of financial services, wholesale/retailtrade and recreational services, all sectors of the economy with a greaterfocus on `customer service' and expanding hours of operation. The impactof these provisions is dependent on how they are introduced and how muchsay an individual employee has over the schedules. The problems of extendedtrading/customer service hours combined with the averaging of hours canmean unpredictable work schedules which vary from week to week: `whileopen-ended flexibility may be beneficial to the enterprise, they may proveonerous for workers with childcare arrangements that are often inflexible'(ACIRRT, June 1997: 28). Indeed, `workers may be unsure of starting andfinishing times nor when there will be peaks and lulls in the work flow,making their personal and leisure lives more difficult to plan and their familyresponsibilities even more difficult to meet' (ACIRRT, June 1997: 29).

Some sectors with female employment dominance have been able toimplement profound work practice changes under the new arrangements.For instance, banks have adopted specific internal labour market strategies



which rely on a pool of female part-time staff, in excess of 20 per cent ofemployees, who have little chance of advancement beyond the lowest gradesof employment (Alexander and Frank 1990; Romeyn 1992; Strachan andWinter 1995; Women's Bureau 1989). Part-time work, essentially female, isbeing constructed around intertemporal patterns of demand for bankingservices, this often means split shifts and increased work intensification(Junor 1998). Analysis of five enterprise agreements in small to mediumbanks showed that the most likely changes were those that increased thedaily spread of hours, increased the span of ordinary hours to includeSaturday and placed little restriction on part-time workers' hours (Strachanand Burgess 1999).The clear indication from an assessment of recent agreements is that

flexible working hour arrangements are not necessarily beneficial for womenand that some arrangements are directly detrimental, especially where theyhave involved `increased uncertainty and irregularity in working hours,reductions in minimum hours for part-time workers and increases in thespan of working hours' (Buchanan et al. 1997: 117). In summary, thederegulation of working hours has proceeded at a rapid pace in the post-enterprise bargaining environment, and the evidence suggests that manywomen are faced with more unsociable hours, less predictable hours andmore unpaid working hours (ACIRRT, August 1995; Bearfield andBuchanan 1997; Heiler 1998).

5. Affirmative action legislation in Australia

The Affirmative Action (Equal Opportunity for Women) Act was intro-duced in August 1986 and similar provisions were contained in the PublicService Reform Act 1984 and legislation relating to some state publicservices. In the Australian context, affirmative action `is about achievingequal employment opportunity for women. In order to achieve this goal, thebarriers in the workplace which restrict employment and promotionopportunities for women have to be systematically eliminated' (AffirmativeAction Agency 1990: 1). The rationale for affirmative action relies on thedisadvantaged position of women in the work-force and utilizes the conceptof systemic discrimination (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet1984: vol. 1, 12±13). The Affirmative Action Act compels organizations withmore than 100 employees to implement an affirmative action programme.These organizations must undertake an analysis of the position of women intheir pay by an examination of employment statistics, personnel practices(both written and unwritten), and consultation with women employees andtrade unions. From this analysis the company is required to devise aprogramme that addresses some of the problems identified and to set targetsagainst which future progress can be judged (Strachan 1987).Thus, affirmative action is `the closest we have moved towards the legal

recognition of positive collective interests' (Thornton 1990: 246). In contrast,



legislation in Britain outlines but does not compel organizations to under-take activities that promote EEO and changes have occurred mainlythrough legal cases against individual organizations (Liff 1995). TheAustralian legislation, however, does preserve an individual rather thancollectivist focus in its reliance on the merit principle, as `competitiveindividualism is central to the process of appointment and promotion'(Thornton 1990: 246). In addition, the penalties for non-compliance areweak. A company that does not submit a report may be named inparliament or be ineligible to tender for a government contract (a penaltythat has never been invoked).

While large businesses in Australia must conform to legislative require-ments, the concentration of women working in businesses with fewer than100 workers means that many women fall outside the application of thelegislation. Only 44 per cent of private-sector female employees werecovered by the Affirmative Action Act in 1994/5 (Australian Bureau ofStatistics 1990, 1995a). The position is exacerbated for the most vulnerablegroup of workers, casual employees, who accounted for around one-thirdof all women employees in 1996. It is estimated that only a small minorityof these workers are covered by the Act, given the concentration of casualemployment (around two-thirds) in the small, private business sector(Campbell 1996). For these women, affirmative action is meaningless.

The application of EEO principles to Australian workplaces was limitedby the restricted targeting of large enterprises, its lack of equity norms andits non-enforceability. EEO became a reporting task for large enterprises,and the medium for annual prize-giving by big business to EEO-responsiveemployers (Australian Financial Review and Business Council of Australia1994). The point to emphasize is that EEO was based on voluntarism at anenterprise level but it was originally located within a centralized industrialrelations context. Amendments to the Act that increase this voluntarismare in train in 1999. Organizations will have more leeway in the steps theyundertake to formulate their programmes, and it is proposed that reportingwill be on a biennial basis, with provisions to waive this if organizations arejudged to be taking àll reasonably practical measures' to address equalopportunity issues. It is proposed to change the name of the Act to theEqual Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act, as the governmentalleges that the term àffirmative action' was often misconstrued as implyingpreferential treatment and quotas. Peter Reith, Minister for Employment,Workplace Relations and Small Business, asserts that the amendments willensure that the Act is `more business-friendly and flexible' and that it willèncourage organisations to take into account the broader business context,putting equal opportunity firmly in the context of good business practice,and integrating it into more general management strategies' (Reith 1999).

Certainly there has been little translation of the rhetoric of affirmativeaction or EEO into clauses in enterprise agreements. In December 1996there were 7,532 certified agreements (all concluded with trade union agree-ment) on the Department of Industrial Relations computer data base, of



which 439 (5.8 per cent) had a clause specifically on equal opportunity oraffirmative action. From an analysis of 150 of these clauses (the first 150 onthe data base), it is clear that the overwhelming majority of them do nomore than state the employers' legislative requirements; only five clausesmention anything that is specific to the enterprise. This analysis of clausesmirrors the Department of Industrial Relations (1995: 244) survey, whichconcluded that such clauses indicated a nebulous commitment to recognizedlegislation or case decisions and provided no additional commitments. Thelow incidence of specific consideration of equal employment opportunityissues in agreements indicates that it is of little importance on the bargainingagenda.Indeed, the evidence suggests that EEO has become conflated with

employers' labour flexibility strategies within the enterprise bargainingframework. Case-study evidence in sectors with large concentrations ofrelatively low paid, part-time women employees, such as banking andretailing, suggests a strengthening of work-force segmentation and anerosion of employment conditions for those at the bottom of the pay scale(Burgess et al. 1997; Junor 1998; Strachan and Winter 1995). Employers areseeking cheap staffing solutions in the labour-intensive industries wheremost women work. Women employed on a casual basis usually are noteligible for maternity leave, let alone assistance with childcare or staggeredre-entry programmes. Their skills are cheaper to replace than professionalworkers, yet these `ghettos' are for the customers the face or voice of theorganization. If the bottom line is cost, then policies for cheap labour at thebase of an organization can coexist with affirmative action programmeswhich feature strategies to retain and progress career path employees.Ledwith and Colgan (1996: 23) assert that `organisational analysis needs torecognise that a fundamental gendered substructure characterises theworkplace, so creating and reproducing horizontal and vertical segregationby gender within organisations'. An organization may know this and chooseto use this strategy to achieve gendered labour market solutions. Suchstrategies have been easier to pursue through the decentralized industrialrelations system of recent years, which has removed (and continues toremove) barriers to the employment of part-time workers and increases theintertemporal flexibility of all workers.

6. Women workers and insecure employment

Women's employment continues to be marginalized, employment condi-tions are becoming more insecure, and employers and state and federalgovernments are determined to de-collectivize the work-force. Between 1984and 1997 female employment expanded by 1.184 million, or nearly 50 percent. Table 1 demonstrates that only 281,000, or less than a quarter of theadditional jobs, were full-time, permanent employees; the other three-quartersof the jobs were either part-time, casual or non-employee status. When you



combine these observations with others including the concentration ofwomen in part-time employment in clerical, salesworkers and labourer/related areas and in small enterprises (66 per cent in enterprises with fewerthan 20 employees), the picture that emerges is one in which jobs are in-secure, often low-paid, have very little career progression and are in work-places that often have informal and unstructured bargaining arrangements(Simpson et al. 1996).

Many part-time and/or casual employees are excluded from standardemployment benefits. The unique designation of `casual employee' inAustralia delineates `employees who were not entitled to either annual leaveor sick leave in their main job', whereas `permanent' employees are definedas `employees who were entitled to annual leave or sick leave in their mainjob' (Australian Bureau of Statistics 1997). The floor of minimum labourstandards laid down in industrial awards primarily supports and protectsemployees in permanent employment. Casual employees are granted fewspecific protective measures and are largely excluded from non-wagebenefits and protection from unfair dismissal provisions. In 1996, 27 percent of part-time and 40 per cent of casual women employees did not receivea standard employment benefit (superannuation, holiday leave, sick leave,long-service leave) (Australian Bureau of Statistics 1997). The low averageduration of employment for many women workers (Campbell 1996) andtheir low trade union density reinforce the view that a large number ofwomen workers are marginalized in terms of workplace representation andparticipation. The non-standard and marginalized nature of many women'sjobs, together with the predominance of small business employment, meansthat many women workers are excluded, unrepresented or ignored in theprocess of enterprise bargaining. Still (1997: 18) asserts that `there is nodoubt that part-timers do not receive the same equitable treatment as full-timers in relation to promotion, transfer and conditions of service. Becausethey are considered essentially to be a just in time workforce, there is littleinvestment in training while few career structures exist.' More significantly,their employment conditions can be traded off so as to advantage full-time,permanent employees. In addition, through enterprise bargaining labourcosts can be reduced through the use of casuals to avoid penalty and over-time payments associated with extending the hours of full-time, permanentemployees (Campbell and Burgess 1997).

TABLE 1Women's Employment Growth in Australia, 1984±1997 ('000)

Full-timepermanentemployees

Part-timepermanentemployees

Full-timecasual

employees

Part-timecasual

employees

Non-employees

Total

1984 1286 286 93 452 299 24161997 1567 573 155 839 466 3600Change 281 287 62 387 167 1184

Source: Campbell (1996); Australian Bureau of Statistics (1995b, 1996).



The Workplace Relations Act 1996 places many onerous restrictions onthe ability of trade unions to organize and to bargain. While many womenworkers are already marginalized in terms of trade union membership, ingeneral previously they received some protection through the award system.The real threat of the Workplace Relations Act is that employers can use`freedom of choice' rhetoric and provisions to de-unionize the work-forceand to implement individual employment contracts. By stressing individu-alism and direct bargaining, the legislation will serve only to intensify thevulnerability of the more exposed groups. Many part-time and casualwomen workers are dependent on their jobs for income support and are notgeographically or occupationally mobile. Several critics of the legislationhave expressed concern about the ability of women employees to participateeffectively and achieve improved wages and conditions within such anindustrial relations regime (Barrera and Robertson 1996; Bennett 1994;Walpole 1995). More and more workers will be left to bargain directly withtheir employer, and many women workers are likely to find it difficult toretain current conditions, let alone achieve improvements. An analysis ofindividual agreements (AWAs), non-union collective agreements and unioncollective agreements shows that individual agreements provide for smallerwage increases, longer working hours and less payment for non-standardhours and overtime than collective agreements, with union-concluded agree-ments providing the higher wages and better conditions. Union agreementsare also more likely to cover issues associated with employee developmentsuch as training, consultative measures and family-friendly matters (ACIRRT,September 1999: 8±11).The spectre of the working poor is a reality in Australia, and this is born

out by the low earnings of the majority of part-time and casual womenworkers. In August 1995 mean weekly earnings in Australia were $528 perweek. There were 1.148 million women employees earning 60 per cent or lessof mean earnings (approximately $320 per week), and this accounted for37 per cent of all women employees. Two-thirds of these relatively low in-come earners were casual employees (ABS 1995a). As with other countries,including the United Kingdom, the dispersion or polarization of earnings isincreasing in Australia (OECD 1996; Rimmer 1994).An OECD (1996) study concluded that the incidence of low pay is directly

related to the degree of labour market deregulation and that this incidenceis particularly widespread among unskilled workers and other vulnerablegroups, including women workers who are often segregated into low payingoccupations and part-time employment. Similar findings were reported bythe ILO (1996) in a study of the working poor, where women were found tobe over-represented because of their low pay status, occupationalsegregation and concentration in non-standard work arrangements.The enterprise bargaining agenda is clearly contributing to a growing

schism between the well organized, well represented and professional andskilled workers, and the non-organized, unskilled/semi-skilled and unrepre-sented, a group that includes many women workers. Recent enterprise



agreements demonstrate a trend towards exclusion, leaving groups ofworkers outside of the agreement where they can become dependent uponsafety net adjustments. Not surprisingly, the two occupational groups mostlikely to be excluded are clerks, and sales/personal service workers (Buchananet al. 1997: 110), precisely those occupations into which the majority ofwomen workers are segregated.

7. Conclusion: the Australian experience in an international context

Enterprise bargaining poses a threat to many female workers who arerelatively low paid, have low trade union membership and are employed ona part-time and/or casual basis. Lack of organization and bargaining power,together with declining trade union representation, means that many womenworkers will find it difficult to sustain current employment conditions, letalone share in any productivity-based improvement in wages and condi-tions. The stripping back of award conditions, the facilitation of non-unionagreements and the extension of controls over trade union activity signalan intensification of the pressure on women's employment conditions. Forwomen workers outside of affirmative action reporting requirements andthe enterprise bargaining framework, the prospects are grim, as they alwayshave been. For those within the framework, our analysis of the prospects forwomen workers under enterprise bargaining is not promising.

Work-force restructuring in combination with the legislative industrialrelations reforms are placing the employment conditions of many womenworkers under threat. Far from promoting affirmative action, this cocktailwill only heighten exclusion, low earnings, employment insecurity andincreasing work-force division. De-collectivization of the work-forcecombined with the erosion of working conditions appear to be the mainfeatures of the current labour market reform agenda. Employers will not beslow in coming forward to take advantage of their position, especially withrespect to the female work-force. The need for work and income, combinedwith the limited choice and mobility of women workers employed underpart-time and casual conditions, make them vulnerable to exploitation.

The Australian experience is by no means unique. The tension betweencollective equity norms and a decentralized industrial relations system hasbeen discussed within the European context. The `creeping erosion of thefloor of rights' (Wedderburn, cited in Miller and Steel 1993: 231) of Thatcher'sBritain has been repeated in Australia, initially under a Labor government.The process, however, has not `crept' but rather run. Australia's centralizedsystem of arbitration and industry awards had provided a wide array ofminimum employment rights. In a period of ten years these rights have beenwashed away, a process that has accelerated under the federal conservativegovernment elected in 1996. Other organizational and labour marketchanges familiar to British readers have occurred in the 1980s and 1990s.The rhetoric of `flexibility' has been used frequently to justify changes in



industrial relations (Campbell 1993). Privatization of public utilities andgovernment functions has occurred, as has outsourcing of functions withinorganizations. The non-standard work-force has continued to grow, and casualworkers, who have few employment rights, now constitute 26 per cent of thework-force and 32 per cent of women workers (Burgess and Campbell 1998).The increased job insecurity and deteriorating employment conditions for

many women workers has not been ameliorated by Australian affirmativeaction legislation. Casual workers, for instance, rarely benefit from theseprogrammes as their conditions of work do not even include sick leave ormaternity leave. Benefits would be more likely to occur if there werelegislation specifying various minimum working conditions and the right toremain in a job. Although Australian affirmative action legislation has morelegislative force than positive action programmes in Britain, the changesin the IR system and in the profile of the labour market have limited theapplication of Australian legislation. Bruegel and Perrons (1998: 103)reflected that `the British case shows the limitations of an equal oppor-tunities agenda pursued within a wider regime of burgeoning labour marketinequalities'. A similar conclusion can be reached for Australia. This is not tosay that the existence of anti-discrimination and affirmative actionlegislation has not heightened the sensitivity of some companies to theneeds of female employees (Burgess et al. 1997). However, the coverage ofthe Australian legislation combined with the lack of an effective enforce-ment mechanism, means that the programmes are `voluntary' in nature aslong as a report is submitted to the government EEO agency.Australia has rapidly dismantled its industry-wide bargaining structure

and has reduced the extent of the regulation of minimum working con-ditions. The impact of decentralized bargaining on women workers has beenwell documented for those countries that have had such a system a littlelonger than Australia. Examination across the OECD of the benefits forwomen workers of a centralized or decentralized bargaining system for payequity have suggested that certain benefits accrue from a centralized system(Whitehouse 1993). The New Zealand experience of a deregulated industrialrelations system demonstrates a differential impact by industry sector andgender, with women being disadvantaged in wages and working timepayments (Hammond and Harbridge 1995: 370±2). Colling and Dickens(1998) discuss the impact of privatization in British Gas on issues pertinentto women's employment and note that the decline in collective bargaining,together with issues relating to gender equality, is related to changes inemployment practices and market pressures which are more important thanany equal opportunity policies. They conclude that `the responsibility forpromoting equality in the workplace has been privatized' (Colling andDickens 1998: 403). The state as regulator has stood back, and withinorganizations equality has moved from the arena of joint regulation to thearena of management prerogative.The same external pressures for work-force deregulation and `flexibility'

have operated in Australia, producing similar outcomes. What is remarkable



is the rapidity of change in the Australian IR system. This, combined withthe labour market changes, has made a significant impact on women'sworking conditions, leaving affirmative action policies as a minor or non-existent management concern. The Australian case shows the changestowards deregulation occurring under the aegis of a Labor government,suggesting that forces affecting many Western capitalist countries werecritical in reshaping the industrial relations system irrespective of thecomplexion of the party in power. Calls for the regulation of minimumworking conditions in Britain do not seem out of place in the context ofAustralia in the late 1990s, for `in these circumstances it is hard to doanything other than to defend existing labour standards and institutionsagainst further fragmentation' (Rubery 1996: 37).

Final version accepted 18 January 2000.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the assistance of three anonymous referees andthe editors. The usual caveats apply.

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The Incompatibility of Decentralized Bargaining and Equal Employment Opportunity in Australia

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