Restructuring Australian industrial relations: the limits of a supply side approach

From 1983 to 1996, the Australian trade union movement led an integrated industrial relations reform agenda aimed at restructuring work organisation, the training system and union structures. These reforms are the basis for the claim that Australia hasdeliberately, successfully and permanently avoided a Thatcher-Reagan route to seeking international competitiveness, in favour of a more consensual, inclusive,social democratic approach.The present paper uses an institutionalist, supply-side framework of industrialrestructuring, drawing on the work of Wolfgang Streeck to describe and assess the Australian reforms. Five institutional conditions for diversified quality production areidentified, each of which has been tackled to some extent in Australia. Technologicalchange at work is now open to union influence; employment protection has beenincreased; work organisation and skill formation have been central elements inindustrial relations reform; and most union members have been reorganised into twenty large unions. Moreover, the union agenda has been avowedly inclusive and egalitarian.Unfortunately, this 'skill oriented' strategy has not yielded the benefits promised.Economic performance has been average, union density has fallen, and manyinstitutional supports for union membership and bargaining activity are under threat. Union misjudgements, employer and government resistance, and an unfavourable institutional legacy in industrial relations (in particular, the weakness of workplace bargaining structures), are reasons for the disappointing outcomes.Morevoer, the union supply side reform agenda needs to be placed in its prope rcontext. Without complementary government policies affecting aggregate demand, industry and finance reform, supply side intervention can have only a limited impact. Unions are not strong enough to force through industrial restructuring alone.However, faced with limited alternatives, the supply side approach is still the best on offer for unions