University of Wollongong Research Online Faculty of Law - Papers (Archive) Faculty of Business and Law January 2003 Individualism and Collectivism in Agreement-Making under Australian Labour Law Andrew D. Frazer University of Wollongong,
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[email protected] Individualism and Collectivism in Agreement-Making under Australian Labour Law Abstract Australia, in common with many other industrialised countries in the 1990s, has experienced a shift towards individualism in labour law and labour market regulation. This has been part of a wider change as governments have opened up domestic markets to international competition, while rethinking the protections provided by the welfare state. Business has demanded deregulation of all kinds but particularly in the labour market, with the aim of achieving greater flexibility and efficiency in the utilisation of labour. The debate over the reform of industrial relations institutions and processes in Australia has been conducted in terms of ‘enterprise bargaining’, a diffuse term which means (depending on the position of the speaker) either collective bargaining involving national unions but with outcomes tailored to specific workplaces, or firm-specific bargaining by internal enterprise-based parties with minimal involvement from ‘external’ bodies such as unions. During the last decade the debate has moved from an assumption of collective bargaining with union involvement, to the view that agreements should be primarily individual in nature.