Work Reform Unit
Economics & Deregulation / Work Reform Unit
The Institute of Public Affairs Work Reform Unit examines workplace relations issues. The Unit looks at how laws and social attitudes impact the ability of managers to run businesses and maximise employment opportunities. The Work Reform Unit looks at workplace occupational health and safety issues, union activity in industrial sectors, skilled immigration, and the rise of the independent contractor.
Work safety
What are the basic principles of work safety in law and in practice? The Work Reform Unit grounds the study of occupational health and safety legal regimes from a position of individual responsiblity and freedom of contract. For an introduction, see Workplace Health and Safety. The seminal IPA report The Politics of a Tragedy: The Gretley Mine Disaster and NSW OHS examines how the Gretley coal mining disaster triggered the introduction of Australia's worst OHS laws in NSW. More Work Safety publications.
The Australian construction sector
The Work Reform Unit has a special focus on examining the market-corrupting practices endemic in the construction sector, and looking at the impact of the legal reforms of 2006-07 that focused on cleaning out much of that corruption. See for instance Anatomy of the Screw and Industrial Relations and the Struggle to Build in Victoria.
The Work Reform held a major conference on construction industry reforms in 2007. Papers from the conference are available here.
See also
Capacity to manage index: the Work Reform Unit has rated over 250 industrial instruments and their impact on managerial capacity in a wide variety of industries. See Capacity to Manage Reports.
The state of the food manufacturing sector: studies uncovering some key reasons why the Australian food manufacturing sector is underperforming. See Food Manufacturing Facing the Wall and Take Away Take Away.
Outworking: the unusually high industrial relations regulation of the clothing manufacturing sector, allegedly introduced to protect outworkers, has in fact damaged some of the most vulnerable workers in Australia. See Why Has the Arse Fallen Out of the Clothing Manufacturing Industry? and Outworkers Speak Out.
Casual Employment: the Work Reform held a conference on casual employment in 2004. Discussion papers from the conference are available here.
Industrial Relations and Trade Practices Law: The Work Reform Unit held two conferences in 2003 and 2004 on how trade practices legislation could and should impact industrial relations. Papers from the conferences are avialable here: Trade Practices vs Industrial Relations: Balancing the Acts (2004) and The Last Frontier: Making Industrial Relations Subject to the TPA (2003).
Sub-topics of Work Reform Unit
News
Business lacks courage
Six days into the federal election campaign and Work Choices has dominated the news on five of those days. We know all about Tony Abbott ducking...
Dismissal ruling isn't fair
"Pity the bosses" was the first reaction to the decision of Fair Work Australia a few weeks ago in the case of Paul L. Quinlivan v Norske Skog...
Hypocrisy at work in pay claims
Australian Workplace Agreements: how ironic that the individual workplace instruments unions spent a decade vehemently attacking should now become...
The unsafe option
It's an odd idea that Julia Gillard, in conjunction with the states and territories, would propose national harmonised work safety laws that would...
Fertile ground for litigation culture
In the three months since the Fair Work Act 2009 started, we are seeing the extent to which the bargaining environment has changed. Only a few...
Dark ages is the real deal
If you ever wanted to know the impact of Kevin Rudd's industrial relations policies there are easy ways of finding out. You could read the decision...
Publications
Obama's Union Mates
The 2008 election in the United States has been called several different things. Many Republicans and center-right activists called this the ‘401(k) election' due to the different tax and investment treatments the two candidates proposed....
Submission to the Senate inquiry into the Fair Work Bill 2008
1) Executive Summary In summary, the bill: a) seeks to rewrite Australian unions into the processes of workplace relations law. b) attempts to create a model of workplace relations which...
Submission to the Wilcox Review of Australian construction industry reforms
The ABCC was set up in 2005 as a specialist construction industry enforcement body. It was a key part of the recommendations of the Cole Royal Commission (2002-03) which found wide scale and systemic lawlessness in the construction sector across...
