This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Rimmer, M. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Enterprise Awards- Are They More Flexible?

National Key Centre in Industrial Relations at Monash University

Interest in the use of enterprise awards has been stimulated in Australia by growing pressures to develop a devolved industrial relations system. In particular it is widely thought that enterprise awards permit greater labour market flexibility than do multi- employer awards, and therefore should be adopted more extensively. This paper presents evidence to show that enterprise awards are a good deal more common than is generally supposed Nevertheless, they cover only a small minority of private sector employees and enterprises, and rarely displace multi-employer awards since they usually determine only one or two issues on a single-enterprise basis. While enterprise awards do yield labour market flexibility (in particular upon pay, classifications and working hours/shift arrangements) and are positively connected with several aspects of good industrial relations (higher labour flexibility, lower restrictive work behaviour, shorter strikes, and better use of award restructuring), it should not be assumed that they are necessarily preferable to multi-employer awards. First, many firms and unions will be unable to devote sufficient resources to develop enterprise awards. Second, industry awards are becoming more flexible through fragmentation, the development of enterprise appendices, the use of enterprise flexibility agreements, the establishment of more flexible classification and training provisions, and the adoption of less prescriptive employment conditions. Third, firms can be constrained by union bargaining power in their use of enterprise awards. Product market competition was found to be weakly connected with the distribution of enterprise awards which appear to have arisen in large firms primarily in response to special bureaucratic, technological and labour market factors. In conclusion it was thought likely that enterprise awards will continue to grow in importance, but they are unlikely to displace multi-employer awards, especially among smaller employers.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?