Shortly after the re-election of the Howard government in October 1998 a group of five prominent economists proposed a plan to 'cut the jobless rate' in an open letter addresses to the Prime Minister (The Australian, October 26 1998). This article seeks to critically consider the economist's...

Since the early 1970s memebership has been in a process of continual decline inmost industrialised countries, including Australia. Australian Bureau of Statistics survey datae estimates Australian union density rates declined twenty percentage points between 1975 ( 51.0 percent) and 1996 (31.0...

Over the last decade a large decline in union membership and influence has been observed in many countries. This observation has prompted many researchers to consider the means by which individual unions are able to mitigate the effects of less favourable economic and political conditions on...

South Africa faces many difficult problems in designing economic institutions in the post apartheid era. No sub-set is more controversial than those which condition and structure exchange in the labour market. What set of institutions will help to solve the key social problems of inequality and...

The analysis of Australian union behaviour, growth and structure has centred on the relationship between unions and arbitration. To varying degrees it has been assumed that Australian unions are, through their involvement and legal incorporation into the arbitral system of labour market...

Mathematically tractable models of unionism have been well developed and are widely used in the economic literature. However, assumptions about union goals and preferences, and how these are determined, are not supported by extensive empirical evidence. Following the lead of Clark and Oswald...

Recently industrial relations in Korea has experienced an upsurge in industrial unrest between trade unions, employers and the state as the militant independent trade union movement responded to the draconian Trade Union Act re-amended in December 1996. This paper argues that any account of the...

The paper explain how the Workers' Education Association's accomodation of apparently divergent imperial influences from the UK and the USA prevented a long-lasting compact between its labour movement and middle class membership. In the aftermath of World War ONe, conflict between the competing...

This paper examines the relationship between workplace reform and occupational health and safety. Since the early 1980s major changes have occured to both industrial relations and occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation. Legislative changes and policy initiatives have created both...

In this paper, the authors contented that a multi-faceted and organisation-wide approach has to be adopted in the prevention of occupational violence on health care facilities.