For nearly 12 years from 1996, the Australian government pursued a neoliberal industrial relations agenda, seeking to break with structures based on collective bargaining and trade unions. In the name of choice and deregulation, this agenda involved unique levels of state intervention and...

In recent years the ore-rich region known as the Pilbara, in north-western Australia, has been the site of intense struggles over the regulation of labour.Two of the world's biggest resource companies have been pitted against an oftendivided local labour force, but they have not had things all...