The attainment of ‘fairness' is widely regarded as a worthy goal of setting minimum wages, but opinions differ sharply over how to achieve it. This paper examines how interpretations of fairness shaped the minimum wage decisions of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission between 1997...

The year 2013 saw slowing growth in the Australian economy and labour market, relative to 2012. Slower rates of increase in Gross Domestic Product and employment led to rising unemployment and under-employment rates, fewer job vacancies, and increased caution on the part of the Fair Work...

High rates of labour turnover in the call centre sector are, in the view of some commentators, indicative of widespread employee 'burnout'. However, few studies have formally investigated the frequency or antecedents of job burnout for this particular group of workers. This paper presents the...

The contribution of this paper is to bring together all the case studies of work organisation and workplace change in Australian workplaces during the past decade, using these to assess exactly what we do and do not know about such changes and their effects on skill requirements

On 3 June 2010, the Minimum Wage Panel of Fair Work Australia concluded its Annual Wage Review for 2009-10. Having considered the evidence from written submissions, public consultations and a range of internal and external research, the Panel decided to increase minimum wage rates in modern...

We investigate gender-based wage undervaluation in light of Fair Work Australia’s major recent decision for social and community service workers. Using regression methods, we demonstrate that wages for employees in female-dominated occupations are significantly lower than for comparable...

Using matched employer-employee data from the Fair Work Commission’s Australian Workplace Relations Study (AWRS), this paper describes selected attributes of the firms that employ low-paid workers in Australia. The results suggest that these firms generally offer fewer skill development...