Collective bargaining in the Australian public service

From New Public Management to public value

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21349366
AutoresSue Williamson (0000-0001-9061-7466, UNSW Canberra, autor correspondente), Cameron Roles (0000-0003-2089-2571, ANU College of Law, Australia)
Ano2023
Volume65
Fascículo4
Páginas435-450
Data de publicação2023-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Industrial Relations (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0022-1856 • E-ISSN: 1472-9296
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00221856231198305
OpenAlexW4386482375
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas21

In 2022, Australia's Labor Opposition pledged to reintroduce collective bargaining covering the whole Australian public service (APS) if elected. The elected Labor government is now implementing this ground-breaking reform. The APS has, since 1997, bargained at the agency level with no mandated common terms and conditions of employment applying across the service. This has led to pay dispersion and inequity, and fragmentation of the terms and conditions of employment. The current negotiations aim to rectify this situation. We argue that these reforms represent an ideological shift and a repudiation of New Public Management (NPM) towards a public value approach, which also incorporates being a model employer. We consider whether this refocusing will overcome the problems inherent in the system of bargaining practised under an NPM framework. We examine some of the most important items being negotiated at the time of writing, namely, wages, job security, flexible working, paid parental leave and paid family and domestic violence leave. We conclude that the new approach will overcome the legacy of the previous bargaining system to benefit individuals and the APS as a whole. We further conclude that this public value approach substantially fulfils the government's ideal of becoming a model employer

Agency (philosophy) · Business · Collective bargaining · Economics · Economy · Government (linguistics) · Ideology · Job security · Labour economics · Negotiation · New public management · Opposition (politics) · Political science · Politics · Public sector · Public service · Public value · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Work (physics) · Employment and Welfare Studies · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Public Administration