Regulating Work and Workplaces: Contracting and Bargaining in Enterprises


Centre Members: R. Mitchell
Research Staff: R. Campbell, K. Creighton, J. Fetter, E. Goodwin, T. Josev, S. Korman, S. Marshall
Associates: P. Gahan

This project is designed to examine the way that enterprises are regulated with respect to work activity. The project looks at various instruments of regulation, and how these are ordered or interrelate. It also looks at the content of these instruments, and what impact this has on workplace regulation and relations.

The project began principally as a study of 'individual agreements', but has now broadened out to a general consideration of workplace bargaining and the law. Recently concluded work includes two Reports for the Workplace Innovation Unit, Industrial Relations Victoria: one on AWAs and High Performance Workplace Systems, and one on the application of the 'No Disadvantage Test'. Other completed work includes published articles on AWAs, on the operation of the 'No Disadvantage Test' (due December 2005), and on the relationship between AWAs, other legal instruments and workplace flexibility. Further work is in preparation on several topics, including high performance workplace systems in collective agreements and joint consultative arrangements in enterprise agreements.