Employers and industrial relations in the Australian meat processing industry: An historical analysis.

Some industrial relations researchers have considered the meat processing industry as one of the more strike-prone industries in Australia. Many researchers have analysed this industry from either a political economy perspective or a union industrial relations perspective. This thesis acknowledges this body of literature, but takes as its focus the ways that employers have shaped the industrys industrial relations. Employers, far from being reactive or even passive actors in shaping the industrys industrial relations, have taken a long-term active role in this area. This thesis, therefore, focuses on an historical analysis of the changing roles of employers and employer associations in the industrys industrial relations. This thesis will identify and link the relevant theoretical literature to the historical narrative, and then link this to actual events through three case studies analysing three exemplar employers. The findings of this thesis are that employers have had and made strategic choices about the industrys industrial relations, at the workplace, industry and national-levels. The rise of AMH, which forms much of the second half of the narrative and analysis, shaped the industrys industrial relations in ways not seen before in the Australian meat processing industry. Thus, the strategic choices on by many medium and larger meat-industry employers at the time, proved ineffective in the face of AMHs success in driving down the cost of the wage-effort bargain, rendering many uncompetitive on both the input and output sides of the product market