An appealing outcome? : industrial arbitration and extended retail trading hours in New South Wales in the 1980s

Saturday afternoon retail trading commenced in New South Wales in 1984. At the same time a specialist industrial tribunal was established to deal with disputes in the retail industry. The main issue of dispute associated with extended trading concerned the penalty rate payable to retail employees. An allied issue concerned the protection of full-time and permanent work opportunities over the employment of casual and junior staff. Employment in the industry was regulated by outcomes from both industrial arbitration (awards) and collective bargaining (agreements). The dispute is noticeable for the willingness of some retail employers to appeal the outcomes from industrial arbitration if they did not meet their interests. The dispute is also noticeable for repeated legislative action of the government to circumvent this conduct by employers. The analysis identifies reasons for the inability of the specialist tribunal to settle the issue of penalty rates. While the article highlights a major weakness with industrial arbitration, it is argued that the structural flaws of the system could have been evaded if the conduct of the parties had been different