Reforming collective bargaining

Professor Isaac made a major contribution to the study of collective bargaining in Australia over a long period of time, with his deepest insights focused on the Australian employment relations system before the 1990s. That system, and the place of collective bargaining within it, has changed profoundly since then, arriving eventually at the Fair Work regime. Supporters and critics alike agreed that collective bargaining was central to the <i>Fair Work Act 2009</i> (Cth), but they differed in their hopes and fears about its impact. The aim of this chapter is to review three aspects of collective bargaining under the <i>Fair Work Act</i> that were the subject of their competing predictions: the incidence of collective bargaining, its impact on the balance of power between employers and unions, and its capacity to promote cooperation in the workplace. To anticipate our conclusions, based on close analysis of the Act's idiosyncrasies and the available data on its operation, we find that the <i>Fair Work Act</i> has not produced any significant increase in the incidence of collective bargaining, it has not provoked a major shift in the balance of power between employers and unions, and the type of collective bargaining sponsored under the Act does not in itself advance cooperation in the workplace. These conclusions mean that conservative critics of the <i>Fair Work Act</i> have dramatically overstated their concerns, while supporters of unions and collective bargaining - who must be disappointed with modest achievements of their reforms - will need to seek further reforms if they are to achieve the benefits they associate with increased collective bargaining