Introduction
Organisational managers and employees are two factions that come into direct confrontation with respect to employment relations in most cases. The state is also involved in matters pertaining employment relations. Nevertheless, the state is a third party and thus its involvement is not acknowledged.
In employment relations, the state may take different forms, which may include varied agencies playing different roles in industrial relations. According to Howe and Landau (2007), state is relatively an ‘open system’. No single party represents the state; in essence, the state is characterised by organs like the police, the judicially, and various employment institutions.
In spite of the current rate of globalisation and the emergence of intercontinental business, employment relations are still rooted in the state instead of global institutions. The national government enacts laws that govern employee relations, thus influencing organisational operations. Some pundits claim that Australian state should not take part in employment relations, which leaves this role to employers and employees.
However, based on the environment at the workplaces, the state should participate in promoting employee relations in the country. This paper will discuss how state’s intervention in the working environment may help in enhancing employment relations in the modern Australian workplace.
State intervention
State intervention in employee relations in Australia facilitates in safeguarding the interests of employees, especially those with limited skills. Technological advancements are giving way to the emergence of new roles in organisations and changes in operations. Most of the unskilled employees are not capable of coping with these changes. Hence, they are vulnerable to losing their jobs as organisations perceive them as unproductive.
Employers are fond of dismissing unproductive employees at their will. In spite of existing negotiations between employers and employees, it is hard for unskilled employees to retain their positions when changes occur in organisations. However, through state’s intervention, the Australian government is capable of establishing stable employee relations in the country. In 2009, the state came up with Fair Work Act.
The Act facilitates in enhancing employee relations by ensuring that employers furnish their new employees with working information immediately after recruitment (Howe & Landau 2009). Employees get information regarding the terms and conditions of their employment, and issues that would affect their employment.
In most cases, employers tend to hide some information regarding the terms of employment if they believe that the information may hinder them from hiring the desired employees. Eventually, the employees end up complaining when they learn that they did not get all the necessary information regarding employment terms.
For a long period, workers’ unions in Australia fought to ensure that employers gave their workers paid leaves in the event that they were to go for maternity leave or had to look after their sick relatives. However, it was hard for employers to allow accept these terms. Besides, employers could not offer flexible working schedules to allow employees attend to other obligations.
Through the state, the Fair Work Act 2009 came up with numerous employment standards that facilitated in alleviating employee exploitation in the hands of their employers. Through the Act, the state forced employers to come up with flexible working schedules to help employees look after their young children or disabled relatives.
Apart from improved working schedules, the Fair Work Act helped in guaranteeing job security to most of the employees. Employers hardly explained the conditions of job termination to employees. Besides, organisations did not provide payments to redundancy.
It called for state intervention to ensure that employers notify their employees before dismissing them. Today, Australian organisations notify their employees before firing them coupled with paying for redundancy.
Globalisation and stiff competition in the business industry are leading to numerous mergers and acquisitions in Australia. Once an organisation is acquired, the acquiring company imposes its operations policies. Such policies may at times contradict with those of the acquired company.
For instance, the employment standards in the two companies may differ leading to employees from the acquired company ceasing to enjoy some employment privileges that their previous employer offered. Leaving employers and employees to solve such disputes would bear no fruit, as each party would seek to safeguard its interests. In Australia, the state helped in standardising the employment standards across all organisations.
Today, employees from an acquired company can still enjoy parental leave, personal leave, and demand for flexible working schedules from the management of the acquiring company.
In Australia, employees use collective bargaining to make their employers meet their needs. At times, the employee bargaining power is weaker relative to that of the employers. Hence, employers may take this advantage to intimidate their employees. Employees opposed to employers’ decisions are fired leaving those that are submissive. It becomes hard for such employees to enjoy a fair working environment.
Currently, most trade unions in Australia are facing extinction. Workers are no longer joining trade unions while some organisations are opposed to the establishment of trade unions. This implies that with time, employees will only depend on direct negotiation with their employers. In such an instance, it will be hard for employees to have a collective bargain that they enjoyed through trade unions.
Every employee will be required to air his or her grievances independently. In fear of intimidation, most of the employees will end up adopting all policies implemented by their employers unwillingly. Fortunately, the state would help in making sure that employees have a collective bargain during their negotiations with their employers.
In Australia, the government encourages collective bargaining. It has come up with numerous policies to facilitate this course. For instance, in 2009, the government revised its employment policies to accommodate the Fair Work Act’s provisions.
Unlike in the past when employees would only bargain through a representative from trade union, the state has made it possible for employees to have a non-union member representing them in the bargaining process (O’Brien & Fairbrother 2008).
Failure to involve the state in this issue would have meant that individuals that are union members would only represent employees. Since there are a few number of trade unions in Australia today, workers are not effectively represented in negotiations on matters related to employment relations.
The development in pubic procurement has piled demands on the Australian government to make sure that all government projects meet the established labour standards. Besides, in instances where the government acquires products or services through private institutions, it ensures that the private institutions stick to the established employment standards.
According to Godard (2006), attaching labour standards to contracts involving the government and private institutions helps in enhancing employee relations in private institutions. Private institutions ensure that they come up with attractive working environment in order to attract government contracts.
For a long time, it was hard for the Australian government to create domestic employment, ensure that organisations abide by employment standards, and achieve the affirmative action goals. However, after introducing contract policies in its relations with private institutions, the state has managed to influence numerous organisations to improve on their employee relations (Howe & Landu 2007).
Employees that are not union members are vulnerable to discrimination. Moreover, failure to participate in an industrial action may lead to the respective employees facing discrimination from their colleagues.
In Australia, the state has managed to discourage this trend by establishing the ‘workplace rights’ that protect the rights of an individual to be or not to be a member of a union (Cooper & Ellem 2008). As a way of enhancing employee relations, some procurement programs in Australia advocate for ‘cooperative’ workplace relations between employers and employees as well as employers and unions.
All state organs serve as principal employers and in Australia, over 33 percent of employees work for state organs. The fact that the state is one of the major employers in Australia makes it hard to exclude it from the role of enhancing employee relations. The state is responsible for establishing wages and employment conditions.
The conditions established by the state affect private institutions, as the institutions are forced to come up with better employment terms to attract employees. For instance, through state influence, private institutions in Australia were compelled to include maternity leave in their terms of engagement with employees.
Demerits of state intervention
Despite the use of contract policies in enhancing employee relations in Australia, there is still a need to leave the responsibility of employee relations to the employer and the employee. Not all private institutions trade with the government. Consequently, application of contract compliance strategies in enhancing employee relation does not affect all organisations (Dunoff 2009).
Therefore, this aspect implies that employee relations in organisations that do not trade with government organisations are hardly affected by contract compliance policies and only the employees and employers can work towards enhancing these policies by reaching an agreement on terms and conditions of their employment.
Another limitation of state intervention in employment relations in Australia is that it affects the employees’ bargaining power. By signing the Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), employees are protected from employers’ exploitation.
Initially employees working under AWAs enjoyed the protection of the “No Disadvantage Test”, which ensured that employers did not force their employees to work under agreements that exploited them (Sachs 2010).
Nevertheless, continued involvement of the state in employment relations led to changes in the employment relations that saw employers exploit their employees. By coming up with Industrial Relations changes, the state did away with the “No Disadvantage Test” subjecting employees to exploitation.
One of the demerits of the current Australian Workplace Agreements is that, in spite of the state claiming that it facilitates in negotiation during employment, the negotiations are not in most cases conducted fairly. Hence, employees end up adapting AWAs already established by the employer or organisation (Sachs 2010).
State involvement in employment relations in Australia is to blame for the current rate of employee turnover in the country. Employees do not get an opportunity to negotiate on terms and conditions of employment with their employers.
Ultimately, skilled employees keep on moving from one company to another in search of an organisation that meets their interests. State’s involvement in employment relations not only poses a threat to employees, but also the employers (Sachs 2010).
While employees are denied an opportunity to bargain for better employment terms, the employers suffer the risk of having to recruit new employees now and then as dissatisfied employees keep on quitting employment. Hence, to cut down on the rate of employee turnover in Australian workplaces, the role of employment relations should be left entirely to employers and employees.
Conclusion
Collaboration between the employer and the employees facilitates in the achievement of stable employee relations. Both the employers and employees work towards striking a deal that would see them address all their needs. Nevertheless, it is hard for the two parties to achieve stable employee relations without involving the state.
In Australia, state acts as one of the major employers; hence, it influences employee relations by establishing workplace policies that most of the organisations use. Through state intervention, the Australian government ensures that employers do not dismiss unskilled employees without notice.
Besides, the state, through the Fair Work Act, ensures that employers furnish their employees with relevant information regarding terms and conditions of employment before hiring them. In spite of using a culture of collective bargaining, it is hard for employees to pressure the employers to meet their demands.
Hence, the state facilitates in enhancing employee relations by establishing contract policies that ensure that employers relate well with their employees. Even with the establishment of state policies that seek to enhance employee relations, the policies do not apply to all private institutions. Thus, to enhance employee relations in Australia, the state ought to work in collaboration with employers, employees, and trade unions.
Reference List
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Dunoff, J 2009, ‘Linking International Markets and Global Justice’, Michigan Law Review, vol. 107, pp. 1039-1058.
Godard, J 2006, ‘Institutional Environments, Employer Practices, and States in Liberal Market Economies’, Industrial Relations, vol. 41no.2, pp. 249-286.
Howe, J & Landau, I 2007, ‘“Light Touch” Labour Regulation by State Governments in Australia’, Melbourne University Law Review, vol. 31, pp. 367-373.
Howe, J & Landau, I 2009, ‘Using Public Procurement to Promote Better Labour Standards in Australia: A Case Study of Responsive Regulatory Design’, Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 51 no. 4, pp. 575-589.
O’Brien, J & Fairbrother, P 2008, ‘A Changing Public Sector: Developments at the Commonwealth Level’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, vol. 59 no. 4, pp. 59-66.
Sachs, B 2010, ‘Enabling Employee Choice: A Structural Approach to the Rules of Union Organising’, Harvard Law Review, vol. 123, pp. 656-728.