The past 20 years have seen the steady 'datafication' of school systems -- i.e. the rendering of key aspects of school practice into data that is digitally collected, processed and circulated. In contrast to assumptions of 'data-driven' schools as sites of more efficient and automated forms of data work, this paper examines the extensive human…

Despite decades of Equal Opportunity legislation, gender inequality persists in Australian universities. This is largely due to the shaping of universities by new market principles, discourses of individualisation that render the asymmetry of gender relations invisible, and privileging masculine epistemologies. Concurrently, industrial relations…

National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs) are intended to promote stronger linkages between education institutions and the labour market. This paper examines how industrial relations institutions mediate the relationship between formal qualifications, job classifications and pay outcomes in Australian manufacturing. In Australia a tribunal sets…

Five years after the global financial crisis, and trillions of dollars in stimulus spending later, the crisis not only remains unresolved, but risks entering a new deeper phase in southern Europe. The global turbulence, although experienced with differing degrees of intensity and dislocation around the world, manifests as high unemployment,…

This study examined the relationship between teacher written feedback and change in the disciplinary writing of tertiary students in their final year of undergraduate study. The student texts and teacher written feedback examined arose naturally out of a third year disciplinary-based unit in which each student submitted a text three times over the…

This paper focuses on issues which affect the capability of technical and further education (TAFE) providers to meet their clients' and stakeholders' needs and draws extensively on the reports of the consortium research program which examined ways to help build vocational education and training (VET) provider and workforce capability. The paper…

In March 2006 the Industrial Relations Commissions of New South Wales and Queensland utilised their equal-remuneration wage-fixing principles to address the gender undervaluation of childcare work. In doing so the tribunals explicitly rejected employer arguments used in the past to limit increases in award rates of pay for childcare workers. While…

Discusses the argument that Australian trade unions, because they are created by the state, are dependent on state for membership, authority, power, and the provision of industrial conditions. Subjects the explanation of the origins of the movement to empirical analysis and focuses on the key role ascribed to the actions of the early Industrial…

Involvement of employees and unions in workplace decision-making has a long history in Australian industrial relations. The mechanism for employee involvement in workplace change was originally set out in the Termination Change and Redundancy (TCR) clause in Australian awards in 1984. It continues to operate under Enterprise Bargaining Agreements…

The Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey of 2,353 companies showed sporadic employee participation in decision making. Although case studies of Ford Motor, Australia Post, Lend Lease, Telecom Australia, and Woodlawn Mining illustrate successful programs, most managers appear cautious about industrial democracy. (SK)

Includes "AWIRS (Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey) and Productivity" (Wooden); "Workplace Productivity and Joint Consultation" (Alexander, Green); "Impact of Unions on Workplace Productivity in Australia" (Crockett et al.); and "AWIRS and Workplace Performance" (Drago, Wooden). (SK)

Transcripts of interviews with trade union trainers in Australia identified contradictory discourses: discourse of struggle and discourse on the economy. Some training activities focused on consensus building in workplace relations, but trainers' informal theories acknowledged the power imbalance between the working class and management. (SK)

This book is a study of the Australian Education Union (AEU), a federal organization of government schoolteachers in the states and territories of Australia. Founded in 1984 as the Australian Teachers Union, it became the AEU in 1993. By 1998, the AEU had grown to become the third largest trade union in Australian, with some 157,000 members. This…

An analysis of the productivity offsets to achieve second tier wage increases for workers covered by Australian national and Queensland awards shows that the two-tier wage system increased competitiveness and productivity, especially in blue-collar industries. (JOW)

Interviews with female employees of a clothing company moving to lean production and teamwork indicate that Taylorism is being reinvented in the contemporary workplace. Restructuring produces higher productivity but greater work pressures and lower wages, despite rhetoric about autonomy, job satisfaction, and workplace democracy. (Contains 57…