IDENTIFICACIÓN DE EXCLUSIONES Y CONDICIONANTES LEGALES

APS employment relations is conducted within a wide regulatory framework embracing other legislation (Exhibit 9.7).

9.3 STATE AND TERRITORY PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYMENT

RELATIONS

State and territory public sector workers are employed in:

■ Departments of State;

■ budget sector funded agencies in areas such as education, health and public safety; and

■ self-funded public sector agencies such as utilities, government business enterprises (GBEs) and statutory corporations.

Workplace relations in the first two areas are governed by variously named public sector management Acts, and in all three areas by industrial relations

■ Racial Discrimination Act 1975

■ Long Service Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1976

■ Maternity Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1973

■ Superannuation Act 1976 and 1990

■ Superannuation Productivity Benefit Act 1988

■ Merit Protection (Australian Government Employees) Act 1984

■ Sex Discrimination Act 1984

■ Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986

■ Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988

■ Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act 1991

EXHIBIT 9.7 Other legislation relevant to industrial relations in the APS

legislation. The industrial/employment relations systems in the states and territories have three main components:

1 legislation regulating industrial awards and agreements, the role of con- ciliation and arbitration and bargaining, and the registration and role of unions;

2 a set of tribunals and formally recognised tribunal processes, alternative dispute resolution processes and agreement registration processes; and 3 a government body to manage public sector industrial relations.

Perhaps the overriding question that might be asked of all these employ- ment relations systems at the present time is how far they share the intention of the Commonwealth WRA to decentralise industrial relations.

At the end of the 1990s, the legislation covering Australian Capital Territory, Northern Territory and Victorian employment relations was the federal Workplace Relations Act 1996. The other states had their own legislation, based on separate industrial jurisdictions with histories similar to that of the old conciliation and arbitration system. Until the 1990s, these other systems had relied on registered trade unions to act on behalf of employees. The state systems tended to follow the lead of the Commonwealth in setting wages standards (though not necessarily conditions standards). The Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, as territories of the Commonwealth, were directly controlled by Commonwealth legislation and, therefore, part of the Commonwealth jurisdiction.

The state and territory legislation can be divided into three broad groups. First, in Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, public sector industrial relations is governed by Acts which are subordinate to the WRA. In the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory this is because they are Commonwealth territories. In Victoria it is because, in 1996, the state government legislated to refer many of its industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth.

Second, South Australian and Western Australian legislation is similar to the WRA. In these places, though awards, unions and industrial tribunals still have a formal and an actual role in industrial relations, the tendency of the legislation is to encourage bargaining and agreements rather than awards, and non-union agreements rather than collective agreements with unions.

Third, New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania form a distinctive group. Early in the 1990s, they experimented with legislation similar to the WRA, but have now moved back to arrangements which give greater weight to tribunals and unions. Awards are important, both as a statement of enforceable standards and as a focus of change.

Within each of the three groups, however, there are contrasts as well as similarities of approach. For example, the public sector bargaining process in the Australian Capital Territory in the 1998–2000 round was highly decentralised, with over 50 bargaining units. At the same time, the bargaining

round was tightly coordinated as a whole by the Chief Minister’s Department and conducted within parameters established centrally (CMD, 1999). In the Northern Territory, by contrast, the most recent public sector wage rises were reached through just two certified agreements which covered most state workers except school and TAFE teachers. The Queensland approach ranges across all the others, allowing everything from arbitration, through union and non-union agreements and multi-union project agreements, to adult individual agreements, the last-named being subject to the no-disadvantage and public interest tests.

In general, wages are an important component of public sector budgets, so control of public sector industrial relations tends to be kept close to the centre of government, such as in Premiers’ or Chief Ministers’ departments or, in the case of Victoria, a branch of Treasury and Finance overseen by a Cabinet committee. Agencies have the task of administering and implementing the full range of industrial relations and human resource management outcomes of statutes, awards and agreements. Public sector workers in the states and territories are governed, like their Commonwealth counterparts, by a number of statutes which deal with such matters as minimum wages, occupational health and safety, hours, leave, superannuation, equal oppor- tunity, apprenticeship and workers’ compensation.

9.4 CONCLUSION

This overview suggests that the determination of public sector wages and conditions is governed by factors such as the degree of interaction or separation among business strategy, its people management, and the industrial management of the employment relationship. The differences among APS agencies, and the contrasts among the various state/territory approaches, however, suggest that factors other than managerial prerogative are in play. These include union organisation and strategy, and the stance of government in promoting a broader political agenda in relation to public spending and the social role of unions (O’Brien and O’Donnell, 1999). Employment relations is thus a rapidly shifting area within public sector management.

Points for reflection

1 What considerations would lead state governments to prefer to work through: ■ decentralised non-union agreement processes?

■ collective agreements with unions?

2 Is it reasonable to think that a genuinely decentralised system would not be in the best interests of state or territory governments?

FURTHER READING

Industrial relations legislation websites

South Australia: www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/sa/consol_act/iaera1994346 [Note also the Industrial and Employee Relations (Workplace Relations) Amend- ment Bill 1999.]

Western Australia: www.slp.wa.gov.au/statutes/swans.nsf/html (Search Workplace Agreements Act 1993; Industrial Relations Act 1979.)

NSW: www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ira1996242.txt

Queensland: www.legislation.qld.gov.au/LEGISLTN/ACTS/1999/99AC033.pdf

Tasmania: www.thelaw.tas.gov.au Relevant agencies’ websites

Commonwealth: www.dewrsb.gov.au; www.psmpc.gov.au

ACT: www.act.gov.au/cmd

Northern Territory: www.nt.gov.au/dcm; www.nt.gov.au/ocpe

Victoria: www.vic.gov.au/ope

South Australia: www.eric.sa.gov.au; www.premcab.sa.gov.au

Western Australia: www.doplar.wa.gov.au; www.wa.gov.au/opssc

NSW: www.dir.nsw.gov.au; www.premiers.nsw.gov.au

Queensland: www.detir.qld.gov.au/ir; www.ops.qld.gov.au

Tasmania: www.wsa.tas.gov.au; www.dpac.tas.gov.au/divisions/ep

10

Public management in