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Author: Jim Stanford

  • Carmichael Centre Announces Appointment of Prof. David Peetz as Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow

    The Carmichael Centre at the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work is proud to announce the appointment of Prof. David Peetz, one of Australia’s most outstanding labour policy experts, as the new Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow.

    Prof. Emeritus Peetz has recently retired from a long career at Griffith University, where he served as Professor of Employment Relations at the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing.

    He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and author of several important books on labour policy, including: Unions in a Contrary World (1998), Brave New Workplace (2006), and The Realities and Futures of Work (2019).

    Prof. Peetz has provided expert opinion in numerous labour policy forums at the state and Commonwealth level, including providing research and expert input to the Fair Work Commission, and heading an independent review of the Queensland workers compensation system.

    “David Peetz has been a powerful and influential voice for a more balanced and fair approach to labour policy and employment relations for many years,” said Jim Stanford, Director of the Centre for Future Work, host of the Carmichael Centre.

    “His appointment as Distinguished Research Fellow will greatly enhance the capacity and influence of the Carmichael Centre, at a pivotal moment in Australia’s economic and political history,” concluded Dr. Jim Stanford.

    Remarks from Professor David Peetz:

    “The choices we make about labour policy now will shape society for decades, maybe permanently. So it’s an outstanding opportunity to be able to contribute to the formation of those choices through the work of the Carmichael Centre,” Professor Peetz concluded.

    Prof. Peetz will serve a three-year term as Distinguished Research Fellow. The Carmichael Centre was established in 2021 to undertake research and education activities related to the legacy of Laurie Carmichael, the long-time Australian union leader who passed away in 2018.

    The post Carmichael Centre Announces Appointment of Prof. David Peetz as Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Lost at Sea: Productivity Commission’s Container Port Report

    By several indicators, Australian container ports have demonstrated superior and globally competitive productivity performance, including:

    • 7.8% annual compound growth in number of containers handled.
    • 3.6% annual compound growth in containers handled per hour of work (more than twice average productivity growth in the broader economy).
    • 5.9% annual compound growth in equivalent container units handled per crane.

    The Productivity Commission’s claims that Australian ports are not ‘technically efficient’ rests on a faulty methodology which assumes that ports should minimise use of productive inputs (including land, capital, and labour) to meet any given volume of traffic. But in the real maritime logistics industry, other criteria – including ship turnaround time, and ability to respond to fluctuations in demand – are more essential for shippers.

    “Even the Commission’s own abstract modeling confirms that Australian ports can be as efficient, or more efficient, than global benchmarks,” said Dr Toner. “By more practical measures such as turnaround time, flexibility to accept fluctuations in volume, and safety, Australian ports are both efficient and productive.”

    The report was especially critical of the Productivity Commission’s blanket assertion that unspecified industrial relations practices in Australian ports are the source of purported ‘technical inefficiency.’’

    “The Productivity Commission report provides no hard evidence that workplace practices are reducing productivity in our ports,” Dr Toner added. “Its assertions are unbalanced, and reflect an ideological predisposition to blame unions rather than being based on careful empirical analysis.”

    Dr Toner’s 50-page report highlights numerous methodological problems and inconsistencies in the Productivity Commission’s analysis of port productivity. It concludes by urging the current Commonwealth government to reject the Commission’s draft recommendation to revise the Fair Work Act in order to restrict collective bargaining and industrial activity in ports and related activities.

    The Commission’s inquiry into port productivity was commissioned before the 2022 federal election by the former Coalition federal government. Its draft report was released in September.

    The post Lost at Sea appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Theft By Any Other Name: GHOTD 2022

    Go Home on Time Day 2022 — Australians working 6 weeks unpaid overtime.

    Authors: Littleton, Raynes

    Download the full report.

  • Call Me Maybe (Not): Working Overtime & Right to Disconnect

    The survey results presented in this report show that overtime is a prevalent and systemic issue in Australia, primarily driven by working conditions within the control of employers.

    • Seven in ten (71%) workers reported having performed work outside of scheduled working hours. While only 29% of workers indicated that they have not done overtime.
    • Of those who completed overtime, the largest share performed overtime often, as opposed to sometimes, rarely, or never.
      • Almost half (44%) reported often performing overtime to meet employer expectations, and another 31% performed overtime sometimes.
      • Overtime was fairly evenly spread across industries and occupations, suggesting it is not an isolated issue that can be resolved with a targeted solution.
    • The incidence and frequency of overtime are more common among men, young people, those with full-time jobs, and those in goods producing sectors or working as managers.
    • The most common reasons workers perform overtime were having too much work (36%), followed by staff shortages (28%), less interruptions working outside normal hours (26%), and managers’ or supervisors’ expectations (23%).
    • Over a third of workers (38%) reported that overtime was an expectation in their workplaces.

    Overtime doesn’t come without cost: it has significant consequences for workers, their families, and for society more broadly.

    • The most commonly experienced negative consequences of overtime work were physical tiredness (35%), followed by stress and anxiety (32%), and being mentally drained (31%), each affecting around a third of workers.
    • Over a quarter of workers reported that overtime interfered with their personal life and relationships (27%), and 17% responded that it led to disrupted or unfulfilling non-work time.
    • One in five workers identified that working outside scheduled hours negatively affected their relationship with work; 22% reported reduced motivation to work, and 19% experienced poor job satisfaction.

    Australia has enterprise agreements, modern awards, and national employment standards that are intended to set out limitations on working times. However, the prevalence of overtime suggests that Australia’s industrial relations systems are not properly protecting the boundaries between work and non-work time for many workers. In particular, existing laws have done little to prevent the creep of work into private time, aided by technology. This is why workers, employers, unions, and governments around the world have been looking at how to implement a ‘right to disconnect’.

    Our survey found considerable support amongst Australia workers for a right to disconnect.

    • Six in seven (84%) workers expressed support for the Federal Government to nationally legislate a right to disconnect that directs employers to avoid contacting workers outside of work hours, unless in an emergency.
      • Only 8% opposed the idea of a right to disconnect.

    A right to disconnect could take several forms, and be implemented via different avenues in Australia. Based on international examples and the attitudes of workers in Australia, this report finds that implementing the right within the national employment standards would be the most effective.

    • Four in five (80%) workers thought that a right to disconnect would be effective if legislated in national employment standards, making it the avenue viewed as effective by the most workers.

    This report provides strong evidence for the government to pursue a right to disconnect as a way of limiting the creep of work into non-work time.

    The post Call Me Maybe (Not) appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Public Services in the Hunter (NSW)

    State-funded programs account for the lion’s share of public service jobs in the Hunter region: over 80% in total (in health care, education, state government, transport, first responders, social services, and more). That means a strong and stable commitment by state government to funding these services will be essential for the Hunter to continue reaping these economic and social benefits.

    Major findings of the report include:

    • Four sectors in which public provision is especially important (including health care, education, public administration and safety, and transportation) account for 35% of total Hunter region employment, and 85% of net job growth, in the last 5 years.
    • State-funded services alone account for almost 30,000 direct full-time equivalent (FTE) positions in the Hunter region, making this sector the largest single employer in the region. Those services add over $3 billion per year to regional GDP.
    • Combined wages and salaries for state public sector workers in the Hunter total $2.65 billion per year – constituting an enormous injection of household income and spending power into the regional economy.
    • State-funded service providers in the Hunter (including hospitals and schools) purchase some $1.3 billion worth of “upstream” inputs, materials, supplies, and services from private businesses in the public sector supply chain.
    • Consumer spending by state public service workers in the Hunter (and those in the supply chain) adds $1.75 billion to the sales of consumer goods and services businesses, most of them located right in this region.
    • For every 10 direct jobs in state-funded public services, there are another 5 indirect jobs in upstream supply chain and downstream consumer industries. In total, 45,000 regional jobs (public and private) depend on continued provision of high-quality state public services.
    • Public sector jobs are an especially important source of work and income for women. Women account for 64% of jobs in major Hunter public sector industries. The gender wage gap in public services is much smaller (12% for full-time ordinary earnings) than in the private sector.
    • Public services are especially important in regional areas, due to dispersed and older populations; greater distances between communities; and limited alternative employment opportunities. State service jobs (FTEs) make up 11.4% of all employment in the Hunter, 2 percentage points more than in Sydney.

    There is an unfortunate tendency in politics to view public services as merely a cost item on a government budget. But in fact they are a vital driver of economic growth and job-creation.

    State-funded public services also support tens of thousands of private sector jobs in the Hunter, both upstream in the supply chain and downstream through consumer goods and service sectors. It is vital to the prosperity of the whole region that these services are supported and well-funded.

    International evidence indicates that quality of life considerations (including community safety, housing, transportation, and culture and recreation) are increasingly vital in attracting new business investment to a region. This requires continued public fiscal support for top-quality public services.

    Please see the full set of fact sheets, Public Services in the Hunter: An Engine of Economics and Social Prosperity, prepared by Jim Stanford below. The fact sheets were commissioned by Hunter Workers.

    The post Public Services in the Hunter appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Going Nuclear: Costs of Mid-Bargaining EA Termination

    Research on the ‘nuclear option’ of enterprise agreement termination.

    Authors: Raynes, Stanford

    Download the full report.

  • Collective Bargaining and Wage Growth in Australia

    The measures provided here will not suddenly transform Australia in the image of leading OECD countries, where centralised and coordinated collective bargaining covers most workers, and wage outcomes are much more equal as a result. But they would support a gradual restoration of collective bargaining coverage, consistent with practices in other countries where bargaining still occurs mostly at the enterprise level – but where some broader bargaining and coordination is possible. On that basis, and over several years, this should result in a partial restoration of bargaining coverage lost over the past decade, and a corresponding (but still incomplete) recovery in wage growth.

    The post Collective Bargaining and Wage Growth in Australia appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • The Cumulative Costs of Wage Caps for NSW Essential Service Workers

    In this new report, Centre for Future Work Economist and Director Jim Stanford adds up the enormous and growing cost of this decade-long wage suppression for nurses, midwives, and other public sector workers in NSW.

    In any given year, the state’s wage cap reduces compensation below what would have been determined under normal free collective bargaining processes. When sustained over many years, however, the wage caps have an exponential effect in suppressing compensation levels. That’s because each year’s continued wage cap is applied against a lower starting wage base. Over time, the gap between capped and negotiated pay widens dramatically.

    The report estimates that compared to long-run pre-cap compensation trends, experienced nurses and midwives made $335 less per week in 2021-22 (or $17,500 less for the year) compared to pre-cap trends. On a cumulative basis, they have already lost $80,000 in compensation since the caps were introduced.

    But that pay suppression will continue to get worse if the caps are maintained. By 2023-24, on the basis of the government’s stated plan to suppress compensation growth to 3% and 3.5% (and restrain wages even lower, after adjusting for superannuation), the loss in wages will grow to $390 per week (or over $20,000 for the year), and the cumulative loss for someone who has worked throughout the wage cap period will reach $120,000.

    Worse yet, for three consecutive years, the NSW pay caps have reduced wage growth well below inflation, resulting in a significant erosion of real wages for nurses, midwives and other public sector workers. Public sector workers will see real purchasing power decline by 7.5% by end 2023-24 (on the basis of RBA inflation forecasts and the NSW government’s stated cap). That is equivalent to a loss of $6750 for a full-time experienced nurse or midwife.

    The economic pain experienced by public sector workers will not even stop when they retire. Because superannuation contributions are tied automatically to wages, nurses, midwives, and other public sector workers have lost thousands of dollars in superannuation contributions from their employers — and thousands more in foregone investment income on those contributions. That will translate into reduced superannuation balances and pension income after retirement. Already, an experienced nurse or midwife has had their pension income reduced by $1000 per year, and those losses will get larger the longer the pay caps are maintained. And because of the sustained suppression of their wages (and hence their superannuation savings), the goal of a decent stable retirement is increasingly out of reach for many NSW workers — especially for women, and especially for those who do not own their home. The report indicates that under existing capped wages, a nurse or midwife who is single, female, and rents their accommodation will accumulate less than half of the superannuation savings required for them to meet the ASFA comfortable retirement income threshold.

    In summary, the NSW’s ongoing suppression of pay for public sector workers, whose commitment has been essential to helping NSW residents through the pandemic, is arbitrary, anti-democratic, and economically damaging. The report recommends that the government abandon this policy, and instead engage in normal pay negotiations with public sector workers and their unions, on the basis of normal wage determinants.

    The post The Cumulative Costs of Wage Caps for Essential Service Workers in NSW appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • The October 2022-23 Commonwealth Budget

    In this review of the budget, our team of Centre for Future Work researchers evaluates the budget’s assumptions and policy measures, from the perspective of workers and labour markets. The budget marks a clear change of emphasis from budgets over the previous decade: including explicit recognition of the need to strengthen wage growth, new funding for vital care sectors, and important investments in diversifying Australia’s industrial base.

    However, the budget also acknowledges the downside risk of a slowing world economy, which could engulf Australia in another recession — just three years after entering the COVID pandemic. Stronger fiscal measures and income supports will be required if the economy does enter a downturn. And deep problems such as falling real wages, entrenched poverty, and gender inequality will require stronger measures than are included in this first budget. Meanwhile, crucial fiscal decisions (including the regressive Stage 3 tax cuts for high-income Australians) have been deferred for a later date.

    In sum, the budget marks a good start on addressing many of Australia’s key economic, social, and environmental challenges. But much more will be needed – and the risking of looming recession will complicate this progress considerably.

    The post The October 2022-23 Commonwealth Budget: A Good Start… But Rocky Times Ahead appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Job Opening: Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow

    Applications are due at 11:59 pm 21 November 2022. The Melbourne-based position will start in January. Please see job description and application details below. Come and join our team!

    *   *   *   *   *

    The Carmichael Centre is a project housed within the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute, to acknowledge the legacy of former union leader Laurie Carmichael. Laurie passed away in 2018 after a lifetime of outstanding service and innovative leadership to the trade union and social justice movements in Australia. His legacy touches on numerous themes that remain relevant and pressing today, including:

    • The importance of active industrial policy to develop Australia’s value-added industries.
    • The importance of skills and vocational education to a strong economy and labour market.
    • The importance of strong union education programs to the development of an effective and vibrant cadre of union leaders and activists.
    • The importance of shorter working hours and superannuation to the quality of life of working people.
    • The importance of actively integrating economic, labour market and social policies, in a multi-dimensional plan for achieving full economic and social equality.
    • The importance of peace and resistance to war.

    The Carmichael Centre is established to:

    • Increase public awareness of Laurie Carmichael’s life, achievements, and ideas.
    • Undertake and publish new research into themes relevant to Laurie’s legacy (including trade unionism, vocational education, and labour and social policy).
    • Contribute to modern efforts to educate trade unionists in political-economy and related subjects.
    • Celebrate the achievements of the union movement and inspire emerging leaders.

    To that end, the Carmichael Centre hosts a 3-year research and public education position, the Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow, awarded to a mid-career or senior researcher in labour and industrial relations, political-economy, or a related field.

    The Fellow will undertake and publish new research, and undertake other educational and commentary activities, consistent with the themes and progressive vision expressed by Laurie Carmichael, and the goals of the Centre.

    The Fellow will be employed by the Australia Institute, and would work from our office in Melbourne.

    Compensation for the position will be consistent with experience of the successful candidate (and will include superannuation contributions and related employment expenses).

    Prospective candidates for the Fellow must demonstrate the following attributes:

    • Proven record of high-quality research and publication in fields relevant to the Carmichael Centre’s goals.
    • Demonstrated history of commitment to and engagement in the trade union movement.
    • Capacity and willingness to engage in the range of activities (including research, education, public commentary, and public events) that will be required of the role.

    Applicants are invited for the Carmichael Fellow. Applications must include a cover letter describing the applicant’s interest and experience in trade unionism and the themes relevant to the Carmichael Centre; a full resume (listing relevant experience and publications); and 2 letters of reference.

    Applications should be submitted electronically by 11:59 pm AEDT on Monday 21 November, 2022, to:

    recruitment@australiainstitute.org.au

    Only applicants selected for an interview will be contacted. Online interviews will be held in early December. The successful candidate will commence work in January, 2023.

    Thank you for your interest in the Carmichael Centre!

    The post Job Opening: Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.