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Essay on australias wage determination system

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Australia has gone from a highly centralized wage determination system to a mainly decentralized one. There has been a move away from accords and awards to enterprise bargaining, through the 96 Workplace Relations Act. Recent policies include changes to unfair dismissal claims and the 2005 workplace reforms package.
Throughout the 20th century, Australia has maintained a system of tribunals to make decisions about wage and non wage outcomes and to help resolve industrial disputes. Institutional forces affect the operation of the free market in order to improve labour market outcomes, such as guaranteeing minimum wages and conditions. The four institutional forces that affect labour markets are Governments, Trade Unions, Employer …show more content…

It was a compromise between a decentralized system, based on enterprise bargaining and a centralized system. It moved away from the national wage case and introduced the award safety net - that awards underpin enterprise bargaining. It intended that the wages and conditions of employees would be increasingly determined through enterprise agreements, and awards would only be for those unable to make agreements.

1996 Workplace Relations Act
The election of the Liberal Coalition Government saw the end of the Accords, centralised wage determination, and a lessening of the role of institutions (IRC, ACTU) in the wage determination processes. This new system lessened the power of unions by making it easier for workers to form enterprise unions. It deregulated the labour market by reducing the awards on working conditions to 20 allowable matters. This made non-union contracts more attractive. It introduced AWA’s for the first time.
-Australian Workplace Agreements
AWA’s are individual employment contracts between an employer and an employee. The introductions of AWAs was intended to create maximum flexibility to adjust work and pay conditions. Once an AWA is negotiated it must be lodged with the Office of the employment advocate to pass a community standards test, which ensures the employee is better off.

-Certified Agreements
This involves employers and trade unions negotiating enterprise agreements in order for a raise in real wages or working conditions,

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