Deregulation, Macroeconomic Restraint and the Break-up of Employment

Abstract

The paper argues that a conservative aggregate demand management stance combined with an ideologically-driven agenda of labour market deregulation has seriously weakened the bargaining position of Australian labour. Employment has become increasingly contingent and contextualised and is characterised by significant dispersion in pay, unpreferred hours of work, and intensification of work regimes. The current push for primacy of individual contracting adds a significant new dimension to these forces making for the break-up of employment. The terms have certainly been set for an important struggle in the history of Australia's workforce.