Book Review

While we get occasional glimpses of employer activities—the 1998 maritime dispute immediately comes to mind—we rarely get much insight into the silent player in Australian industrial relations. It is often lamented that we know a lot about trade union and government policies and actions, but little of the world of employers and their associations. This book, edited by Peter Sheldon and Louise Thornthwaite, rectifies this by putting employer associations centre stage. The collection of chapters, written by the two editors and academics in the School of Industrial Relations at Griffith University, brings together considerable detail about how employers and their associations have shaped industrial relations during the past 20 years.	1
The book focuses on the policies and behaviour of key employer associations amid two decades of decentralisation of the industrial relations system. Riding on the back of Plowman's 'reactivity thesis', the book undertakes two tasks. These include an analysis of what and/or how policies and actions of employer associations changed during the 1980s and 1990s, and whether employer activity reacted to, or initiated change. While identifying if or how employer associations shaped industrial relations policy, the book also considers whether disunity undermined employer associations overall success. The seven employer associations examined include two economy-wide associations—the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry—and five industry bodies covering engineering, meat, private hospitals, coal and road transport. The final chapter provides an international comparative analysis of countries which have also decentralised bargaining and moved to more individual relationships with employees. These include New Zealand, Italy, Sweden and Britain. Space prohibits detailed review of these specific chapters, but all indicate thorough and detailed research firmly linked to the central questions identified in the introduction.	2
The specificity of their product and labour markets means that the editors steer away from drawing strict generalisations about how employer associations behaved. However, several threads are interwoven into the contributing chapters and the editors analysis and concluding chapter. Three issues were important here. Did employer associations display intensely negative, reactive behaviour during the Accord years? Also, did historical fragmentation and division within employer ranks stymie effective opposition? Finally, did declining unionism and decentralised bargaining undermine the purpose of permanent employer associations after 1990? The early Accord period, shifts to award restructuring during 1987, enterprise bargaining during the early 1990s and the period leading up to the introduction of the Workplace Relations Act in 1996 form the backdrop of the research.	3
The chapters reveal that all seven associations supported centralised wage fixing and that employer associations did take the initiative at the industry and the economy-wide level. However, as you would expect, variables such as product and labour market and firm size led to considerable variation between organisations as employer associations experimented with different policy agendas. Perhaps the more important conceptual conclusion was that not only were these employer associations taking the initiative in shaping the industrial relations landscape, but that reactivity and initiative were not mutually exclusive as the former could be a very successful strategic tool. Indeed, Plowman's dichotomy between reactivity and initiative was a weak framework in which to understand the way employers and their associations have operated in Australia.	4
The book throws a ray of light on the activities of Australian employers and their representative bodies during a period of relative industrial relations upheaval. The contributing chapters provide enough detail about specific factors which shaped the policies and actions of each of the employer associations covered. The book suggests that employers and their associations have partially achieved their agenda of shifting Australian industrial relations from a pluralist to a laissez-faire approach. We re almost back to where we were at the turn of the last century when the rights of the individual were paramount (and expedient) for employers. While it may have taken nearly one hundred years to achieve it, employers have continued to combine reactivity and initiative to gain a greater say in how the industrial relationship unfolds. These activities have been revitalised by a political and legal environment where managerial prerogative seems sacrosanct.	5
Now that we have a collection of essays which assesses the policies and actions of central employer associations, perhaps it's time for a complimentary volume which looks at the political and ideological persuasions of constituent groups within these associations. A 'ground-up' look at employer mobilisation during periods of industrial disputation would further illuminate the continuities of employer action and the class forces underpinning such action.	6
University of Sydney DI VAN DEN BROEK

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