Rae Cooper and Greg Patmore | Private Detectives, Blacklists and Company Unions: Anti-Union Employer Strategy & Australian Labour History | Labour History, 97

Private Detectives, Blacklists and Company Unions: Anti-Union Employer Strategy & Australian Labour History

Rae Cooper and Greg Patmore^*

This article serves as an introduction to several others which investigate the critical issue of Australian employer anti-union strategies from an historical perspective. To place these studies in context, we examine how Australian labour historians have previously analysed employer anti-union strategies and we discuss the rise of 'anti-labour history'. We conclude by commenting on the ways in which the contributions in this volume add to our understanding of anti-collective employer strategy in the Australian context.

In November 2002 Labour History published a thematic on union organising.¹ It featured contributions on organising in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and the authors of the diverse group of papers on the process, context and results of union organising, puzzled whether the historical traditions of the labour movement held any promise for sparking a revitalisation of unions in the 2000s. Since that time, the unionisation rate has fallen even further. In August 2007, only 18.9 per cent of Australian workers were unionised, and in the private sector the figure was even lower, at 14 per cent.² It was noted in 2002 that the unionisation rate (then 23 per cent) was the lowest experienced by Australian trade unions since the first decade of the twentieth century when the labour movement was recovering from the crushing effects of the 'great strikes' and the depression of the 1890s.³ The situation looks even bleaker now. On other measures – including the relative circumstances of unions in Australia and abroad – union membership density looks unhealthy. Indeed, it seems that Australia has been a world 'leader' in union density decline over the past 20 years.⁴

Scholars seeking to explain declining union membership and power in Australia during the 1990s and 2000s have identified a number of important influences.⁵ A critical issue has been the agency of the neo-liberal state and the intersection of state activity with an increasingly anti-union employer ideology and strategy. Throughout the 1990s in the various state and the federal jurisdictions, legislation and policy have undermined union organising, bargaining and representation rights. Individual contracts undercut collectively bargained standards and have limited union 'reach'. This environment has facilitated the development of militant (anti-union) management in Australia.⁶ While the state has taken an active role in (anti-) union affairs, employers across a range of industries and sectors have shown considerable capacity to themselves develop and implement strategies aimed at 'decollectivising' employment relations. Sometimes employers have made use of laws and courts, but we have also witnessed the development of more subtle initiatives, embedded in workplace culture and communication, aiming to exclude 'external' parties and regulation.⁷ We would argue, along with other Australian observers of industrial relations and politics, that the twin and complimentary processes of employer anti-unionism and an enabling (anti-collective) legislative and policy agenda are the keys to understanding the scale of union decline in Australia during this time. At various points in our history employers have been vociferous in their opposition to unions, but there rarely has been such a 'perfect storm' of neo-liberal anti-union ideology, keen employer anti-unionism and an anti-collective policy framework.⁸

Researching Capital in Australian Labour History

While the traditional focus of labour history has been the institutions of labour, such as political parties and trade unions, there has been a longstanding recognition of the need to examine the role that capital plays in shaping the development of worker organisation. Writers among the 'Old Left' of Australian labour history, for instance, Bob Gollan in his The Coalminers of New South Wales, went beyond a history of miners' unionism and presented an analysis of class relations in the coal industry. Gollan drew upon records of the Australian Agricultural Company, a leading agricultural and coal mining enterprise, to show how the union promoted employer mobilisation and organisation.⁹

The 'New Left' was also concerned with the neglect of class relations. English historian Edward Thompson, who strongly influenced the New Left in Australia, asserted that the working class only existed if there was a ruling class, and vice versa; and that these groups could only be understood in reference to one another. Stuart Macintyre, in a 1972 critique of the Old Left, asserted that the history of labour alone was inadequate to understand the totality of class. Historians, he argued, had to focus on class relations. Rickard's Class and Politics (1976) and Connell and Irving's Class Structure in Australian History (1981) did shift the focus of Australian labour history away from an exclusive focus on labour. Rickard examined class relations in New South Wales, Victoria and the Commonwealth from 1890 to 1910. He accepted Thompson's view that class arises out of the relationship between capital and labour and thus turned his attention to labour, compulsory arbitration and employers' organisations.¹⁰ Connell and Irving also adopted Thompson's view of class and its emphasis upon the historical creation of class relationships. Their historical analysis focussed on the development of the capitalist mode of production in Australia from 1788 to 1975 and emphasised hegemony – 'a situation of cultural dominance held by one class in society as a whole'.¹¹

The need for labour historians to understand employers, particularly in an Australian industrial relations context, was reinforced in a 1982 study by Tom Sheridan on the role of BHP in the 1945 steel strike in New South Wales. He argued that because of the traditional secrecy of private employers, researchers investigating industrial disputes had to arrive at an understanding of employers' behaviour through detecting and guesswork. He noted that while this research 'constantly reveals inconsistencies, misapprehensions and plain errors on labour's side of the fence, historians have generally credited employers with superior qualities of planning and co-ordinated action'.¹² Sheridan's extensive examination of BHP archives on the 1945 strike revealed that the company was not undertaking a predetermined strategy based on a rationale of profit maximisation. Instead, management in the short run were willing to sacrifice profit for the principle of managerial prerogative. He further noted that

BHP records reveal no evidence of the premeditated, single minded capitalist plot widely suspected by the contemporary left and since universally enshrined in labour's oral tradition. Both sides had some coherent philosophy but a good deal of incoherence and accident in action.¹³

Capital, thus, is not always plotting and planning in a premeditated way, sometimes it is reactive and spontaneous.

Two further developments in the 1980s prompted labour historians to examine more closely the role of employers: the influence of the growing field of industrial relations, and 'labour process theory'. During this period, academics in industrial relations departments grew increasingly influential in Australian labour historiography. Industrial relations and labour history shared a number of common interests, including the subjects of trade unionism and the regulation of work. As industrial relations departments expanded they added to their ranks a number of labour historians who had been trained in Australia and overseas. There was interest in industrial relations history, which is essentially the study of the changing relationships between workers, employers, unions, employer associations and the state. Industrial relations academics were to further strengthen the interests of Australian labour history not only in the organisation of employers, but also in areas such as the history of the state, particularly compulsory arbitration, labour process and comparative labour history.¹⁴

Labour process theory, popularised in Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital, and subsequent modifications of Braverman's thesis by writers such as Richard Edwards and Michael Burawoy, also emphasised the need for Australian labour historians to focus their attention on the strategies of employers in the workplace. The 'rediscovery' of the labour process allowed labour historians to closely examine management's labour practices. Examinations of the Australian labour process pursued a variety of themes. While Chris Nyland indicated that scientific management played an important role in justifying a reduction of working hours after World War I, Peter Cochrane argued that World War II and the labour shortages after the war encouraged its dispersion throughout industry. Chris Wright highlighted the importance of management consultants in introducing scientific management and personnel practices after World War II. A number of Australian labour historians extended the interest in labour process theory and in particular, in skills and 'deskilling'. For instance, Rae Frances argued that deskilling was a major tendency in the clothing, boot and printing industries in Victoria from 1880–1939. By contrast, John Shields' study of apprenticeship and craft work in nineteenth century NSW challenged the applicability of Braverman's deskilling thesis to Australia during that period. Labour historians indicated that state intervention through compulsory arbitration and wages boards had ambiguous consequences for the labour process. There was also a major debate between Lucy Taksa and Chris Wright over the significance of scientific management in Australia.¹⁵ The labour process studies culminated in a major publication by Chris Wright in 1995 examining the history of Australian labour management practices. Wright emphasised the importance of employers for understanding the labour experience both in the workplace and in the broader realm of industrial relations.¹⁶

The recent development of the concept of 'anti-labour history' has opened up labour history to an analysis of employers and conservative political groups. Writers in this arena have argued that without examining the anti-labour forces, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive analysis of trade union and left political parties' strategy and tactics. The interest in the political dimension of anti-labour history in Australia has been strongly influenced by the work of labour historian Andrew Moore, who had undertaken major studies of the fascist New Guard during the interwar period in Australia and the Right generally in Australia.¹⁷ Moore edited a thematic section of the November 2005 issue of Labour History which examined topics such as the New Guard and Pauline Hanson's One Nation. Eric Eklund's study of employers and federation in Working The Nation and Patrick O'Leary and Peter Sheldon's recent article in Labour History on employer militancy in Victoria's meat industry are other examples of Anti-Labour History.¹⁸ The broadening of focus of labour history to incorporate both employers and the political right has heightened our understanding of the experience of political and industrial labour.

Researching Anti-Union Employer Strategies

Historical studies, both in Australia and beyond, have emphasised the importance of understanding employer strategy to explain the growth and decline of membership and membership density.¹⁹ The union avoidance and 'union busting' activities of employers, designed to remove union influence from workplaces and to thwart efforts to build membership, have been well documented in international studies during the past two decades. Employer tactics identified by researchers have included: the dismissal and harassment of union activists and members; relocation of operations; anti-union publicity campaigns in the workplace and community; the use of a range of sophisticated human resources management techniques to quell the desire for unionisation; and a range of union 'substitution' activities such as employee involvement schemes and the promotion of in-house unions. Employer strategy has been critical in determining the outcome of union organising campaigns and has been an important influence upon unionisation rates in different industries, sectors and national settings. In Australia, researchers have also identified a growth in employer antipathy toward unions, resulting in union busting and union avoidance tactics across industries ranging from mining and manufacturing to retail and sales.²⁰ David Peetz has suggested that employer anti-union practice in Australia has been at least as significant a contributor to aggregate membership decline as was structural change in the labour market during the 1990s. Combined with legislative changes that sought to weaken union influence and decollectivise employment relations, he argued that anti-union employer militancy amounted to a 'paradigm shift' in the determination of union membership in this country.²¹

Australian labour historians have highlighted five key anti-union employer strategies in their research and some have also examined union responses to such employer strategies. These employer strategies have included union busting and avoidance; paternalism and welfarism; the establishment of company unions and sponsorship of 'tame' unions; developing non-union forms of employee representation; and employer combination aimed at countering or tempering worker organisation.

Union avoidance and 'union busting' activities of employers designed to remove union influence from workplaces and thwart efforts to build membership are not a recent phenomenon. Historically, employers have impacted upon union organising in complex ways. A number of historians have pointed to the surveillance, victimisation and dismissal of union activists. Rae Cooper notes that 'blacklisting' was a common practice in New South Wales during the 1890s. She notes that blacklisting, and the threat of it, had a real impact upon workers seeking to form unions or to agitate around workplace issues. Private investigators played a key role in this process. Chris Wright has noted that employers circulated blacklists of union activists in the pastoral and steel industries and even employed individuals to spy on the union activities of fellow workers. John Merritt found that organisers of the Amalgamated Shearers Union (ASU) in the late 1880s and early 1890s faced legal prosecution for trespass on the pastoralist's properties. At the Port Kembla Steelworks in the late 1930s Peter Cochrane noted that management carefully watched visits by union officials to the plant and made detailed written reports of these activities.²² Even during the prosperity of the post-war decades, Wright argued that 'in spite of legal limitations, management victimisation of union representatives remained an enduring feature of workplace industrial relations even in larger establishments such as the paper and steel companies'.²³

Australian employers, like those elsewhere, have used paternalism and welfarism to forge stronger bonds with their workers in an attempt to weaken the appeal of trade unions.²⁴ Nikola Balnave has argued that the provision of welfare benefits was designed to create a situation of dependency for workers on their employers which made it difficult to challenge managerial authority through unionisation and industrial action.²⁵ Melissa Kerr, in her study of labour management practices in non-union firms, found that Roy Miller, the Sydney-based US manager of Australian Abrasives, a subsidiary of the US multinational company Norton, developed a sophisticated form of welfarism specifically designed to keep his plant non-unionised. He developed close personal relationships with many of the several hundred employees of the company and regularly 'walked' the factory, asking workers about their health and domestic life in order to create an 'industrial family' atmosphere. Workers received above average wages and entitlements and a heavily subsidised works canteen. Miller reinforced the 'family' message through supporting and participating in sporting and social clubs and the company newspaper. Recruitment was based generally on family connections and Miller made his attitudes to unions clear. He refused union requests for access to the factory, had a policy of not entering into correspondence with unions and often claimed he would not employ a unionist. The plant eventually became organised in 1962 after Miller's departure.²⁶

Australian employers have also engaged in counter-organising by setting up 'company unions' or by encouraging more conservative unions to gain representation rights in order to prevent more militant unions gaining foothold. The particularly Australian version of company unionism involved workers forming unions with management encouragement and obtaining registration within the compulsory arbitration system. These company unions could minimise 'outside' intervention in the enterprise by forestalling independent union coverage and minimising the reach of regulatory agencies. Greg Patmore argued that management at the Federal Government's Small Arms Factory at Lithgow encouraged the formation of a workplace union to prevent the Federated Ironworkers Association organising the plant. Patmore also found that the NSW Government Railway Commissioners during the 1917 General Strike paid organisers to form 'loyalist' unions. He uncovered evidence of payments to the organisers of what were essentially company unions, with the subsidisation of travel expenses and even the falsification of time and pay sheets to keep the organising 'underground'. Following the NSW 1917 General Strike, several labour historians identified the emergence of company unions in a number of iconic Australian companies including BHP, Arnott's Biscuits and Schweppes Mineral Waters. In the Newcastle steelworks and the NSW Government Railways these unions failed to gain worker support, despite management concessions to them. Arbitration also provided the company unions with greater independence than management desired, as once these unions gained registration within the arbitration system they approached industrial tribunals and obtained legally binding awards. The Newcastle steelworks management eventually persuaded the company union to amalgamate with the moderate Australian Workers Union (AWU). Other historians have argued that Australian employers at various times have sponsored 'tame' unions in preference to dealing with their more militant 'competition'. For instance, Robert Tierney has argued that in the 1950s automotive companies gave preferential treatment to the Vehicle Builders Employees Federation over more radical rival unions, such as the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Supervisors intimidated the shop stewards of the rival unions through a combination of direct surveillance and by restricting activities such as the collection of union dues.²⁷

Given the problems with forming and registering company unions, employers looked at other forms of representation that could provide alternative means of communicating grievances to unions and weaken the union presence in the workplace. While compulsory arbitration discouraged elaborate forms of union avoidance such as the Employer Representation Plans (ERP) in the United States, there was interest in other forms of 'employee voice' such as works councils, joint consultation committees and occupational health and safety committees. At the end of World War I, some major employers in Australia such as the NSW Railways in 1919 imported 'Whitleyism' from the UK in the hope that joint committees of management and labour would promote workplace harmony in a period of labour unrest. From 1917 Broken Hill Associated Smelters (BHAS) at Port Pirie had several committees, with elected workers' representatives, to manage welfare programmes. The decisions were subject to veto by the General Manager.²⁸ As Erik Eklund has argued, the committee system at BHAS 'gave workers a sense of participation without significantly altering management authority'.²⁹ The Electrolytic Zinc Company in Tasmania established a works committee in 1920 that discussed wages and conditions and included worker representatives. The Tasmanian industrial legislation, like the Victorian wages board legislation, provided for a wages board to cover the plant but did not allow for trade union representation. The wages board ratified works committee decisions concerning wages. Management saw the works committee, the wages board and its various welfare programs as a substitute for trade unions. The company also used the works council and wages board to justify exemptions from federal arbitrated awards and to legitimate wage reductions during the post-World War I recession. During the labour shortages of the economic boom that followed World War II, employers showed some interest in joint consultation with workers. World War II provided a boost to this practice, with the federal government encouraging production committees to improve productivity. These committees flourished in factories undertaking war work and in meatworks and usually included union representatives. However, by the 1950s employers in the meat processing industry and Australian Paper Manufacturers (Botany, Sydney) abandoned work committees on the grounds that they had become another avenue for union grievances. Overall the major focus of employers in establishing these avenues of employee voice in Australia, particularly in the post-war period, was generally to enhance productivity rather than to subvert unionism, as in the case of the ERP movement in the US.³⁰

Labour historians have long recognised that employers take collective action to 'deal with' unions. While not all employer associations are formed to deal with industrial relations issues, the formation and growth of trade unions has certainly provided an incentive for employers to combine. Bob Gollan charted the history of a variety of employers associations in the Hunter region of New South Wales. While some were formed primarily to fix prices and divide up the market, some – such as the Newcastle Coal Owners Mutual Protective Association, which was formed in 1885 – were specifically established to fight unions. As Chris Wright notes, combinations of employers in the coalmining, pastoral and shipping sectors, with the assistance of colonial governments, were able to break a number of key strikes in the early 1890s and impose 'freedom of contract' across industry. Employer associations led campaigns to lobby governments to change laws that could encourage trade unions, such as compulsory arbitration. However, as O'Leary and Sheldon have pointed out in their recent study of Victoria's meat industry, problems of internal cohesion can cause such employer associations to be defeated in their conflicts with trade unions.³¹

In the face of anti-union strategy, unionists have adopted strategies, sometimes inventive, in response to employer harassment. Some unions tried to get around employer harassment by meeting outside the workplace or by sending union organisers 'undercover'. John Merritt found that during the early ASU membership campaigns in the 1880s and 1890s, union organisers would disguise their identity and pretend to be non-unionists. Among the shearers they would highlight particular grievances to proclaim the benefits of joining a union and relay news of union achievements elsewhere. Denied right of entry onto private property, ASU organisers were able to find long forgotten public reserves to set up their campsites. Similarly, Rae Cooper noted that Labor Council of NSW campaigns to reorganise omnibus employees in 1892 were conducted without publicity in order to avoid victimisation. There was no newspaper advertising, posters or handbills. The organising committee of the Labor Council of NSW in the first decade of the last century encouraged workers to meet in homes and undertook door-to-door visits of non-unionist building workers in order to keep union activities 'quiet'. Bradley Bowden noted that the Australian Federation of Labour in Queensland sent its best organiser, who shaved off his distinctive moustache, to work in the coal pits and organise the miners at Ipswich. The organiser established the West Moreton Coal Miners Union, which by February 1891 claimed 846 financial members. Robert Murray and Kate White in their history of the FIA found that an organiser refused entry to the BHP Newcastle Steelworks in the early 1920s wore wigs, caps and even false moustaches, to get past the guards and organise inside the plant without being detected.³²

Perspectives on Anti-Union Employer Strategies

This thematic section of Labour History provides four new perspectives on anti-union employer strategies and a postscript. Peter Sheldon's examination of the mechanisation of rockchopping in Sydney in the first decade of the twentieth century shows just how complicated and multi-layered employer strategies can be. Sheldon argues that the Sydney Water Board decision to embrace mechanisation was, despite their public position, less motivated by a desire to enhance employee wellbeing, and more by the desire to craft a more subservient labour force, including through the encouragement of a 'tame' union. He argues that the Water Board was able to successfully deskill the labour force and simultaneously 'kill off' the small but militant Rockchoppers' and Sewer Miners' Union of NSW.

Naomi Segal explores the use of blacklisting in the West Australian gold fields in the first two decades of the last century. She argues that in this period a system for collecting and distributing information on workers existed. While the primary objective of this behaviour was to identify illegal activity, such as gold stealing among the workforce, it also served industrial 'blacklisting' purposes. Employers used the intelligence gathered through surveillance to identify union and political radicals in the workforce.

Greg Patmore and Ray Markey's paper focuses on a non-union form of employee representation at ICIANZ. They investigate the ICI Works Councils in Australia which survived for over 30 years from 1942. Despite their name, the ICI Works Councils were a substantial early form of Joint Consultative Council in their essential characteristics. While, as in the UK, the ICI works councils did not privilege union membership, management's motives in introducing the works councils at ICI seem to have been based on paternalism rather than a specific strategy to substitute for the union. The broader industrial relations climate also limited what ICIANZ could do in regard to non-union representation. The system of compulsory arbitration, with its recognition of unions meant that union substitution was not a realistic policy for ICIANZ. A moderate union also reduced the need for a policy of union substitution. Ultimately the works councils lost the support of ICIANZ management, who shifted towards a preference for more direct forms of employee participation such as semi-autonomous workgroups.

Bruce Hearn Mackinnon also highlights the significance of the broader industrial relations climate in his examination of the 'victory' of the management of resources company, CRA, in the 1990s over unions and collective bargaining. This victory was a critical moment in recent industrial relations and union history in Australia. CRA introduced a 'staff' employment system across a number of sites during this period. Management's unified ideology and organisational theory were important for understanding their success. There were two other contextual factors that assisted management. There was a political, legal and economic environment that favoured the introduction of individual contracts. The unions were also hesitant and disorganised in dealing with management's attack on unionism. Hearn Mackinnon argues that the main union, the AWU, was never able to develop a coherent strategy of resistance.

The thematic section of this issue of Labour History concludes with a postscript by George Strauss. He examines the contributions and highlights the insights that these make to our understanding of employer anti-union strategies and suggests possibilities for future research.

Conclusion

By examining the history of anti-collective employer strategy, this group of articles provides insights into the ways in which the employers may attempt to undermine trade unionism. While the focus of labour historians on workers and their unions is an essential part of the character of labour history, it does not allow us to fully appreciate the often complex and nuanced approaches of employers toward trade unions. Why unions win or lose confrontations with employers in organising and industrial action may well have as much to do with the mobilising strategies of employers as with the approaches adopted by labour. Some of these tactics can be invisible, such as the use of labour espionage or blacklists, and may only be discovered by a close examination of employer records. Some, such as non-union representation schemes, may be more visible but also require a careful analysis to uncover whether they are relatively benign or represent a threat to union organisation.

These essays highlight the potential of historical research to inform contemporary debates. While some aspects of employer anti-union strategies may have become more sophisticated in terms of anti-collective communication strategies and even union surveillance, many of the fundamental aspects of these strategies remain. The principles of labour espionage and blacklisting are the same now as they were a hundred years ago. Notions of non-union employee representation have a similar vintage. The decline of legislative support for trade unions, and indeed outright state anti-unionism, is of major concern as it may provide more opportunities for employers to develop alternative channels of employee 'voice' that seek to weaken unions further and promote individual rather than collective approaches to the determination of wages and conditions. A dialogue between contemporary researchers and labour historians is essential to provide further insights into understanding the extent and impact of anti-union strategies.

Rae Cooper is senior lecturer in Economics and Business at the University of Sydney. She has published extensively on union recognition, bargaining frameworks, gender and work and industrial relations more generally. Her work has appeared in leading international journals and she is co-author of the key Australian reference book in Australian industrial relations.
<r.cooper@econ.usyd.edu.au>
Greg Patmore is editor of Labour History. He is Pro Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business, The University of Sydney, and director of the Business of Labour History Group. One of his current research projects is a history of employee participation in Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US in the period from 1914 to 1939.
<g.patmore@econ.usyd.edu.au>

Endnotes

^*� This article has been peer-reviewed for Labour History by two anonymous referees.

^1.� R. Cooper and G. Patmore, 'Trade union organising and labour history', Labour History, no. 83, 2002, pp. 3–18.

^2.� Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002 and 2008, 'Employee earnings, benefits and trade union membership, Australia, Aug 2007', Catalogue # 6310.0.

^3.� Australian Social Trends, 2008 <http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Chapter7202008> accessed 20 January 2009.

^4.� For instance Visser finds that of the 24 countries surveyed, Australia and New Zealand experienced the greatest levels of decline in the period 1970–2003. J. Visser 'Union membership in 24 counties', Monthly Labor Review, January 2006, pp. 38–49.

^5.� Among other things, the changing economy and 'new' labour market have been seen as critical in explaining waning union fortunes. For instance, for over two decades, job growth has been marked in areas where unions have made few inroads and we have witnessed a contraction in the union 'heartland' of full-time, blue collar occupations. In more recent times unions have been criticised (including from within their own ranks) for failing to organise workers in non-union sectors and workplaces and for neglecting workplace organisation. D. Peetz, Unions in a Contrary World: The Future of the Australian Trade Union Movement, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998; A number of other factors, such as shifts in worker attitudes, have also been identified as having played its role in declining union density, or at least the propensity of some workers to join. See G. Griffin and S. Svensen, 'The decline of Australian union density: a survey of the literature', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 38, no. 4, 1996, pp. 505–547; M. Crosby, Power at Work: Rebuilding the Australian Union Movement, Federation Press, Sydney, 2005.

^6.� R. Cooper and B. Ellem, ''The neoliberal state, trade unions and collective bargaining in Australia', British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 46, no. 3, 2008, pp. 532–54; C. Briggs, 'The return of the lockout in Australia: a profile of lockouts since the decentralisation of bargaining', Australian Bulletin of Labour, vol. 30, no. 2, 2006, pp. 101–112; D. Peetz, 'Decollectivist strategies in Oceania', Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, vol. 57, no. 2, 2002, pp. 252–281; D. Peetz, Brave New Workplace: How Individual Contracts are Changing Our Jobs, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2006; C. Briggs and R. Cooper, 'Between individualism and collectivism? Why employers choose non-union collective agreements', Labour & Industry, vol. 17, no. 2, 2006, pp. 1–23; H. Trinca and A. Davies, Waterfront: The Battle That Changed Australia, Doubleday/Random House, Sydney, 2000.

^7.� R. Cooper, B. Ellem, C. Briggs and D. van den Broek, 'Anti-unionism, employer strategy and the Australian state,1996–2005', Labour Studies Journal, 2009, forthcoming; D. van den Broek, 'Human resource management, cultural control and union avoidance: an Australian case study', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 39, no. 3, 1997, pp. 332–348; D. van den Broek, 'Recruitment strategies and union exclusion in two Australian call centres', Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, vol. 58, no. 3, 2003, pp. 515–536; R. Cooper and C. Briggs, 'Trojan horse' or 'vehicle for organising'? Non-union collective agreement making and trade unions in Australia', Economic and Industrial Democracy, vol. 30, no. 1, 2009, pp. 93–119.

^8.� R. Cooper and B. Ellem, ''The neoliberal state, trade unions and collective bargaining in Australia', British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 46, no. 3, 2008, pp. 532–54.

^9.� R. Connell, Ruling Class, Ruling Culture: Studies of Conflict, Power and Hegemony in Australian Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977, pp. 13–14; R. Gollan, The Coalminers of New South Wales: A History of the Union, 1860–1960, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1960; R. Pascoe, The Manufacture of Australian History, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1979, p. 54.

^10.� R. Connell and T. Irving, Class Structure in Australian History: Documents, Narrative and Arguments, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1980; Stuart Macintyre, 'Radical history and bourgeois hegemony', Intervention, no. 2, 1972, pp. 47–73; Stuart Macintyre, 'The making of the Australian working class. an historiographical survey', Historical Studies, vol. 18, no. 71, 1978, pp. 243–5; G. Patmore, Australian Labour History, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1991, pp. 8–12; John Rickard, Class and Politics: New South Wales, Victoria and the Early Commonwealth, 1890–1910, ANU Press, Canberra, 1976, p. 2; E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Victor Gollanz, London, 1963.

^11.� Connell and Irving, Class Structure in Australian History, p. 22.

^12.� Tom Sheridan, 'Aspects of decision making in a monopoly: BHP and the 1945 steel wtrike', Australian Economic History Review, vol. 22, no. 1, 1982, p. 1.

^13.�Ibid., p. 1.

^14.� Patmore, Australian Labour History, pp. 16–17.

^15.� H. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974; M. Burawoy, The Politics of Production: Factory Regimes Under Capitalism and Socialism, Verso Books, London, 1985; P. Cochrane, 'Company time: management, ideology and the labour process, 1940–1960', Labour History, no. 48, 1985, pp. 54–68; R. Edwards, Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century, Basic Books, New York, 1979; R. Frances, The Politics of Work: Gender and Labour in Victoria, 1880–1939, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1993, p. 3; C. Nyland, 'Scientific management and the 44-hour week', Labour History, no. 53, 1987, pp. 20–37; J. Shields, 'Deskilling revisited: continuity and change in craft work and apprenticeship in late nineteenth century New South Wales', Labour History, no. 68, 1995, pp. 1–29; L. Taksa, 'Scientific management: technique or cultural ideology', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 34, no. 3, 1992, pp. 365–95; C. Wright, 'The management consultant and the introduction of scientific management in Australian industry', in M. Bray and D. Kelly (eds), Issues and Trends in Australasian Industrial Relations: Proceedings of the 4th Biennial AIRAANZ Conference, University of Wollongong, 1–4 February 1989, Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand, Sydney, 1989, pp. 227–55; C. Wright, 'Taylorism reconsidered: the impact of scientific management within the Australian workplace', Labour History, no. 64, 1993, pp. 40, 48.

^16.� C. Wright, The Management of Labour: A History of Australian Employers, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995.

^17.� A. Moore, The Right Road? A History of Right-Wing Politics in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995; A. Moore, The Secret Army and the Premier, New South Wales University Press, Sydney, 1989.

^18.� E. Eklund, 'From patriotic interest to class interest: employers and Federation, 1890–1912' in M. Hearn and G. Patmore (eds), Working the Nation: Working Life and Federation, 1890–1914, Pluto Press, Sydney, 2001, pp. 116–135; P. O'Leary and P. Sheldon, 'Strategic choices and unintended consequences: employer militancy in Victoria's meat industry, 1986–1993', Labour History, no. 95, 2008, pp. 223–242.

^19.� M. Kleiner, G.N. Chaison and J.B. Rose, `The macrodeterminants of union growth and decline' in G. Strauss, D.G. Gallagher and J. Fiorito (eds), The State of the Unions, Industrial Relations Research Association, Madison, Wisconsin, 1991, p. 36; J.R. Commons, A History of Labour in the United States, Vol. 1, Macmillan, New York, 1918, pp. 10–11; G. Patmore, 'A voice for whom? employee representation and labour legislation in Australia', The University of New South Wales Law Journal, vol. 29, no. 1, 2006, pp. 8–21.

^20.� K. Bronfenbrenner, 'Employer behaviour in certification elections and first contracts: implications for labor law reform' in S. Friedman, R. Hurd, R. Oswald and R. Seeber (eds), Restoring the Promise of American Labor Law, ILR Press, Ithaca, 1994, pp. 19–36; P. Bruce, 'Political parties and labor legislation in Canada and the United Sates', Industrial Relations, vol. 28, no. 2, 1989, pp. 114–41; Kleiner, Chaison and Rose, 'The macrodeterminants of union growth and decline', pp. 20–4; J. Rose and G. Chaison, 'Convergence in international unionism, etc: the case of Canada and the USA: a comment', British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 31, no. 2, 1993, pp. 292–7; R. Freeman and J. Pelletier, 'The impact of industrial relations legislation upon British union density', British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 28, no. 2, 1990, pp.141–164; P. Kumar, From Uniformity to Divergence: Industrial Relations in Canada and the US, IRC Press, Kingston, 1993; D. Peetz, Unions in a Contrary World: The Future of the Australian Trade Union Movement, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998; van den Broek, 'Human resource management, cultural control and union avoidance; P.C. Weiler, Governing the Workplace: The Future of Labour and Employment Law, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990.

^21.� D. Peetz, 'The accord, compulsory unionism and the paradigm shift in Australian union membership', Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper no 358, Australian National University, Canberra, 1997.

^22.� P. Cochrane, `Anatomy of a steel works: the Australian Iron and Steel Company Port Kembla, 1935–1939', Labour History, no. 57, 1989, p. 70; R. Cooper, Making the NSW Union Movement? A Study of the Organising and Recruitment Activities of the NSW Labor Council 1900–1910, Industrial Relations Research Centre, The University of New South Wales, 1996, pp. 26–7; J. Merritt, The Making of the AWU, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1986, p. 103; Wright, The Management of Labour, p. 32.

^23.� Wright, The Management of Labour, p. 107.

^24.� A. McIvor and C. Wright, 'UK and Australian employers in comparative perspective, 1990–1950', Labour History, no. 88, 2005, p. 55.

^25.� N. Balnave, 'Company sponsored recreation in Australia: 1890–1965', Labour History, no. 85, 2003, p. 131.

^26.� M. Kerr, 'Labour management practices in non-union firms: Australian Abrasive Industry 1945–1970', Labour History, no. 92, 2007, pp. 81–5.

^27.� G. Patmore, `American hustling methods: the Lithgow Small Arms Factory 1912–1922', Labour History, no. 67, 1994, p. 48; G. Patmore, 'Employee representation plans in the US, Canada and Australia: an employer response to workplace democracy', Labor, vol. 3, no. 2, 2006, pp. 63–4; G. Patmore, `The origins of the National Union of Railwaymen', Labour History, no. 42, 1982, p. 46; R. Tierney, `Racial conflicts in the Australian Automotive Industry in the 1950s: production line workers, the Vehicle Builders Employees Federation and Shop Floor Organisation', Labour History, no. 76, 1999, pp. 29–30; Wright, The Management of Labour, p. 33.

^28.� E. Eklund, '"Intelligently directed welfare work"? Labour management strategies in local context: Port Pirie, 1915–1929', Labour History, no. 76, 1999, pp. 131–4; Patmore, 'Employee representation plans', pp. 43–45.

^29.� Eklund, 'Intelligently directed welfare work', p. 133.

^30.� R. Barton, `Goose Clubs and Wages Boards: marginalising unions at Electrolytic Zinc, Tasmania, 1920–22', in P. Griffiths and R. Webb (eds), Work, Organisation, Struggle: Papers from the Seventh National Labour History Conference held at the Australian National University, Canberra, April 19–21, 2001, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Canberra Region Branch, Canberra, 2001, pp. 43–9; Patmore, 'A voice for whom?', pp. 11–12; Wright, The Management of Labour, p. 216.

^31.� Gollan, The Coalminers, pp. 14–16; O'Leary and Sheldon, 'Strategic choices', p. 238; Wright, The Management of Labour, pp. 29–30.

^32.� B. Bowden, '"Some mysterious terror": the relationship between capital and labour in Ipswich, 1861–1896', Labour History, no. 72, 1997, p. 94; Cooper, Making the NSW Union Movement?, pp. 26–7; R. Cooper, 'To organise wherever the necessity exists: the activities of the Organising Committee of the Labor Council of NSW, 1900–1910', Labour History, no. 83, 2002, p. 54; Merritt, The Making of the AWU, p. 103; R. Murray and K. White, The Ironworkers: A History of the Federated Ironworkers Association of Australia, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1982, p. 58.

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Private Detectives, Blacklists and Company Unions: Anti-Union Employer Strategy & Australian Labour History