Employment Relations

This textbook integrates industrial relations and human resource management theory and practice in Australia. It uses the concept of strategic choice to cross the traditional subject boundaries between human resource management and industrial relations. It places the development of employment relations in Australia in historical context in order to illustrate the interrelationships of the two areas. Building on these theoretical and empirical introductions, the book explains the way that managements, unions and government act, separately and together, to structure employment relations. A section on management and union strategies at corporate level presents the evidence on employment relations policies in Australia. It discusses the personnel process from selection to termination with union and management policies explained. A section on the politics of employment relations covers wage policy, training and development, equity and industrial democracy. There is a separate section on the features of, and changes to, employment relations in the Australian public sector.
In "Employment relations" the authors argue that when organizations are confronted by the necessity of making a strategic choice, the distictions between human resource management and industrial relations blur. This book stresses theoretical connections between the two fields, by concentrating on strategy and policy issues at corporate level, and implementation at the workplace.