The Australian Library Journal
volume 50 issue 4

In pursuit of flexible work places ('if I wanted to get there, I wouldn't be leaving from here')

Manuscript received September 2001

[This paper was written for presentation at the LISS 2001 Conference, University of Newcastle, September 2001]

Australia has been continuously restructuring its workplaces for the past fifteen years. As a small exporting nation operating outside major trading blocks, we seem destined to continue down this path of unremitting change in pur suit of sustained improvements in efficiency and competitiveness. All industry sectors are dominated by this reality. Library and information services are no exception. The call for 'flexibility' has become a mantra for advocates of change. And labour flexibility has found almost unanimous acceptance as the panacea for what is said to be the relative inefficiency of both Australian workplaces and the institutions and systems that regulate work in them. The need for ever more flexibility has become an article of faith. But what do we mean by flexibility? Which of the many forms of labour flexibility are effective and which might prove counter-productive? Who is expected to be flexible? And are there limits to the capacity for flexibility? Is the quest for flexibility itself flexible?

Micro-economic reform and labour flexibility

Continuing micro-economic reform is necessary to shape an economy which can deliver durable improvements in the day to day lives of Australians - more jobs, more work satisfaction, greater growth, fewer people dependent on welfare...[2]

In the 1980s Australia, along with most developed countries, was exposed to vastly increased international competition. New information technologies transformed the way in which business was done. The confluence of deregulation and the communications revolution produced massive volatility in international investment flows. No longer could countries hide behind tariff barriers. Relative economic performance and international competitiveness became vital, especially for a small exporting nation like Australia. With its very high levels of foreign ownership, Australia was particularly vulnerable to the new volatility of capital flows.

So began the dominance of deregulation, competitiveness and continuous improvement in economic, political and even social discourse. Micro-economic reform took centre stage in policy development. Financial and product markets were quickly deregulated. Soon after, the champions of labour market deregulation emerged. 'Productivity' became the new preoccupation and the justification for changes that ranged from the highly desirable to the superficial and the unnecessary. Productivity was often vaguely conceived. Frequently, it was poorly defined. Rarely was it measured empirically.

This dominating demand for change and deregulation has battered Australian enterprises and their workers ever since. It has transformed and significantly weakened institutions that since federation have been pivotal in shaping workplace conditions and relationships. It has changed fundamental notions of fairness and normality at work. And it has destroyed the social contract of long-term - sometimes lifelong - employment with a single employer. Australia is far from alone in this. All developed countries have had broadly similar experiences. But there are marked differences in the manner of change, and in its economic results. Between 1993 and 1998, for example, the United States more than doubled its return on shareholder funds [ROSF] while simultaneously restoring full employment. In the same period while appearing to move toward similar labour market practices, Australia's ROSF remained at or around 1993 levels and unemployment was stuck at twice the American level. The pursuit of, and even the achievement of, flexibility is clearly no guarantee of improved outcomes.

There have been five particular arenas in which the battle for labour flexibility in Australia has been fought[3]. External numerical flexibility is achieved through changes that remove restrictions on redundancy, reduce costs and permit more temporary, part-time, contractor and casual employment. Internal numerical flexibility allows the organisation greater freedom in changing working hours, adjusting shift patterns and altering overtime arrangements. Wage flexibility allows variation of earnings on performance and ability to pay grounds. This can involve both downward flexibility, where efforts are made to cut wage costs, and upward flexibility where organisations can link better pay to productivity improvements. The level at which wages are determined - national, industry or enterprise - is claimed to have an important impact on wage flexibility both locally and nationally. Procedural flexibility removes external constraints on management action to make changes in the workplace. It produces strong disagreement about forms of external labour market regulation, community employment standards, wage bargaining and dispute regulation. Functional flexibility refers to the capacity to deploy staff to a broader range of functions. It is vitally linked to an employee's ability to perform varying tasks and thus to training and education. Job design and work practices are also critical elements in functional flexibility.

Despite the fact that by the late 1980s Australia already had a highly flexible workforce by international standards[4], all these forms of labour flexibility have been vigorously pursued in this country - and in its library and information sector - with demonstrable outcomes. Australia now has one of the most casualised workforces in the developed world. The incidence of casual work has doubled since 1985. Throughout the 1990s we have had a higher proportion of temporary employees than almost any comparable country. More than half of all Australian workers are now in so-called precarious or non-standard employment; that is, less than half have full-time, reasonably secure 'traditional' jobs. The surging use by employers of outsourcing and labour hire companies is challenging the very notion of employment contracts and career structures. In a paper given at the 1999 LISS Conference in Adelaide[5], this writer discussed the extent and consequences of downsizing in Australian organisations. Downsizing remains an important element in the experience of most Australian employees, including those employed in library and information services. Full-time jobs continue to be lost to it, while it has replaced others with casual or non-standard forms of work. Australian research shows that clear patterns of 'good' and 'bad' organisational restructuring have emerged. These distinctions have huge implications for success in making effective changes to the workplace. Organisations that restructure crudely with minimal strategic planning do not achieve their flexibility objectives and fare badly on a number of measures, including staff absenteeism, demarcation disputes, workforce skill levels, service quality and unit costs.[6]

Figure 1 Casual Work in Australia - % of all employees, Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics

Working time has been by far the most common area in which managements have sought internal flexibility through workplace change and enterprise bargaining negotiations[7]. The first round of enterprise agreements contained an ambitious change agenda in which a wide range of issues not previously included in industrial awards was canvassed. For the most part, however, these were little more than statements of hope. Few of their objectives were ever realised, or even seriously addressed subsequently. It soon became apparent that fine words about attitudinal change, joint consultation and participative decision-making, which early agreements often contained, were far easier to write than to put into practice. Innovation and provisions to transform organisations into 'best practice' enterprises were similarly elusive.

As reality imposed itself, managements retreated increasingly to a single focus for internal flexibility: that of changes to working time practices in exchange for wage increases. Analysis of new enterprise agreements in the late 1990s found that four in every five had revised work time as their major pre-occupation, whether through changes in hours worked each week, increases in hours worked before overtime rates became payable or adjustments to shift rosters to reduce penalty payments. No other item came near to being so pervasive in agreements. The result for the vast bulk of employees is that they now find themselves working longer and harder than at any time in the past forty years. The proportion of employees working standard hours [35-40 per week] has fallen sharply to the point that little more than a third are now in this category, compared to two-thirds twenty years ago. Thirty per cent are now working very long hours [more than 49 per week]. For the vast majority of them, additional time is unpaid.

Figure 2: Australian full-time employees - % working > than 49 hours per week
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics

Library workers are no exception. When questioned about the time and effort they now must put into their jobs, fifty six per cent say they are working harder and longer. Only eight per cent have a counter view.

Figure 3: Australian library workers - working hours and work intensity
Source: Australian Library and Information Association, Profile of Library Workers

Wage determination in Australia has been a particular focus for micro-economic reformers in recent years. For more than eighty years there was general support for our unique system of centralised wage fixing and compulsory conciliation and arbitration. Wage levels determined by the Industrial Relations Commission and its forbears were traditionally set on the basis of comparability between occupations - known as comparative wage justice - and consideration of what constituted a fair or living wage. Rates were formalised in industry awards that covered all enterprises engaged in a particular activity. Varying productivity performance by different sectors or individual firms was of little significance and their relative capacity to pay was rarely considered. Pay differentials between high and low wage earners were more compressed than in counterpart countries.

Since the mid 1980s, wage determination has been decentralised. Awards have been reduced to a safety-net role for the low paid. A majority of employees previously subject to awards now see their wages set by enterprise agreements or individual contracts. Many such agreements and contracts have removed conditions traditionally contained in awards, and the awards which remain have themselves been reduced to a relatively small core of basic subject areas. The bargaining power of employees and their trade unions has been sharply weakened, with few conditions guaranteed from one bargaining round to the next. The principle of comparative wage justice has been severely eroded.

The result of these changes is greater income polarisation than Australia has known since federation. A series of studies has confirmed a marked increase in wage inequality in Australia in the past decade. Real wages for jobs in lower paid occupations have declined yet, contrary to market-based economic theory, there has been no increased availability of these jobs. To the contrary, they have declined still further. On the other hand, data on average remuneration packages for Australia's top chief executives suggest their typical pay has grown by 285 per cent since 1990. In the same period, corporate profits have increased by 120 per cent, while the pay of an average worker has grown by 37 per cent. The CEO : average worker ratio has almost tripled, from 21:1 to 60:1.

Figure 4: % earnings increase 1990-2000
Source: Journal of Industrial Relations/Cullen Egan Dell

In a decentralised wage system, it is no surprise that gender-based inequality has also increased. Although the gap between women's and men's wages in Australia is much narrower than in comparable countries, it is now widening for the first time in many years[8]. As members of a highly feminised profession, librarians are significantly affected by this trend, notwithstanding promising outcomes of formal pay equity inquiries in several industrial jurisdictions. Other negative attitudes to gender issues have recently surfaced. On maternity leave, for example, a recent survey on management views revealed that 43 per cent of chief executives and senior managers were opposed to a woman's right to return to her previous position after time off to have a child, notwithstanding the fact that this has been a legal right for close to twenty years.[9]

The debate about external influence on how industrial relations should be conducted within the organisation has been one of the most dominant in recent micro-economic policy debate. The more strident reformers have argued that almost all forms of labour market regulation are inimical to improvements in efficiency and competitiveness. In response, labour laws have been amended by governments of both political persuasions in the past decade. Strong differences remain, however, about the ideal form of industrial laws and systems. Broadly speaking, there has been agreement about the need for decentralisation of industrial relations to the enterprise level to encourage more real contact between management and employees, and to take better account of the circumstances of individual organisations.

Widely differing views persist, however, about the role of industrial tribunals and the extent to which local bargaining should be subject to overarching community standards and protection of basic conditions of employment. Put simply, the conservative parties and most business leaders have argued for removal of almost all central control. They support a completely deregulated industrial relations system, with strong emphasis on individualisation of employment contracts and a minor role for 'third parties', such as the industrial tribunals and trade unions. The Australian Labor Party (ALP), while supporting decentralisation and enterprise bargaining, prefers an emphasis on collective negotiation, a continuing role for unions and retention of an effective system of independent industrial tribunals, armed with strong public interest powers.

To date, Australia has developed a system which has been moving toward the Conservative model, but which has been prevented from its full adoption by political realities in the parliament's upper house. The 1996 Workplace Relations Act, originally drafted to give effect to a fully deregulated system, was amended significantly to ensure Australian Democrat support for its passage. Subsequent attempts by the government to introduce a second wave of legal reforms have been blocked in the Senate. The result falls some way short of a 'pure' deregulated system of labour relations. Many commentators, business advocates and right-wing politicians have claimed this prevents Australia making productivity gains it could otherwise achieve. While this view has gained much currency, there is some evidence to suggest that the opposite is true - that Australia has been well-served by the more measured and gradual approach to deregulation forced on the Government by its lack of a majority in the upper house.

New Zealand provides a meaningful comparison. In its quest for improved productivity through micro economic reform, that country's Government had no equivalent problems in implementing its preferred labour laws. In 1991 its controversial Employment Contracts Act took the country in one big step directly to a fully deregulated industrial relations system, with major focus on individual contracts. Employment conditions were radically altered, trade unions were largely sidelined and 'market forces' were let loose on wage determination. The results have been disappointing, so much so that policy makers in New Zealand are now rethinking their approach. Labour productivity has been markedly inferior to that achieved under Australia's supposedly less efficient, more regulated system. In the period between 1990 and 1999, Australian workers increased their productivity by about 23 per cent. New Zealand's workforce achieved little more than a five per cent increase in the same period.

Figure 5: Labour productivity, Australia and New Zealand 1990-1999 [Index 1990 = zero]
Source: University of Canterbury, NZ

This result raises profound questions about the link between wholesale deregulation and productivity outcomes. It suggests that the issue is rather more complex than has sometimes been assumed by advocates of ever-increasing deregulation.

Almost all industrialised countries have identified flexibility in work organisation and changes to work practices (functional flexibility) as a critical issue for efficiency and competitive advantage. In most, three elements have been cited as influencing the extent to which new forms of work are successfully adopted: first, the type of enterprise and the level of competition to which it is exposed; second, the quality of labour-management relations, especially the preparedness of employers to involve employees and/or their unions in decision-making about changes to work practices; and third, the application of new technology which demands changes to work practices. All have been important in Australia, but there have been huge differences both within and between enterprises as far as success in implementing new practices is concerned. Some organisations have made great headway. Others have stagnated. Some have failed miserably.

Flexibility for whom?
Employees with no time to think, making careless mistakes, can cause the organisation to be less innovative and less productive in the long run. Contrary to popular belief, always being in a hurry to get something done is not productive ... creativity doesn't flow unless time is made available for it...[10]

The pursuit of a new flexible workplace was sold by its proponents as a mutual-benefit exercise. The uniform assertion by those advancing arguments for change was that flexibility would benefit both employers and workers. Typically, formalising new working time procedures, for example, involved adoption of a clause saying 'new arrangements will recognise the increasing ability of employees to take control of their working time; the system will enable employees to balance personal and work needs and work their required hours of duty in a flexible manner; the system does not require employees to increase their working hours'. (Employment Services Enterprise Agreement).

It needs to be said - and said bluntly - that for a majority of workers, including many in the library and information sector, this has been a huge confidence trick. Successive studies confirm this to be so.[11] Far from seeing a more flexible organisation providing them with higher pay and more options for aligning work and domestic demands, most have found themselves more rigidly bound to jobs in which wage levels are being reduced, sometimes by devious means.[12] Stress levels have increased sharply along with the greater time spent at work. The inherent insecurity of contemporary employment has merely compounded the pressure exerted on employees.

Rhetoric about up-skilling and improved career paths has not concealed the fact that for many, casualisation and non-standard forms of work have reduced the availability of training and development. Nor can we fail to notice that heavy reliance by many employers on outsourcing and short-term recruitment via labour hire companies has substantially reduced promotion opportunities for many employees. Significant numbers of well-educated, experienced librarians are among the many who have resigned themselves to the fact that, even if they manage to obtain continuing work over the next few years, it will be in a succession of short-term engagements offering only limited opportunities for real career development.

There are, of course, many exceptions to all this. But we fool ourselves if we do not accept that for most employees work today is more stressful. Their fears for the future are very real. How do we know this? Because they tell us so, almost daily. And this, of course, ignores the many educated professionals who cannot even find jobs, insecure or otherwise.

Figure 6: Australian librarians - stress levels in the workplace
Source: Australian Library and Information Association, Profile of Library Workers

It is pointless to deny this and equally senseless simply to urge employees not to be negative. For many, their recent labour market experience has been negative. As in all relationships - especially industrial relationships - perception is the reality that must be dealt with. And denying people's perceptions gets us nowhere. The present feeling of a great many employees is that organisations are now exercising vastly increased power in the workplace in ways which are counter to their (the employees') interests. Where changes to working time have given management far greater scope in how they use labour, the dramatic surge in non-standard work has given employers more freedom in how they take on and get rid of labour. Add to these developments the fact that so many employees are seriously concerned about their work and family life balance, of the lack of it, and we have a recipe for a worried, resentful workforce. That today's workers frequently remain reasonable and co-operative at work is for the most part greater testimony to their decency than to any achievement by management. This is especially true of librarians who are too often too reasonable for their own good. Yet even the most reasonable employee must ultimately become resentful when the promised benefits of co-operation fail to materialise.

Potentially successful strategies for achieving effective and sustainable workplace change cannot be considered without reference to all the elements of change that have been imposed upon Australian working people. We cannot manage people in a vacuum that isolates them from their broad experience at work. 'Bright and funky people' we may want. If so, it is for us to create environments that encourage these characteristics. At present too many organisations are doing precisely the opposite. People will not exhibit the behaviours we prefer merely because we tell them to. And when we do, the old cliché still holds true: 'sometimes our actions speak so loudly that no-one can hear a word we are saying'.

It is quite clear that, notwithstanding the fiction of mutual benefit, most employers have introduced these changes less for genuine flexibility than for cost reduction. The minimisation of expenditures is a perfectly reasonable, indeed often essential, course for employers to take. But managements need to be careful not to become too enchanted with their own rhetoric. Efficiency and productivity improvement through cost reduction can only be a short-term strategy. There is only so much fat on the bone. Claims that work practices have been radically adjusted are often semantic deception. What has been changed in many organisations is not work practices but the conditions enjoyed by employees - wages, overtime and penalty rates, working hours and so on. Continuing and sustainable improvement will require much more, and something distinctly more difficult. Much more will need to change than just the benefits of the workforce. Flexibility's impact will need to go beyond the ordinary employee to influence all parts of the organisation and all its activities. Some have ventured down this road; many others have not.

Flexible managers
Workforce flexibility has been the focus of considerable policy attention in recent years. However, the need for management flexibility has largely been neglected...[13]

The Karpin Inquiry was a massive three-year study commissioned by the previous federal Government to find ways to enhance the effectiveness of Australian management. When its 400-page report was published in the mid 1990s, it generated tremendous interest for a very short time. Since then it has been largely ignored. In this respect, the contrast with major studies recommending reform of the industrial relations system, deregulation of the labour market and changes to employee working conditions could not be greater. Perhaps we should not be surprised that managers would as soon forget the Report since it was highly critical of Australian management practices and performance. Karpin found that the most pervasive obstacle to Australian organisations' quest for flexible and more productive forms of work organisation is 'the cultural revolution that must occur in their management'. The Report is replete with examples of limitations in management performance. Karpin's taskforce concluded that for most firms the higher standards of management performance required for survival in the new, more competitive environment posed huge challenges, because higher performance demands new management approaches. Some had already begun to change their style but, as confirmed by the Business Council of Australia's submission, they represent only a small minority.

Frequently, management appears to be unaware of the extent of dissatisfaction among its staff. A major analysis of the effects of enterprise bargaining in more than a thousand Australian workplaces[14] revealed that sixty per cent of workers said their jobs had become much more stressful; seventy per cent said they were now working harder on a wider range of tasks for longer hours; thirty per cent were worried that promotion and career prospects had narrowed; job satisfaction had fallen for more than half; and a majority reported greater dissatisfaction with management. Yet, remarkably, the very same study reported that almost sixty per cent of managers believed staff job satisfaction had risen. It is hard to imagine a more damning indicator of management failure to acknowledge workplace realities. And it is no surprise to note that among the report's conclusions is the statement: 'weak performance by management in the quality of consultations and in improving information flows and employee participation in decision-making - in the context of growing pressure at work - are major reasons why there were not more employees expressing the view that they were better off because of workplace bargaining'.

The Karpin Report found that successful enterprises in the future would be those which developed positive people policies to motivate and mobilise their staff. Unsuccessful organisations will be those that put long-term corporate strategy behind cost-cutting and short-term business advantage and make human capital secondary to financial capital. This is a chilling forecast for a country which has reduced its expenditure on education, slashed its research and development budgets and created a labour market in which fears about job loss and concerns with overwork take precedence over everything else in most employees' minds. Arguably, there is even greater need for new attitudes, philosophies and practices among management than among employees in most Australian organisations. Yet we hear relatively little about it in current discourse. That clearly needs to change.

A flexible approach to flexibility
Every company, every group of people, and every market is different. Success cannot come pre-packaged - it has to be worked at.[15]

It will not change if managers continue to see adoption of the latest fad as the way to engage with productive change. In their landmark study of 'the fads that undermine corporate performance', Fred Hilmer and Lex Donaldson are caustic about the quality of management 90s-style. Even the most hard-nosed manager can hardly question Hilmer's right to be heard on the efficiency and competitiveness matters that form the entire basis for present preoccupation with flexibility. As principal author of current national competition policy, Hilmer has been among the authorities most often quoted by business organisations in their demands for micro-economic reform. In short, he is no bleeding heart. Hilmer sees the quick fix, fad mentality as corrupting the professional practice of management. Everyone today is a re-engineer, he says. Yesterday they were disciples of flat structures, and the week before of total quality. Along the way they detoured with bewildering rapidity into empowerment, gain sharing, niche marketing, culture change and so on. But successful companies seem to be doing something quite different. They are much more likely to spend longer analysing requirements and, having done so, they tend to identify a few key themes and stick to them for long periods. They do not flit from idea to idea or adopt new techniques that are rapidly replaced with others. And they certainly do not assume that productivity improvement can best be gained by indiscriminate shedding of staff, as so many organisations have done.

It is easy to be critical of unimaginative and ineffective managers. Indeed, if the Karpin Report is to be believed, such criticism is an essential prerequisite for improvement and for flexibility. At the same time, however, we can feel sympathy for some of them. Many of the pressures imposed on ordinary workers apply equally, or even more so, to many managers. They too are stressed and overworked. It is quite likely that a major component of their demonstrated failure to go beyond fads and superficial assumptions is a chronic lack of time to consider and develop more constructive and substantial approaches. And if they have no time to discuss matters properly with their staff, it is no surprise that they are unaware of disquiet 'among the ranks'.

Most of this can be sourced to the mania with forcing fewer and fewer people to handle what is actually an increasing volume of work. The spectre of downsising still looms large in Australian workplaces at almost all levels. Just why so many organisations continue to place so much faith in downsizing their workforce is a mystery. It flies in the face of more and more evidence that the strategy produces results that are the very opposite of those sought. Very recently, yet another major report confirmed that slashing the workforce creates serious problems regardless of how it is implemented. The 2001 study by the Committee for Economic Development[16] finds that, for those who downsize repeatedly or indiscriminately, results are appalling, with wholesale collapse of employee loyalty and motivation. Perhaps even more significantly, it also confirms that all downsizing creates an alarming loss of skills and corporate knowledge, vital ingredients for achievement of functional flexibility. This is perhaps the worst demonstration of the folly of fad-based management that sees organisations adopting policies primarily because everyone else is using them. The only obvious beneficiaries of this trend appear to have been those management consultants who prescribe the same answer for almost every problem. It is an answer as far removed from a flexible approach as it could possibly be. Perhaps the most valuable single statement we could make about strategies for achieving and retaining workplace flexibility is: 'there are no silver bullets, no foolproof methods; every situation is different'. And when the inevitable guru tells us there is a simple answer to the productivity dilemma we should laugh at him. We could do worse than invoke a military aphorism: 'In strategy, the longest way round is often the shortest way home'.[17]

Flexibility and mutuality

The human element in best practice is paramount...[success] depends mostly on human intangibles. Best practice is an art, not a science...[18]

It has often been said that successful workplace relationships are critical to the productivity of enterprises and, by extension, the national economy. This may be true but too much is sometimes expected of workplace reform. Its strongest advocates are prone to act as if everything else was set perfectly in place, with productivity paradise blocked only by the intransigence of employees wedded to old ways of doing things. Even if this were so - and clearly it is not - it should convince those wanting change that they will get it only by taking with them the people through whom it must be effected. The need for continuous improvement is important. Change is inevitable. But the form of that change and our approaches to it are anything but inevitable. They involve choices as to how we pursue change. To date, many organisations have made some pretty poor choices. It is now several years since the Committee on Workplace Opportunities observed that: 'The impact of workplace bargaining on overall productivity levels so far has been marginal and disappointing ... unless the parties approach negotiations in a constructive and enterprising manner, it is doubtful that the change to workplace bargaining will realise its promise'[19]. That remains substantially true.

Analysis of so-called 'best practice' organisations reveals that people management is a critical element in improvement and a vital source of competitive advantage when improvement occurs. There are two important reasons for this: one, it is an area of weakness in most enterprises and a major cause of resistance to change; two, a best practice approach cannot function without the key ingredient of an active people management policy to improve the skills, involvement and, yes, the flexibility of the workforce. Unless the personnel platform is built sturdily, other elements of reform will under perform. Effective industrial relations and human resource management are at the very centre of the change agenda. The failure of many to recognise this is probably the greatest single reason why managers are still complaining about unco-operative staff a full decade after the call for workplace flexibility became de rigueur.

It is fashionable now to focus on key stakeholder interests in strategic management of organisations. Few would be prepared to tolerate for a moment serious dissatisfaction among customers, suppliers or shareholders. The fact that this is so can be gauged by the effort made to monitor satisfaction levels of these key groups. Yet relatively few organisations seem prepared to take the time to find out and act upon what their employees are thinking. Where it is apparent that staff morale is poor, this does not often spur a really serious attempt to improve it. Despite the fine words of corporate plans ['our employees are our most important resource'] the workforce is rarely managed as if it were a 'key stakeholder'.

Figure 7: Australian librarians - satisfaction with work/family balance
Source: Australian Library and Information Association, Profile of Library Workers

If an environment for flexible work practices and improved results is to be created, the concerns that are making staff unhappy and cynical really have to be dealt with. This is so fundamental as to be almost trite. Yet it needs to be said. How can anybody seriously expect an intelligent, perceptive workforce to enthusiastically embrace a management change agenda when their jobs are being cut and casualised and their working time expanded to the point that they find it hard to meet their obligations to their families? This simple question dwarfs all the consultant techniques and all the 1-Minute-Manager prescriptions for change.

In the past decade, the quality of jobs has declined alarmingly. Is it surprising that employee commitment might be heading in the same direction? For the most part, the new jobs are casual, lower paid and unsatisfying[20]. Of course some people want part-time work. Some - a very small proportion - may enjoy 'agency work'. But most people do not enjoy insecure jobs with limited prospects for advancement. Yet we have made this the new growth area, even as we demand that employees show more loyalty and commitment to the organisation. Their negative responses should hardly surprise us - 'loyalty went out of the window years ago; I have the same level of commitment and loyalty as they have for me - which is not much'.[21] For many employees, this type of call for commitment sounds eerily similar to the particular version of 'mutual obligation' that is being forced into much current social policy discussion. They see a lot of obligation but not much mutuality.[22]

Figure 8: Composition of Employment Growth 1988-99 - % share
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics

Work can be better than this. There is nothing inevitable about insecure jobs and ridiculous working hours. More sensible approaches do not have to mean a collapse in productivity. In fact, because the cost-cutting model has just about run its course, it is likely that a more empathetic approach to managing people will improve flexibility and productivity. In 1997 when the French government legislated to cut the working week by four hours with no reduction in pay, many scoffed. Orthodox economists ridiculed the new laws and predicted certain productivity decline, loss of competitiveness, surging unemployment and collapse of foreign investment. What actually happened? The French economy has grown strongly in each year since. Among European nations, France is now second only to Britain in attracting foreign investment. Its unemployment rate is down by a third to its lowest level in nearly twenty years. Of half a million new French jobs created in the last three years, it is estimated that more than half result directly from the decision to cut the working week. Most importantly in the current context, French labour productivity has boomed with workers much more willing to change their work patterns, especially for weekend and shift work.[23]

What can we learn from this? That conventional wisdom is not always wise. That when something is not working, we should change it. This does not mean that labour market change and workplace flexibility are not necessary or should not be pursued enthusiastically. It is true that we cannot stand still, and we certainly cannot go back to old models. But one-sided control models are not the answer. They will not serve us well in a complex world peopled by an educated but anxious workforce. The search for flexibility needs itself to be flexible. Despite its extravagant rhetoric, the leave-it-all-to-the-market model for enterprise efficiency has been based on a desire to increase managerial prerogative and, in most cases, on maintenance of a unitary view of the organisation. Industry has demanded an absolute right to manage its workforce, free of any outside intervention. Some enterprises have been partly successful in achieving this, but their managers still find themselves facing the difficulty of trying to attain total control over a resource that is unpredictable and inherently determined to retain its independence.

Possibly the worst result of the sheer inflexibility of demands for workplace change has been that it has produced a simplistic, binary argument in which it is assumed that either we have this model for change - fracture the workforce, work harder, work longer, give up any notion of security, forgo benefits - or we have no change. The TINA [there is no alternative] propagandists have had more than a decade to push their model. Its failure to achieve the results they want is neither the fault of employees nor a justification for still more of their prescription. It is, in fact, strong confirmation of the need to try another way.

Footnotes

1. Alan Fox, History and heritage: The social origins of the British Industrial Relations System, Allen & Unwin 1985

2. Bob Hawke, then Prime Minister of Australia: Statement on Micro-economic Reform, April 10 1989.

3. see for example, Nick Wailes and Russell Lansbury Flexibility vs Collective Bargaining: Australia during the 1980s and 1990s, ACIRRT Working Paper Number 49, 1997

4.OECD Economic Surveys, Australia, 1988, OECD, Paris

5. Phil Teece, 'An insecure workforce: Australian librarians in a new labour market' LISS 1999, Adelaide SA

6. Peter Dawkins et al The contours of restructuring and downsizing in Australia Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research

7. ACIRRT, Australia at work: Just managing, Prentice Hall 1999

8. Stuart Rosewarne, 'Women, work and inequality' Journal of Political Economy, June 2001

9. Alectus Recruitment, TMP Worldwide, July 2001

10. E.J. Zelinski, The joy of not working: a book for the retired, unemployed and overworked, Ten Speed Press, 1997

11. ACIRRT, Australia at work

12. Australian Library and Information Association, Submission to the NSW Government Inquiry into Labour Hire Companies, 2000

13. Report of the Industry Taskforce on Leadership and Management Skills, AGPS 1995

14. Enterprise Bargaining in Australia, AGPS 1996

15. Frederick G Hilmer and Lex Donaldson, Management redeemed: Debunking the fads that undermine corporate performance, Free Press 1996

16. reported in The Australian Financial Review 26 July 2001

17. BH Liddell Hart, Strategy, Penguin 1967

18. Malcolm Rimmer et al, Reinventing competitiveness: Achieving best practice in Australia', 1996

19. Committee on Employment Opportunities. Restoring full employment: a discussion paper, AGPS 1993

20. John Burgess and Alex de Ruyter, 'Declining job quality in Australia' Economic and Labour Relations Review December 2000, UNSW

21. Anonymous agency worker quoted in Roma Gryst, Contracting employment, a case study of how the use of agency workers is reshaping the employment relationship Australian National Training Authority 1999

22. see for example, 'The poverty of conventional wisdom and the search for alternative economic and social policies', Graham White, School of Economics and Political Science, University of Sydney - paper presented at the conference: The third way: A policy framework for Australia July 2001

23. see for example, Gwynne Dyer, 'A French toast for job reform' Canberra Times, 9 July 2001; and Helen Anderson, 'France finds more time for the good life' The Weekend Australian 27-28 January 2001.