Towards the Wagner Framework: Change in New Zealand Industrial Relations

Abstract

New Zealand and Australia share a common heritage of compulsory arbitration. This article explores the way in which New Zealand has departed from this tradition. Three phases in the deconstruction of compulsory arbitration and reregulation of industrial relations are identified. The first is associated with the events that led up to the Industrial Relations Act 1973. That statute formally endorsed the growth of free collective bargaining and introduced the North American distinction between disputes of interest and disputes of rights. The second is identified with the fourth Labour government (1984-1990), which made arbitration voluntary in a climate of extensive economic liberalization and encouraged a shift from occupational awards to a mixture of industry and enterprise bargaining. The third is presently unfolding as the new National government begins work on its election pledge to shift the basis of union legitimacy from historical registration to employee choice. If completed, the third phase will ensure the substitution of centralization and compulsion with decentralization and voluntarism in the framework of collective labour law in New Zealand. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for the parties of the emerging system of industrial relations, called here New Zealand Wagner'.