The Return of Lockouts Down Under in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Virtually unheard of since the Great Depression, lockouts have reemerged strongly in Australia and New Zealand just as they have all but disappeared in Germany. The decline of lockouts in Germany is convincingly attributed to the enhanced vulnerability of firms to stoppages in certain circumstances amid globalization, but the small, open economies of Australia and New Zealand are equally subject to these pressures. Using macro-and micro-level data, this article illustrates that neoliberal legislative reforms and institutional change have reconfigured the risks, costs, and payoffs associated with lockouts amid globalization. In doing so, some flaws in the varieties of capitalism/dual convergence literature are highlighted. In particular, the post hoc classification of the antipodes as liberal market economies bypasses the role of legislative reform in reconstituting employer interests and the differences in electoral, party, and state structures that impeded/facilitated the rise of neoliberal reformers in Germany and the antipodes.