Enterprise Bargaining: An Overview

Abstract

The primary aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the merits of enterprise bargaining by providing a wideranging overview. It provides a comprehensive definition of enterprise bargaining which enables a broad range of perspectives to be encompassed and helps to structure the discussion of the immediate context and the wider policy settings of the debate. The paper demonstrates that enterprise bargaining is not new. It identifies a number of current or proposed systems of enterprise bargaining the present federal system, the New South Wales model the BCA proposal the Federal Liberal/National Party approach, and the New Zealand model. These are then evaluated, making use of a simple conceptual framework. The analysis indicates that each system has its advantages and disadvantages, its supporters and critics. Its findings suggest that positive and negative features of all models should be taken into account, not only in the continuing debate on enterprise bargaining, but also in me improvement of existing enterprise bargaining systems and in the design of new models.