THEJOBTRAININGCHARADE
By Gordon Lafer. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2002, xii + 297 pp., no price stated (hardback)
O
ver the past 20 years or so, many academics have come to accept uncritically the basic assumptions about education, training, jobs and the economy that now underpin most industrial countries labour market policies. Others are more ambivalent. On the one hand, the greater recognition of workers as learners is welcome, even though contemporary initiatives are far removed from the great traditions of worker education that emphasised enlightenment and empowerment. In this view, embedded within workplace learning opportunities is some potential for workers to develop as individuals, to exercise greater influence over their day-to-day lives at work, and to carry some of the benefits of their learning beyond the workplace into the home and the community. On the other hand, questioning commentators are discouraged by the ideology driving the current wave of enthusiasm for lifelong learning. ‘New,’ neo-liberal inspired human capital theory affords little or no space to the social domain. Its sole concern is econ-omic performance; its focus is the individual learner; its priority is ‘winning’ in the new global economy.There is no hint of ambivalence in the current book. Lafer’s intention is to provide ‘the first comprehensive critique of the history, track record, and economic assumptions underlying’ American job training policies since the early 1960s (page 1). His book delivers on that promise. From cover to cover, it is an unrelenting, tough, thoroughly documented, passionately argued, and uncompromising indictment of the politicians, powerful economic interests and bureaucrats he holds responsible for the policies he so roundly condemns. Lafer makes no universal claims for his analysis; his focus is strictly limited to US policies. But readers in other countries will almost certainly find much in the book that resonates with the political economy of job training in their own country.
Lafer’s explicitly normative approach is grounded firmly in a powerful labour studies perspective that asserts a social right to a ‘decently paying job’; a concept he defines in the first chapter. His central theme is that the assumptions under-lying job training policies are fundamentally flawed and that politicians, business, and bureaucrats have used both the rhetoric and practice of job training in order to disempower working people both economically and politically. Lafer sees little hope in relying on politicians to change their policies, especially under the present Bush Administration, but even under a new Democrat regime. Thus, he concludes, only a recommitment to collective, industrial and political struggle
can begin to secure decently paying jobs and meaningful education and training programs.
Lafer’s first chapter sets the pattern for those that follow. His general approach is to start chapters and sections with an indictment, add additional charges along the way, and then marshal a mass of evidence to support his case. The opening chapter begins with a rather obvious question: ‘How many jobs are there?’ Lafer’s target is the fatuous claim, repeated by a succession of politicians, that vacancies advertised in newspapers are proof of jobs that are waiting for those who are not trained for them. Lafer sets himself two tasks in this chapter. First, he reworks traditional approaches to the measurement of poverty in order to provide a working definition of what constitutes a ‘decently paying job’. Second, he examines, in the light of that definition, the limited available data on how many people need such jobs and the number of jobs there are. These data, he concludes, prove that there is a dramatic job gap: far more people are seeking ‘decently paying jobs’ (page 34) than are available.
In the second chapter, Lafer examines another cornerstone of job training policies: the so-called ‘skills mismatch’. He does not deny that workers require skills and that those with higher qualifications generally earn more than those who are less qualified. But there is plenty of evidence in employment statistics, he argues, to show that other criteria, such as gender, race, age, industry, and degree of urbanisation, are often just as important as education. Further, he suggests, that employment growth in the service sector has resulted in jobs that demand high levels of education, but which pay lower wages than the manufacturing jobs they have replaced. Lafer holds that the power of education to determine wages is quite weak. This view and the research that supports it has been challenged, not unexpectedly, by the ‘mismatch theorists’ (page 49). In response, Lafer devotes the remainder of this chapter to a painstaking analysis and rebuttal of their critique. Again he concludes that the main purpose of the skills mismatch thesis, linked to a ‘language of futurism’ (page 86), has been to demobilise and disempower working people.
‘Does job training work?’ is the question that sets up Lafer’s third chapter. His main focus is Ronald Reagan’s Job Training Partnership Act(JTPA), which framed federal programs for some 17 years. Lafer argues that the JTPA ‘marked a radical restructuring of job training programs’ (page 89) in that it shifted training and related job creation from the public and non-profit sectors to the private sector. Lafer does not deny that the JTPA initiative may have resulted in some marginal wage improvements for some low income Americans. But overall, he argues, it was doomed to fail because neither the program nor the politicians who created it addressed the deep structural causes of unemployment and poverty.
note in which Lafer argues that the dynamics of ‘the struggle over wages and management’s need to control workers’ effort point to the limitations of empower-ment’ (page 132). Using familiar examples, such as McDonald’s and airline reser-vations, Lafer then does a competent job of demonstrating how, for many workers, the empowerment promise of high performance is simply rhetoric. Lafer appears less certain in the second half of this chapter than he does elsewhere in the book as he turns his attention to the more innovative enterprises and workplaces, such as information technology or sections of manufacturing, in which empowerment may be more than rhetoric. These situations, Lafer concedes, are much more complex than those discussed earlier in the chapter. However, he suggests these high performance workplace systems essentially have three aims: tapping employee knowledge, developing self-policing employees, and internalising corporate goals. Lafer elaborates on each of these propositions quite neatly before concluding that in such enterprises workers enjoy, at best, ‘caged freedom’ (page 149). The chapter ends, not unexpectedly, with the claim that while the ‘nebulous nature of the vision’ promoted by Reich and others ‘insulates it from empirical rebuttal’ (page 155), ‘high performance’ ultimately fails to deliver on its promise.
In Chapter 5, Lafer returns more comfortably to the legislative history of JTPA and the politics of job training. He systematically examines the reasons why job training emerged in the 1980s as a political response to unemployment and poverty. Particularly insightful is Lafer’s analysis of the role played by Congressional Democrats who championed job training and backed Republican policies in the hope of salvaging some aspects of (their) previous programs. Lafer concludes that in the end, however, the JTPA was a Republican triumph. Business secured a privileged position in the new job training regime, public sector employment was eliminated, and community groups were excluded.
Lafer’s sixth chapter is headed, ‘Job training after welfare reform: Training for discipline’. This is another very strong discussion that details and appraises critically the links between job training policies and the 1996 welfare reform legislation. Lafer’s careful analysis reveals how welfare-to-work policies funda-mentally changed the primary purposes of job training programs. Whereas initially such programs, for all their defects, still had the aim of enabling ‘participants to gain greater leverage in the labor market’ (page 208); since 1996 they primarily have served to discipline low-wage workers and those on welfare, lower their expectations, and effectively undermine their self esteem.
In his final chapter Lafer concludes that job training is simply a political diversion. He reviews the findings in his substantive chapters and looks ahead to the prospects of job training in the new Bush era. The outlook he presents is pessimistic. What is required, he argues, is not a change in policy but a new politics: ‘the most important skill for working people to acquire is not the discipline demanded by employers but the solidarity required for collective mobilisation’ (page 224).
He knows whose side he is on! Of course the book has weaknesses, some of which are attributable to the lack of reliable data. For example, because Lafer has to find his evidence where he can, there are sections where he tends to jump from state to state and one is sometimes left wondering if he is actually comparing apples with apples. Further, as indicated above, I felt that Lafer struggled to write with the same authority when he shifted his gaze from job training under the JTPA to the high performance visions promoted by Reich and others. I have mixed views about the length of the book and the amount of detail Lafer offers. On the one hand, I appreciate the scholarly effort he has made to marshal evidence in support of his indictment. But on the other hand, I was so overwhelmed by it all that it took several weeks to read the book.
How relevant is this book to Australian and New Zealand readers? We will probably draw some comfort from the fact that, on the surface, our respective national policies differ from the US. But there is much in Lafer’s dismal story that sounds just a tad too familiar not to trouble us. In neither country do we have a very clear idea of how many ‘decently paying jobs’ are available. We have no reliable analysis on exactly how important education and training is in determining incomes. In both countries, without any substantial evidence, politicians and business lobbies trumpet the ‘skills mismatch’ thesis as loudly as they do in the US. While a number of unions, supported by labour-oriented academics, have embraced high performance systems with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the jury is yet to determine how much worker empowerment they deliver. And, finally, welfare policies, while not as cruel as those in the US, nevertheless incorporate job training as a disciplinary mechanism. In sum, much of the ideology that Lafer critiques is, if in a muted form, active and pressing within our two countries.
In conclusion, despite its strong US focus, this book is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the political economy of education and training. As such, it should be in the university library. Although I teach about worker education and training at the graduate level, I am unlikely to prescribe chapters as readings. But I almost certainly will require research students to consult it and will undoubtedly refer to it myself.
UNIVERSITY OFWAIKATO MICHAELLAW
MENTALHEALTH ANDWORK: ISSUES ANDPERSPECTIVES
Edited by Lou Morrow, Irene Verins and Eileen Willis. The Australian Network for Promotion, Prevention and Early Intervention for Mental Health, Adelaide, 2002, xx + 349 pp., no price stated (paperback)
commissioned by the Australian Network for Promotion, Prevention and Early Intervention for Mental Health (AUSEINET) and produced in collabor-ation with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundcollabor-ation (VICHEALTH).
The book is divided into five sections. The first section explores the current context for mental health. It takes two very different and synergistic perspectives in doing this. Dolland and Winefield provide an impressive overview of mental health and its links with over- and under-employment as well as unemployment. Waterhouse, however, takes us ‘inside the head’ (his own), of a lecturer who gives us his thoughts about how it feels to be a ‘reflective practitioner’ who is offered employment options as casual and contract. This section is a precursor to the powerful blend of objective scholarship and subjective ‘insider’ perspectives that characterise the book as a whole.
The second section looks at work and identity. It pursues a very wide range of themes, including the nature and meaning of career, and the relationships between race, culture, gender, age and work identity. Also explored are the impact of the environment, life stage and women’s carer responsibilities on employment and work identity. While the range of perspectives offered is extremely wide in terms of content and themes, there are strong unifying conceptual and analytical frameworks that underpin this section of the book. These reflect an emphasis on critical theoretical scholarship and radical humanist values.
Section three is concerned with work and safety issues. Radical humanist values also dominate this part of the book, but its purpose and theoretical stance is much more functional. Here the emphasis is on legal, social and workplace interventions that can tackle ‘evils’ such as workplace bullying and workplace violence (and its impact on onlookers not just victims). As well as traditional strategies associated with legal sanctions and workplace policies, various authors point to the need for more innovative and in-depth approaches which recognise how far bullying at work and other workplace violence can become entrenched in the fabric and context of workplace practices.
The fourth section of the book is entitled ‘work and emotions’. Here the diversity of perspectives provides the reader with a unique opportunity to access the significance of the concept of emotional labour as ‘integral to service work and the caring professions’. Diversity in both the content of the papers and their approach is on offer. Approaches range from the poetic insights of Waterhouse to the experimental design of Hosie et al. and Zammuner et al.
Such diversity does not prevent broad insights emerging from the section as a whole. In essence, the question posed is how can emotional labour be harnessed productively and ethically so that organisational performance is improved while individual mental health is not compromised or even destroyed? Although this section offers diversity in terms of its analysis and approaches, it is slightly dominated by its psycho-social parameters. The introduction to this section of the book refers to the possibility of emotional labour being appropriated by managers and owners in the pursuit of profit. While this is a theme taken up by Stack in Chapter 14, it might perhaps have merited further development.
through is the importance of caring for the mental well-being of those in the field of mental health. However, this section also refers to the experiences of other professions, such as hairdressers who are engaged in giving ‘personal’ services to their clients. Interventions include those that have a promotional and preventa-tive focus as well as those that might be seen as ‘treatment’ options. The descrip-tions of such intervendescrip-tions succeed in establishing the nature of the link between interventions that might at first appear to be palliative, compared with those that are labelled preventative. The sheer range of interventions, workplaces and staff groups discussed gives this section a very rich and diverse feel. Common themes include: first, the importance of the workplace as a setting for interventions related to mental health and mental health problems; second, the importance of acknow-ledging how far those engaged in giving direct client care or service have unique and significant insights on how this relationship impacts on their mental health; and third, the role of interventions that have an individual focus as well as those that are focused on changing organisational processes or structures. Certain tensions are also uncovered. For example, Chapter 22 relates the history, development and activities of an employee health committee. Its authors offer the important insight that such a committee must be supported but not driven by management.
Overall, the range of contributors, theoretical and practical perspectives, experi-ences and themes pursued in this book is a tribute to those who conceived and gave birth to it. The challenges of organising and editing the contributions must have been extreme. It has succeeded in putting issues and problems that can easily be unseen, ignored, obscured or misunderstood onto the agendas of managers and organisations. It has also used a wide range of theoretical frameworks to understand and analyse those issues. Finally, there are some key messages for those who have responsibilities for action in relation to the issues that are covered.
UNIVERSITY OFGLAMORGAN MARYBROOMFIELD
THEORGANIZATION OFEMPLOYMENT: AN INTERNATIONAL
PERSPECTIVE
By Jill Rubery and Damian Grimshaw. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2003, xxi + 298 pp., £20 (paperback)
be regional differences. Within the same region, different persons will want or experience cuisines of different types and compositions. Moreover, it is not as if cuisine, or any other social phenomena is static. Cuisine is a dynamic social experience that is subject to change and experimentation by those involved in its production and presentation.
The same is also true of the way in which employment is organised. Different societies organise the various ‘dimensions’ associated with work in different ways. These differences will be such that ‘wise’ persons will describe a particular type of employment organisation as being characteristic of country A, and another type as characteristic of country B, and so on. Within any society, however, there will be a spectrum (or several spectrums) of employment organisational forms. Moreover, like cuisine, employment organisation, across the spectrum of practices within a particular society, is subject to change.
How do we acquire knowledge of the ways in which different societies organise employment? One method would be to compare two or more firms, plants or workplaces, producing essentially the same product or service, in different societies. This will be referred to as the ‘micro’ approach. A major problem here is to what extent is the example (or examples) chosen representative of the way in which employment is organised in the respective societies? A second approach could be to examine the way in which different societies approach what will be called ‘major’ issues connected with employment organisation. They would include things such as the industrial relations system and legislative environment, employment and training policies, welfare and taxation, the family and gender relations, approaches to labour market flexibility, regulation and so on. This will be referred to as the ‘macro’ approach.
Scholars, and others, have sought to make comparisons and understand why it is that different societies have different forms of employment organisation. Embedded in such examinations is a view that such forms of employment organisations can be classified from ‘good’ to ‘bad’, in the form of an international league ladder. More generally, the world has found itself subject to the tyranny of something known as ‘best practice’. The issue of how ‘best practice’ is defined or ‘known’ will be ignored here. Given a notion of ‘best practice’, is it possible to transport it from a setting in country A to country B? Can the micro or macro in country A be taken out of its national context and be relocated neatly and easily (whatever that might mean) into another or other countries?
These issues are of relevance in examining Rubery and Grimshaw’s book. They state that their work ‘explores the organization of employment from an inter-national perspective, taking as our main field of vision advanced countries, as defined by membership of the OECD’ (page xvii). They further maintain that:
‘Comparative texts tend to fall into two categories: either they provide a series of single country studies, leaving it up to students to do the hard work of comparison, or they take a relatively narrow focus such as the industrial relations system or the training system’ (page xviii).
The realsecond approach is to take a particular theme or issue and compare the way in which different societies organise themselves.
This is an unconvincing and poor work. There is a tension between the micro and macro approaches to comparison. A number of problems should be noted. In the first chapter the authors employ the micro approach in examining well-known studies which compare employment organisation in two or more countries. While noting that ‘things’ may have changed since these studies occurred, Rubery and Grimshaw state they are not prepared to update the research ‘or comment on the continuing significance of the differences revealed’ (page 7). While the former is defensible, the latter is not; it smacks of intellectual laziness, and requires of readers something that they are not prepared to do themselves (and it is not as if information is provided on the said ‘differences’ anyway).
This volume is noteworthy for its inclusion of many long quotes presented in a boxed form in the text. This is not something that I have seen done before, and now I know why. Such material or quotes from ‘authorities’ should have been integrated into the text. More significantly, the inclusion of boxed material severely interrupts and compromises the flow of the text. After a chapter or two it is difficult to escape the temptation of not reading the boxed material; something which should be the antithesis of those who write.
The macro chapters constitute most of the book. Essentially, what Rubery and Grimshaw have done is to slice-up country-based studies into various bits and pieces and produce typology after typology and long lists of factors and variables. One is forever reading lists, which makes for tedium and boredom. The problem is that the authors have decided to present different positions developed by different writers over the years. The Organization of Employmentcontains much repetition. This could have been avoided by a more rigorous approach to themes and issues.
Moreover, in producing various views and data the authors’ essential finding is that the forms of employment organisation adopted in different societies are based on contingency. While there are external forces for change, at both the micro and macro levels, within societies, whether or not there will be change and how it will be mediated will depend on how those within the respective parts of the social system react to such forces.
The major problem with the book is that it lacks a theoretical or analytical focus. It combines typologies with ‘mountains of facts’. In their final three sentences Rubery and Grimshaw state:
Employment is a key determinant of living standards for individuals and the wider society and a major influence on productivity, efficiency and innovation. It is central to both the economic and social dimension of policy-making and of equal and major concern to employers and workers alike. As such, it is time for employment to be considered a core issue in all inter-national and inter-national policy agendas (page 259).
else would they be undertaking a course concerned with employment organisation?
UNIVERSITY OFNEWSOUTHWALES BRAHAMDABSCHECK
WORKS COUNCILS IN AUSTRALIA: FUTUREPROSPECTS AND
POSSIBILITIES
Edited by Paul J. Gollan, Raymond Markey and Iain Ross. Federation Press, Sydney, 2002, xxvi + 197 pp., $49.50 (paperback)
This is an excellent collection of essays, which canvasses a wide range of views and issues about works councils and their future prospects in Australia. The contributors generally argue for federal legislative intervention rather than management to bring about this reform in Australia. Ron McCallum and Glenn Patmore emphasise the Commonwealth rather than the states as the forum for reform due to its Constitutional supremacy. The arguments for works councils include improvements in productivity and redressing the ‘representation gap’ as unions decline. Herman Kmusden and Raymond Markey argue that the German model of works councils is the most appropriate model for Australia, while Anthony Forsyth notes that despite the problems of transferability, Australian reformers could adopt elements of the German system.
However, not all of the authors believe this is possible—at least in the short term. John Buchanan and Chris Briggs note the recent Australian experience with works council-like strategies has been ineffectual or legitimised management’s agendas for change. They argue that Australian employers have no commitment to notions of social partnership and, indeed, have become more belligerent to challenges to their authority. The danger is that despite Martin Foley’s hopes that works councils may strengthen the Australian labour movement, employers in the current climate may use them to further subvert trade unionism. Stephen Long reminds us that the idea of works councils would find little favour with the present conservative federal government, which Forsyth observes has wound-back what limited rights existed in regard to consultation and participation in its jurisdiction. Possible legislative reform for works councils rests with a future federal Labor government which sees them as a high priority issue.
My only unease about the subject of this book relates to a feeling of déjà vu. Works councils were a focus of debate in Australian industrial relations in the mid-1970s. As a student at my current institution, I can remember both lectures and essays on the German system of works councils and the Yugoslav system of self-management.
historical analysis is irrelevant because it captures previously inappropriate behaviour or presents a different context. As several writers in this book have pointed out, some Australian employers ‘have gone back to the future’ to reassert unilateral views of the workplace. An historical approach does not dismiss works councils or other forms of industrial democracy if they have not been successful before, but simply asks whether the factors that contributed to failure in the past are still present today.
Australian employers in the past have been reluctant to embrace earlier waves of industrial democracy and it may now even be more the case. Significantly, there are no contributions from employers to this book. Even where employers have been genuinely interested in forms of industrial democracy that involve unions, these processes may lapse if a company merges or the sponsoring manager leaves the firm. Ironically, the argument advanced by Foley that works councils will invigorate unionism will only enhance employer opposition to works councils. In the United States, during the 1920s, some employers refused to adopt the Rockefeller plan of employee representation (which did not recognise trade unions) because they believed it would enhance collectivism and labour organis-ation. Given the opposition of employers, the legislative approach as outlined by the writers in this book may be more appropriate then relying on employers to voluntarily introduce it. Where federal and state governments have attempted to introduce forms of industrial democracy through their voluntary adoption by employers, particularly in the private sector, they have largely been failures.
Favourable legislation, however, is not necessarily a final solution. There has been legislative interest in forms of industrial democracy before. Influenced by the Whitley Scheme in England, the 1918 New South Wales Industrial Arbitration (Amendment) Acttried unsuccessfully to shift industrial regulation away from industrial arbitration to industrial councils and shop committees. Unless there is broad community support for the legislation, it can be repealed or watered-down by alternative governments. Employers, as they have done before in Australia, can resist industrial legislation through legal challenges or boycotts. Overall, this is a very interesting and provocative book. I applaud the editors for incorporating a range of views to stimulate debate. My only major criticism relates to the strong sense of déjà vu.
UNIVERSITY OFSYDNEY GREGPATMORE
WORK IN THENEWECONOMY: FLEXIBLELABORMARKETS IN
SILICONVALLEY
By Chris Benner. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2002, xviii + 293 pp., $60.45 (paperback)
impacted on work, employment, and labour markets. Rapid development and diffusion of information technology (IT) has fostered the breakdown of national and organisational boundaries, leading to a form of competition which is based not only on cost, but also increasingly on the time-to-market and the ability of firms to innovate continuously to satisfy constantly changing market demands. These changes have profound effects on the nature of work tasks, skill require-ments, employment practices and the structure of labour markets affecting, in the final analysis, individual employers and employees.
One of the great merits of this book is the use of regions rather than firms as a unit of analysis to examine work and employment problems that have emerged as a result of the information economy. With rapid advancement of IT and an increasingly globalised world, economic activities can now be easily carried out across organisational and geographical boundaries. Competition has been forged increasingly between networks of firms and is based very much on firm networks’ ability to innovate continuously to satisfy the constantly changing market demands. A theoretical framework using firms as a unit of analysis could easily miss the intricate changes in work patterns and the concomitant requirements in the knowledge and skills needed to perform the work tasks. Benner has done a very good job in Chapter 2 of documenting major economic and organisational changes and placing the literature on industrial organisation more centrally into his analysis of work and employment.
While the author has painted a clear picture of the character of competition of various industries, including defence, semiconductors, computers and compon-ents, and software, which have been driving the economic growth of Silicon Valley in different periods, competition is more intense than what has been portrayed. In some of the IT sectors, mere continuous product and process innovation is not enough to sustain competitiveness. There has been constant competition among leading IT firms to control and define architectural standards. An example in the late 1980s was the PowerPC microprocessors, developed by the Apple, IBM, and Motorola (AIM) alliance, challenging Intel’s Pentium microprocessors which were the dominant industry standard of microprocessors at the time. With the emergence of 3C (computer, communications and consumer electronics), products such as Personal Data Assistants, WebTVs, and smart phones, there will undoubtedly be a new round of keen competition among leading companies to control the novel industry standards yet to emerge.
institutional, legal and regulatory framework largely rooted in the ‘old’ industrial economy than by the sheer impact of IT. The author has argued that imposing control mechanisms, cutting costs, and shifting economic risks to workers which are so often associated with flexible employment practices, need not be the logical outcomes of flexible work.
The book has filled an obvious gap in the existing literature by systematically classifying labour market intermediaries, such as temporary agencies, consulting firms, web-based companies, trade unions, professional employers’ associations, and community-based initiatives. These intermediaries are certainly playing an increasingly significant role in addressing problems such as risk and increased transaction costs in a context where flexible use of labour and non-standard employment is the rule rather than the exception. Readers will find Part II of the book interesting as it provides a detailed review of the operation of many of the labour-market intermediaries, which have not been examined thoroughly before. By making a systematic classification on various types of labour market intermediaries, setting out the important functions they play in mediating labour markets, and analysing empirically how these various intermediaries operate, Benner has undoubtedly made a substantial contribution towards developing a much-needed theory of labour market intermediation.
Part III of the book provides details of the ways in which the labour market intermediaries examined help shape labour market outcomes. By influencing the nature and quality of people’s skills and social networks, and the type of power they possess, labour market intermediaries are playing an important role in shaping employees’ work lives and career development. An important observation made is the contradictory trend found between an increased socialis-ation of work and an increased individualissocialis-ation of the employment contract. While the degree of social interaction and communication in work tasks (such as in team and project-based work) has undoubtedly increased, more employees now in temporary, part-time, or even self-employment are feeling more and more insecure. In some of the recent writings on work and employment, those who are lucky enough to be in gainful employment have been given advice to manage their own skill and career portfolios. In contrast to such advice, the author sees the need to increase the extent of public policy intervention, such as reforming the existing labour relations system and diversifying compensation practices, in order to bring greater employment security to workers without undermining flexibility of work.
empirically rich book. Readers will find the book interesting and useful to foster their understanding of work and employment issues in the information economy.
OPENUNIVERSITY OFHONGKONG TERESASHUK-CHINGPOON
HUMANRESOURCEMANAGEMENT INAUSTRALIA
By Ashly Pinnington and George Lafferty. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2003, viii + 319 pp., $49.95 (paperback)
This book joins an increasing number of texts examining human resource manage-ment (HRM) in Australia. Many of these texts are adaptations of US books, generally following a particular format, through basic theories and policies, before providing a functional approach to the HRM discipline. Some industrial relations aspects are also included. Another addition to the range of extant HR texts was, therefore, viewed initially with some trepidation.
Human Resource Management in Australiacommences with a brief summary of a number of theories that have been developed over time in the US and UK. Reasons for not developing a specific Australian theory are not given, but it is felt that the development of an Australian conceptual framework would have enhanced the value of this book.
From this point on, however, the book diverges from the ‘traditional’ approach to the usual range of texts. A substantial component of Part 2, ‘The Context’, provides a very comprehensive introduction to the environment of HRM in Australia, Australian industrial relations and labour law. It does this through an historical development of the discipline, integrating both the industrial relations roots of the Australian variant of HR, and the differing philosophies that lead to a unique approach to its adoption in Australia. The problems with HRM, such as the limited strategic implementation (due possibly to the pluralist approach in a number of organisations) and the ineffectual devolution of power to line management from a centralised control, tend to work against the more idealistic US unitarist framework. This conceptual approach could provide ample discussion in the appropriate environment. This introduction is then followed by a brief explanation of the role of labour law in providing a framework for HRM and industrial agreements, and the growing complexity of the legal environment with differing forms of agreements and other legislation.
The chapter on employee resourcing examines the function from three perspectives––individual, organisational and societal––and provides the reader with varied analyses of the approaches used. The chapter on motivation discusses alternative theories and ends with a case study asking the reader to examine the applicability of the theories raised to an existing situation. In the chapter dealing with financial rewards and the links to performance, a more practical overview of the various reward systems and recent performance issues are offered. The following chapter on learning and development examines a range of learning options, with their theoretical linkages thoroughly explained. The last chapter in Part 3 reverts to a conceptual discussion of change management; in particular, integrating change with the HR concept. It provides a fitting conclusion to the section, emphasising the need for managers to be aware of both the direction and the process of change.
The final part of the book deals with future developments in HR, and briefly reviews the preceding chapters. One advantage is that it includes an extensive glossary explaining a number of the terms and phrases used in the book. As an aid to students, the authors have provided a number of case studies and related questions throughout Human Resource Management in Australiato be used to assist in the developmental process.
As noted earlier, this book differs from the traditional textbook approach of many of the competitors in the field. This is both an advantage and a disadvan-tage to potential users of the text, in that it provides a strong theoretical under-pinning to the discipline, as well as an historical development in the Australian context which is lacking in much of the competition. But as a standard text, it could easily miss out on its (stated) intended market of undergraduate business students and MBA students, at least at the introductory HRM level. For students undertaking a more comprehensive study of the discipline, the book does have a number of advantages, especially in furthering understanding of strategic HR directions. For the average student studying HR as an additional unit with no further interest in pursuing studies in the discipline, the book would only have a limited appeal. Its role would be more as a supplementary reference tool.
To conclude, the authors have provided an essential text for those interested in developing their knowledge and understanding of HRM in the Australian context. However, with many universities and colleges more interested in teaching the process of HRM (at least at the introductory level) than the theories and development of the discipline, this excellent book could well have a limited market in Australia.
CURTINUNIVERSITY OFTECHNOLOGY DOUGDAVIES
REGIONALEMPLOYMENTRELATIONS ATWORK: THEILLAWARRA
REGIONALWORKPLACEINDUSTRIALRELATIONSSURVEY
By Raymond Markey, Ann Hodgkinson, Terri Mylett and Simon Pomfret. University of Wollongong Press, Wollongong, 2001, xxv + 419 pp., no price stated (paperback)
Illawarra—which was conducted in 1996. This book follows the methodology and structure of AWIRS 1995 to develop a comparative analysis of workplace relations in the Illawarra with those in the rest of Australia. As with AWIRS 1995, it includes a workplace (over 20 employees) survey, an employee survey and a small business workplace survey. Unlike AWIRS 1995, however, it cannot include a panel survey. For research and policy purposes, one of the major problems with both AWIRS reports was the lack of an explicit regional dimension in the analysis. Nonetheless, it was possible to obtain some broad regional data from them. A number of Australian writers (e.g. Bradon Ellem and John Shields at the University of Sydney) have been critical of the overall absence of a spatial dimension in Australian industrial relations research together with the simplistic articulation of the spatial dimension in existing research. Hence, the Illawarra Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (IWIRS) is timely in that it does give a spatial dimension to AWIRS, and it does introduce ‘space’ to industrial relations analysis.
The book is assiduous in providing a comparison with workplace industrial relations in the Illawarra and the rest of Australia. For the authors there is a dilemma in this approach. The advantage is the opportunity for comparative analysis; against this it has to accept the various criticisms and weaknesses that were associated with the AWIRS methodology. On the comparative methodology, it was possible to break down the AWIRS results by broad generic regional groupings (e.g. metropolitan). Breaking down the AWIRS 1995 data set may have provided a richer pool of data for comparative purposes in the IWIRS exercise.
There was a timing difference between the second AWIRS and IWIRS of approximately 18 months. In this time gap, the federal Workplace Relations Act was introduced and there were some changes to industrial relations legislation across the states. However, the relevant legislative changes are listed in Chapter 1. The timing meant that it was too early for any impact from the federal Act to be gauged and, as the research subsequently reveals, the Illawarra was in 1996 more tied to New South Wales industrial relations legislation than to the federal system.
What does the book tell us about workplace relations in the Illawarra? Overall, the findings are not too dissimilar from the rest of Australia. The Illawarra largely reflects the developments in the national economy towards more service sector employment, a growing female workforce and a falling trade union density. The old industrial sectors are diminishing in terms of employment in the Illawarra and one valuable contribution of the book is to refute regional stereotyping when it comes to industrial relations. The image of the Illawarra as coal, steel and manu-facturing, full-time male, blue-collar and unionised workers is a thing of the past. The region reflects what is happening to the nature and characteristics of work, the workplace and workers elsewhere in Australia.
workplaces were less likely to have specialist Industrial Relations/Human Resource managers and more responsibility in employment matters was assigned to line managers and supervisors. Managers in the region are more responsive to competition in terms of performance monitoring, but lag behind national trends in terms of training for blue-collar employees, the development and implementation of equal employment opportunity programs, and effective programs to reduce workplace stress and injury. There was a lower presence of union delegates at the workplace, a very high trade union density in the hospitality sector and a higher female union density than the national average. Union delegates in the region were generally more active in terms of the type and range of tasks performed. In terms of management and employee interaction, total quality management had a higher incidence in the region and teamwork and workgroups had a lower incidence in the region. Within the Illawarra, the state award system was much more important in terms of the determination of pay and conditions, and had a relatively high incidence of over-award payments. The intensity and impact of organisational change was generally less than the national average.
This is a monumental piece of work. As with AWIRS 1990 and AWIRS 1995, there is a mass of information and tables available for those who wish to under-take further in-depth analysis of specific issues, or for those who wish to use the Illawarra results as a benchmark for additional research. Despite being an impor-tant source of material for regional industrial relations research, there appears to be no website or direct access to the data. One way that this work can be enhanced and promoted is through secondary analysis of the data by other researchers. It was through this process that the contribution of the AWIRS reports was enhanced and there is no reason why this should not be the case with IWIRS.
Where do the authors see this large-scale, survey-based research heading in Australia? What deviation would they consider from the AWIRS method and scope? These would have been interesting issues to canvas in the conclusion. It seems that since AWIRS is unlikely to be funded again in the future that there is scope for much smaller and affordable regional-based workplace research in Australia. There is also a strong argument for a follow-up in the Illawarra, on a smaller scale, to develop a profile of change within this region.
The authors deserve commendation on realising their objectives and generating a comprehensive data set on regional industrial relations that can be benchmarked against the national level. In itself, it also offers a benchmark for subsequent regionally based workplace industrial relations research. Overall, the book is a useful resource in Australian industrial relations because it explicitly addresses the often neglected regional dimension.
WORKING INAMERICA: A BLUEPRINT FOR THE NEWLABORMARKET
By Paul Osterman, Thomas A. Kochan, Richard M. Locke and Michael J. Piore. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001, ix + 229 pp., no price stated (hardback)
While many books written on the US economy and labour market of the 1990s have been superseded by events, this is unlikely to be one of them. The authors, whose published research in this area has already been influential, have amassed a large volume of evidence from a three year funded study––the Task Force on Restructuring America’s Labor Market Institutions. The study commissioned a number of working papers and held workshops involving over 250 people, mainly academics as well as key figures in government, corporations and trade unions. The argument that emerges from the study is as follows. Despite impressive growth in the US economy over the 1990s, ‘deeply troubling’ structural patterns have become entrenched, in particular, an extensive low-wage labour market, widening earnings inequality, lack of employee voice in the workplace and prob-lems for firms in gaining the flexibility they need to operate in an increasingly competitive market. Nor will these patterns be properly understood or addressed by a perspective that ‘equates economic welfare with social welfare’ and sees ‘the competitive-market model as a template for the organization of all productive activity’ (page 3). The authors instead adopt an ‘institutional perspective’ that conceptualises the economy as:
. . . embedded in the social structure and as depending on that structure for its capacity to operate effectively . . . It sees a need for the active cooperation of workers in the work process . . . and it recognizes the importance of institutions and the role they play in creating a framework in which a market operates, in mediating the relationship between the economy and society, and in reconciling economic efficiency with other social goals (pages 3–4).
Changes in the world of work have undermined these assumptions and thereby, according to the authors, ‘eroded the foundations of the labor market’s insti-tutions’. The US has now reached a point where it lacks strong institutions for linking together a series of short-term work opportunities into a continuous stream of employment, now that this function is no longer performed by large organisations to which workers are permanently attached. It also lacks institutional guidance for workers negotiating their careers through a sequence of skills developed by moving across different firms. Consequently, it is argued that these changes require updating of US policies and institutions, but the resulting Task Force proposals are more far-reaching than such a modest ambition would imply.
In their proposals for policy and institutional ‘re-engineering’, the authors recognise economic efficiency as one of the central goals of any new framework for the labour market and workplace. Yet they also insist that ‘because work is typically a social activity, efficiency depends on the social structures in which it is embedded’ (page 11). In this context, the authors elaborate a set of core values to underpin the proposed framework and to guide the re-engineering process: work as a source of dignity, a living wage, diversity and equality of opportunity, solidarity or social cohesion, voice and participation. These values are not dissimilar from those contributing more or less coherently to the emerging architecture of the European Union’s ‘social model’ and they resonate too with some of the new policy thinking in Australia.
It is a major theme of Working in Americathat these values and principles may be implemented in a variety of ways that build upon changes in structures and policies already under way in the labour market, though the election of a conservative administration federally has inevitably slowed down and in some areas reversed the process. The changes are based on opportunities for ‘local experimentation’ through ‘labor-management partnerships’ and high-performance work systems in large organisations and extended networks in the case of small to medium organisations. The argument is assisted by a series of condensed examples and case studies, which are derived from research for the Task Force. The role of government in this approach also shifts from one based on ‘command and control enforcement regimes’ to an enabling role that ‘facilitates change and innovation’ (page 21). Significantly, for these authors, this is no vacuous ‘third way’ concept since there is still a critical part in these arrangements to be played by labour law reform (which gets careful and extensive treatment in the book), and by the development of ‘institutional capacity’ on the model of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (page 165).
1990s. The second observation is that these ideas, paradoxically, have meanwhile found richer expression in the European ‘social model’ which is striving to encompass them in policy and practice, most recently as part of its Lisbon Summit objective to build ‘the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010’.
The third and final comment concerns Australia. State governments must now become the standard-bearers of this potentially effective and electorally popular approach to social and economic reform, in partnership with unions, business and community organisations, at least until a more sympathetic regime comes to office at the federal level. The important message of this book is that the absence of such a regime at the present time should not be permitted to become an excuse for policy inertia.
