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The ‘Death’ of Comparative Wage Justice in Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Roy Green
Roy Green*
Affiliation:
Employment Studies Centre, The University of Newcastle
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Abstract

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This paper examines the concept and application of comparative wage justice in the transition to a more decentralised wage bargaining system in Australia. Although it is widely assumed that comparative wage justice now has little or no role in the system, the paper demonstrates that it continues to be major factor in the adjustment of wage rates within and between awards, particularly as a result of the national wage case decisions of 1988–89. The question still to be determined is whether it will also have an application to the growing disparities between the award wage structure on the one hand and the outcomes of enterprise bargaining on the other, which are addressed in the ACTU’s 1996 ‘New Living Wage Case’. The conclusion of the paper is that failure to apply the concept to these disparities will transform awards and tribunals into a ‘low pay ghetto’ with diminishing relevance to the overall dynamic of wage fixation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , December 1996 , pp. 224 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1996

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