ER/HR strategies of management in the Australian mining industry

What is it about?

This is a study on the employment relations and human resource management strategies of management in the Western Australian mining industry in response to the removal of the Australian Workplace Agreements. The work is based on interviews with ER/HR managers from 24 mining organisations.

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Why is it important?

The findings provide a unique insight into management ER/HR strategizing in an economically dominant industry with a history of adverse industrial relations. It also reveals organizational responses to industrial relations regulatory changes that were largely deemed undesirable by management, as they impinged on the organisations' preferred workplace relations models based on direct employer-employee relations. In addition, the findings shed light on the impact of the Fair Work Act, and how the Rudd government sought to re-regulate employment relations moving from an individualist to a more collectivist agreement-making system.

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