 Union Membership and the Legal and Institutional Environment: Labour Market Policy in Australia and the United KingdomPeter Kenyon and Philip E. T. Lewis Australian Economic Review, 1993, vol. 26, issue 2, 48-60 Abstract: This article examines how the political and institutional environment impinges upon unionisation. Changes in policy towards trade unions in two countries are contrasted: the United Kingdom under the Conservative government where the industrial relations legal environment shifted in a direction antithetical to unionism, and Australia under the Labor administration where the union movement was incorporated into the labour policy process through a corporatist, centralised wage‐fixing system—the Accord. How these changes in the legal and institutional environment in the two countries affect the propensity to unionise is examined. It is found that in both the United Kingdom and Australia union density has declined from what it otherwise would have been in the absence of these radically different policies. It is argued that the extremes of corporatist centralisation and laissez‐faire decentralisation, perhaps paradoxically, make it difficult for unions to increase their membership. Date: 1993 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:26:y:1993:i:2:p:48-60 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Australian Economic Review is currently edited by John de New, Viet Hoang Nguyen and Susan Méndez More articles in Australian Economic Review from The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research Contact information at EDIRC. |
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