Union responses to regulatory change: Strategies of protective layering

Sarah Kaine and Cathy Brigden
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Sarah Kaine: University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Cathy Brigden: RMIT University, Australia

The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2015, vol. 26, issue 4, 614-630

Abstract: Changes to the Australian regulatory landscape over the past three decades of global liberalisation created regulatory uncertainty for unions. Coupled with membership decline and internal restructuring through union amalgamations, they prompted an important reorientation by unions (back) to the workplace, and precipitated different strategic decisions and organising challenges. However, the proliferation of fragmented employment relationships rendered workplace-centred organising an insufficient response. As a result, some unions experimented with ways of supplementing existing legal frameworks by other regulatory initiatives, through campaigns that resulted in the layering of regulation. In this article, we examine attempts by three unions – covering garment workers, road transport workers and aged care workers – to address the needs of members in garment homeworking, road transport and aged care in a contested regulatory environment.

Keywords: Employment regulation; informal regulation; institutional layering; labour law; regulatory layering; regulatory pluralism; reinforcing labour regulation; supply chain labour standards; trade union strategy; union campaigning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J51 J53 K31 L50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:26:y:2015:i:4:p:614-630

DOI: 10.1177/1035304615615275

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