Innovation in Enterprise Bargaining: the Queensland Health and Queensland Nurses' Union Experience
Published: 26 May 2010
by Dr Liz Todhunter, Research and Policy Officer, QNU
Australia’s system of industrial relations has traditionally been characterised by conflict. The great strikes of the 1890s formed the catalyst for the conciliation and arbitration system that regulated employment for most of last century. The shift to enterprise bargaining during the 1990s saw an emphasis on workplace negotiations to determine pay and conditions of work and with it an increased need for employers and unions to adopt strategies and tactics that would accommodate this change.
This paper explores an innovative ‘interest based bargaining’ (IBB) approach to negotiations between the Queensland Nurses’ Union (QNU) representing all members of the nursing and midwifery profession in Queensland and Queensland Health (QH), the state government employer. In 2005, when the parties first embraced IBB, the QNU was looking for an alternative to the traditional ‘positional bargaining’ approach that had resulted in an arbitrated outcome to the 2002 enterprise bargaining round. In similar fashion, QH did not want to engage in another public battle with the QNU, particularly as the profession has a high level of community support.
This paper argues that IBB has been successful in rebuilding the relationship between the parties for two main reasons. The QNU has a high level of membership density in public hospitals and is thus able to mobilise in a critical area of health care. Secondly, both parties have a shared interest in and commitment to maintaining a high quality public health system. These factors contributed significantly towards resolving many of the tensions that existed at the time. However, the ongoing viability of the IBB approach is precarious because it depends, amongst other things, on a high level of trust and a continued commitment by the parties to the IBB philosophy within a volatile political environment.
Click on the links below to:
- read the full paper, or
- read the QNU paper Innovation and Democracy in the Queensland Nurses' Union
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