Definitions

Question 1

Define Agency

Answer 1

The capacity of social actors to make choices and take action

Question 2

Define Arbitration

Answer 2

A dispute resolution system and practice in which an independent third part hears from the parties in the dispute before making a binding determination to settle the matter

Question 3

Define AWAs

Answer 3

Australian Workplace Agreement

Statutory individual contracts introduced in 1996 by the Howard governments Workplace Relations Act

Question 4

Define BOOT

Answer 4

Better Off Overall Test
A set of criteria mainly used by the FWC for the approval of collective agreements, specifically collective agreements that will not be certified if they provide employees with wage and work are ‘better off overall’ than those they would have received under the relevant modern award

Question 5

Define Collective Agreement

Answer 5

Rules, entered into voluntarily which regulate the employment relationship between a group of employees and their employer

Question 6

Define Collective Bargaining (employees)

Answer 6

A bilateral rule making process by which groups of employees act together to negotiate with either one employer or a group of employers

Question 7

Define Collective Bargaining (employers)

Answer 7

A process and structure where employers and unions decide the terms and conditions of employment

Question 8

Define Collectivist

Answer 8

Strong reliance on trade unions to represent any employers alleging unfair dismissal, often through an industrial dispute with the arbitration tribunals

Question 9

Define Conciliation

Answer 9

A dispute resolution system and practice in which an independent third party attempts to resolve the conflict without making a binding determination or decision

Question 10

Define Corporatism

Answer 10

The organisation of society into major interest groups or bodies

Question 11

Define Description

Answer 11

To give an account of or state the characteristics of a specific event or instance

Question 12

Define Employee voice

Answer 12

The process by which employees and contribute to and influence managerial decisions

Question 13

Define Employment Relations

Answer 13

An approach to the practice and study of the employment relationship that focuses on the creation and enforcement of rules that regulate it

Question 14

Define EEO

Answer 14

Equal Employment Opportunity
A management regime where the best person for the job will be able to perform in that position according to their intrinsic merit, irrespective of things such as gender, sex, sexual orientation

Question 15

Define Executive

Answer 15

The elected govt and the public bureaucracy that advises, administers and implements policy

Question 16

Define HPWS

Answer 16

High Performance Work Systems
A set of complementary management or work practices designed to engage employees towards the achievement of organisational goals

Question 17

Define HRM

Answer 17

Human Resource Management
An approach to the practice and study of the employment relationship that focuses on the role of management in eliciting effort and value from employees

Question 18

Define Individual Contracting

Answer 18

A process where the roles employment relationship are determined between individual employees and their employer

Question 19

Define Industrial Conflict

Answer 19

Dissatisfaction or disagreement with the employment relationship leading to hostile acts by either party

Question 20

Define Industrial Dispute

Answer 20

Withdrawal from work by a group of employees
A refusal by an employer or a number of employers to permit some or all of their employees to do work
Each withdrawal or refusal being made in order to enforce a demand, to resist demand, or to express a grievance

Question 21

Define Industrial Relations

Answer 21

Original term used to describe both the practice and study of employment relationship

Question 22

Define Managerial Prerogative

Answer 22

Those areas as of decision making within an organisation of which managers claim to have an unfettered right to decide as they see fit

Question 23

Define Managerial Unilateralism

Answer 23

Process in which management solely determined rules of the employment relationship

Question 24

Define Managerialism

Answer 24

A set of beliefs that organisations and society operate more effectively when managers exercise unhindered prerogative

Question 25

Define Marketisation

Answer 25

The application of market principles and discipline to public sector organisations

Question 26

Define Neoliberal

Answer 26

Socio-political and economic policy that stresses the central importance of free markets and the need to reduce governments and trade union involvement in markets and firms. Advocates free trade, privatisation, competition and marketisation

Question 27

Define NPM

Answer 27

New Public Management Making the public sector more like the private through a move away from complying with procedural rules toward a focus on results

Question 28

Define Parties

Answer 28

The social actors who create and enforce the rules that regulate the employment relationship

Question 29

Define Non-Union Agreements

Answer 29

Enterprise agreements setting the terms and conditions of employment that are made between an employer and a group of employees without Union evolvement

Question 30

Define Pluralism

Answer 30

A set of values that sees the employment relationship as having the ever present potential for conflict based on different interests of employers and employees. These conflicts are legitimate and can be accommodated by an appropriate network of procedural and substantive rules

Question 31

Define ACTU and who joins it

Answer 31

Australian Council of Trade Unions is the peak national union body in Australia. Individual unions rather than employers join it

Question 32

Define procedural fairness

Answer 32

Whether termination of employment was carried out fairly with references to principals of natural justice

Question 33

Define procedural individualisation

Answer 33

A situation where each individual employee separately negotiates their own contract with employer

Question 34

Define protected industrial action

Answer 34

A party taking industrial action that is protected from legal penalties, but only if several conditions are met

Question 35

Define quality circles

Answer 35

Employee participation schemes emphasising increased productivity, reduce waste and higher quality outputs

Question 36

Define radicalism

Answer 36

A set of values that sees the employment relationship as subject to enduring conflict in which the control exercised by employers over employees is illegitimate and can only end when major social change is achieved

Question 37

Define Robens model

Answer 37

A process of self regulation whereby safety rules at work should be made and enforced by the parties themselves in the context of a general legal duty on employers to provide a safe workplace and strengthening inspectorate powers

Question 38

Define a state

Answer 38

Wide variety of institutions that regulate the employment relations in most liberal democratic countries

Question 39

Define statutory regulation

Answer 39

The making of rules by the legislative arm of the state

Question 40

Define substantive fairness

Answer 40

Whether a fair reason existed for the termination of employment

Question 41

Define substantive individualisation

Answer 41

Situations in which terms and conditions contained in individual employment agreements are different for each employee, reflecting unique outcomes from their respective rule making processes

Question 42

Define substantive rules

Answer 42

Rules that govern the essential or material terms under which employees are rewarded for selling their labour and the conditions under which they work

Question 43

Define taxonomies

Answer 43

Classification systems designed to identify similar properties or characteristics in diverse events, situations or objects

Question 44

Define theory

Answer 44

An attempt to account for a given phenomenon and to show what/ how or why it is

Question 45

Define the traditional approach

Answer 45

Involves setting safety standards in legislation and making failure to adhere to those standards an offence

Question 46

Define union density

Answer 46

The proportion of the workforce who are union members

Question 47

Define unitarism

Answer 47

A set of values that sees the employment relationship as essentially harmonious, with employees and employers sharing common interests, embodied in organisational goals