Contents Page: NZJER, 2013, 38(3)Name

Michael Quinlan andPhilip Bohle

Erling Rasmussen and
Brian Hannam

Kirsty Raubenheimer
and Erling Rasmussen

Paul Mackay

Title
Re-invigorating Industrial
Relations as a Field of Study:
Changes at Work, Substantive
Working Conditions and the Caseof OHS
Before and beyond the Great
Financial Crisis: Men andeducation, labour market and wellbeing trends and issues in New
ZealandEmployee-focused Corporate
Social Responsibility in practice:
Insights from managers in the New
Zealand and Australian financial
sector

The Right to Strike: Commentary

Page
Number
1–23

24–33

34–57

58–70

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

Re-invigorating Industrial Relations as a Field of Study: Changes at
Work, Substantive Working Conditions and the Case of OHSMICHAEL QUINLAN* and PHILIP BOHLE**
Key Words: Industrial relations, occupational health and safety, precarious work, substantive
working conditions, discipline/fields of study, inequality at work

Abstract
For over two decades, Industrial Relations (IR) has been under challenge both as an academic
field (especially in terms of teaching) and as a term to describe work-related policies. This
challenge has coincided with a decline in collective regulation of working conditions, associatedefforts to re-orientate both academic and policy discourse, and substantial changes to workorganisation. While IR journals continue to flourish, it is not clear to what extent the field has
confronted these challenges. In particular, to what extent has the field sought to chart theconsequences of these changes for substantive working conditions (SWC)? This paper seeks toanswer this question by reviewing 1349 publications in eight major IR journals (2002-2008).
This review finds that SWC (such as wages and OHS) were the primary focus of only 20 percent
of articles. More detailed analysis revealed systematic analysis of SWC in 23 percent. We argue
that in order to renew itself as a discipline and a major contributor to policy debates over work
employment, IR must engage more directly with changes in SWC. Substantive working
conditions can provide a measure of inequality at work which has consequences not only forworkers but the wider community. Our paper points to research in other fields that IR scholars
should seek to engage with and to contribute to. Finally, extending on Kelly’s (1998) argument
relating to IR as the study of injustice at work this paper suggests that IR would be better served
if it were to be conceived of as the study of the nature, mechanisms and consequences of
equality/inequality at work.

Introduction: The Rise and Demise of Industrial Relations
Industrial relations as a subject has deep historical roots. Taking the most conservative approachof what would now be viewed as industrial relations can be traced back to the gradual emergenceof ‘free’ labour and the modern employment relationship (and laws regulating this) from the late*Prof Michael Quinlan, School of Management (formerly School of Industrial Relations and Organisational
Behaviour) and Director, Industrial Relations Research Centre, University of New South Wales; Work and Health**Prof Philip Bohle, Work and Health Research Team; Ageing, Work and Health Research Unit; Faculty of Health
Sciences; The University of Sydney.
Research Group, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney.
Acknowledgements: The authors wish to thank Katherine Lippel, Annie Thebaud Mony and Wayne Lewchuk forcomments on an earlier draft.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

medieval period (Hay & Craven, 2006). The transformation entailed a division of labour and theemergence of journeymen’s societies (the first unions) to represent waged craftsmen andsubsequently (by the late 17th/early 18th century) other groups of workers were engaging incollective action, most notably merchant seamen. The industrial revolution accelerated thegrowth of mass wage labour, much of it precariously employed. The centrality of
precarious/irregular work to early industrial and regulatory campaigns, such as the anti-sweating
leagues, has largely been overlooked in contemporary debates over insecure work (Johnstone etal, 2012). By the late 19th/early 20th century, writers, such as the Sidney and Beatrice Webb
(1914), and Commons and Andrews (1916), were documenting the rise of organised labour; theslow, fitful and contested emergence of collective bargaining; and the development of new
bodies of regulation (setting minimum labour standards, union recognition/control and collective
bargaining, OHS and workers’ compensation). These developments and some of those who
wrote about it (like the Webbs) were to become a central part of lexicon of IR literature.
Yet, it was not until the 1940s that IR emerged as a distinct field of academic teaching/research
and a term widely used in policy circles, and even then it began as a distinctly Anglo-centric
development in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It was no accident that the
emergence of IR coincided with the consolidation of unions and collectivist regimes forregulating work, the introduction of the welfare state, and the post-war Keynesian policy accord,
marked by rising living standards, sustained full-employment and where secure jobs appeared tohave become the norm. Organised labour and the institutional mechanisms for determining
working conditions that recognised competing interest groups were seen to be an important andpermanent feature of modern society – something requiring training for the emerging group of
professionals in the field (such as IR managers, arbitrators, consultants and government policy
advisors) as well as being a topic warranting deeper knowledge and worthy of research. Unlike
other terms that preceded it (like personnel management) or followed (human resource
management [HRM], employee relations and workplace relations) IR was both an explicitly
pluralist term and one that did not entail a focus on management, individual employees or the
workplace. Though IR did not ignore individual worker behaviour, its primary focus was oncollective relationships arising from work and how these operated at workplace, industry/sector
and the broader society. The term also did not affront the International Labour Organisation’s(ILO) 1944 declaration that labour was not a commodity (unlike HRM where labour is termed ahuman resource).
The subject began to be taught in universities, often initially within economics departments or toa lesser extent in law schools. Individual subjects expanded to clusters of subjects drawing on a
range of other disciplines (psychology, economics, law and sociology) and, ultimately, grew into
separate departments teaching stand-alone undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The
growth in teaching activity was mirrored by a growth in IR research and publication. The first IR
journal (Industrial and Labor Relations Review in the USA) was launched in the late 1940s andover the next four decades further journals were established (sometimes more than one) in thefive countries already mentioned as well as several other European countries (like Sweden). The
growth of postgraduate research programs entrenched IR’s emergence as a distinct academic
field and contributed to a steady growth of journal and monograph publications. The primarysubject of these publications included collective bargaining, strikes and industrial conflict,2

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

mediation and arbitration (private and public), training/skills, labour markets, unions,management and employer associations and changes to regulation.
Yet, even as IR continued to grow and consolidate in the 1970s the context that had facilitated it
begun to come under sustained attack, most notably the abandonment of Keynesianism and its
replacement by a neoliberal policy agenda (privatisation, outsourcing, competitive tendering andde-collectivist shifts in labour laws), the re-emergence of pervasive precarious employment, andincreasingly aggressive anti- union tactics by elements of capital. A parallel shift took place inacademia with the decline of Keynesian and institutional economics and economic history, therise of business schools and MBA programs espousing an individualised approach to workers,
and the emergence of new fields, notably HRM, which focused on how to ‘manage’ labour
within a particular enterprise or workplace. From the 1990s onwards especially, the number ofIR subjects, programmes and departments/schools declined, often being re-badged or subsumed
into HRM programs and departments/schools of management (or more euphemistic titles likeorganisation). Advertised posts in IR became rare as did postgraduate research programs
explicitly labelled as IR. Journals have continued to publish (though several have changed theirname to remove IR from the title) but the nature of authorship, topic and quality has undergonechange (see Jarley, Chandler & Faulk, 2001).
That the field of IR faces major challenges, if not a crisis, is hardly a revelation (though seldom
placed in the historical context just described). The issue has been the subject of ongoing debate
since the 1990s. The purpose of this paper is not re-visit or engage in these debates. Rather, theaim is to point to limitations in current IR research and to argue that a refocusing of attention
offers prospects for the discipline to re-assert its importance as a domain of intellectual
endeavour and as a contributor to policy development.
Calls to refocus the research agenda in IR are not new. For some time, they have appeared inreviews of the research literature undertaking by leading IR scholars. For example, Kochan(1980) pointed to several gaps requiring attention, including occupational health and safety(OHS) and quality of working life, although his analysis was largely framed within the context ofcollective negotiations. For much of its history, the bulk of IR research has concerned collective
negotiation and associated legislative frameworks, union and employer characteristics andbehaviour, and various manifestations of collective action (Purcell, 1993; Strauss & Feuille,
1978).
It is important to acknowledge that the subject of published IR research has changed over time.
Over the past decade, there has been renewed interest in minimum labour standards (see Bennett,
1994; Weil, 2005; 2011; Adams, 2011; Goodwin & Maconachie, 2007; Gellatly et al., 2011;
Cockfield, Buttigieg, Jerrard & Rainnie, 2011; Quinlan & Sheldon, 2011), both those that are
essentially procedural (such as the right to organise and bargain) and those that concern
substantive working conditions (such as minimum wages, maximum hours, job security and
OHS). This interest was stimulated by the evident consequences of changes in labour
management practices and work arrangements plus changes to IR laws (and manipulation ofbusiness law via the corporate veil to sidestep statutory entitlements) and neo-liberal policies
promoting ‘market-driven’ de-regulation and competition at the national and international level.

3New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

Researchers in labour law and IR have identified formal gaps (such as the lack of minimum wage
or maximum hour standards for subcontractors) and inconsistencies (such as the protection
accorded workers doing identical tasks) in existing labour, OHS and workers’ compensation
laws, as well as problems in compliance and enforcement (Befort, 2003; Burgess & Baird, 2003;
Finkin & Jacoby, 2001; Johnstone, Mayhew & Quinlan, 2001; Rodriguez-Pinero Royo, 2001;
Vigneau, 2001). Other researchers have investigated the implications of downsizing and job
insecurity and the growth of contingent work for union representation, collective bargaining,
labour regulation, management practices and substantive working conditions (Hayakawa &Simard, 2001; Hipple, 2001; Houseman, 2001; Kunda, Barkley & Evan, 2002; Lautsch, 2003;
Stone, 2004; Sverke, 2003; Underhill & Kelly, 1993). A few studies provide detailed accounts of
how specific changes have affected working conditions in particular industries, such as Belzer’s(2000) examination of deregulation in the US trucking industry and studies of engineered
standards in the US and Australian warehousing industries by Wright and Lund (1996; 1998).
However, as the next section will demonstrate, notwithstanding these trends, comparatively little
attention is still being paid to substantive working conditions, including actual wage
rates/earnings, working hours, job security, work intensity, OHS risks, and minimum labour
standards or their enforcement.
The question can be asked as to why, even if this is the case, this is a matter for concern? The
answer to this question is that substantive working conditions provide a basis for measuring theconsequences of the substantial changes to work organisation and institutional arrangements thathave occurred over the past three decades – the very changes that have arguably underpinned thechallenge to IR as a field. They can provide a measure of why collectivist mechanisms provide
for better social outcomes and are, therefore, worth defending or reinstituting.
Indeed, there is already a large body of evidence pertaining to impact of changes to workorganisation on one substantive working condition, namely occupational health and safety(OHS). Over the past 20 years, literally hundreds of studies have examined the OHS effects ofdownsizing/job insecurity, outsourcing/subcontracting and the growth of temporary (including
seasonal) work arrangements in a large number of countries. A series of meta and narrative
reviews of this research (Virtanen et al., 2005; Cheng & Chan, 2008; Quinlan, Mayhew & Bohle,
2001; Quinlan & Bohle, 2008; 2009) have concluded that there is overwhelming evidence thesechanges to work organisation are associated with a significant deterioration in OHS outcomes(including injury rates, exposure to hazardous substances, disease, mental health andwork/family balance). Only a miniscule fraction of this research has been published in or evenreferred to within IR journals. The value of greater engagement with this research, and thebroader implications of giving more attention to substantive working conditions for IR as a field
will be discussed in a later section. Before doing this, it is important to establish that there is a
gap in this regard. The next section tries to do this by analysing the publications in eight leading
IR journals over a five and half year period.

4New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

A content analysis of IR journal publications and substantive working
conditions
By substantive conditions, we are referring to those conditions of work like wages/earnings,
workload/intensity, hours or work, health and safety that directly affect their material conditionsof work and life (and that of their families), as distinct from those that are procedural in nature(such as the right to bargain collectively or take industrial action). Both types of conditions areimportant and, indeed, they interact. However, substantive conditions afford a more readilymeasurable indicator of inequality at work and its consequences.
To reinforce these broad observations, and to take a closer look at the current focus of IR
research, articles published between 2002 and May 2008 in eight leading IR journals were
examined. While journals are not the only publication outlet for IR research (other outlets
included authored and edited books and monographs) they are arguably primary outlet for mostIR researchers (and increasingly so given the emphasis on journal publication in research
performance measurement).
The journals included the longest established in the field, with four based in Europe, three inNorth America and one in Australia. They were reviewed to identify the primary subject matterof each article and to decide whether substantive working conditions were a focal point ofanalysis. The journals selected were the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Economic andIndustrial Democracy; European Journal of Industrial Relations; Industrial and Labor Relations
Review; Industrial Relations; Industrial Relations Journal; Journal of Industrial Relations; andRelations Industrielles. In total, 1349 articles were reviewed and allocated to single subject
headings according to the dominant focus of the paper. This was judged a sufficiently
representative number of journals, articles and period of coverage for the particular purpose ofthis paper.
Articles in each of the journals were analysed to identify the primary subject matter and also todecide whether substantive working conditions were a focal point of analysis. In terms ofdeciding whether an article met the criteria, a relatively low benchmark was set, namely, did 25
percent or more of the paper deal with empirical evidence of substantive working conditions.
While this benchmark may seem arbitrary (as many benchmarks are) it was set at a point wherearticles with any significant degree of attention to substantive conditions would meet the criteria
and where it could not be claimed the benchmark had been set so high as to exclude many papers
where substantive working conditions were examined.
In short, to ensure a balanced analysis, two measures of substantive working conditions wereused, namely the subject matter of the paper and the actual content in terms of empirical data on
working conditions (i.e subject and actual content matter) provided a more accurate indication of
the extent to which substantive working conditions were being addressed.

5New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

Collective
negotiation
and action

Politics,
laws,
tribunals
andenforcement

Economics,
labourmarkets andworkorganisation

Gender,foreignworkers,
minoritygroups anddiscriminatio
n

0

9
5%

23
12%

10
5%

10
8%

0

5
4%

8
6%

6
6%

10
10%

0

7
7%

8
5%

3
2%

7
4%

1
1%

30
14%

29
14%

15
7%

8
4%

Industrial
Relations J

28
14%

35
18%

11
6%

J of IR

29
14%

35
17%

Relations
Industrielles
Total

25
19%

Employerorganisation
strategies

Union
organisation
andstrategies

Other formsof worker
involvementIR
frameworks
theories andmethods

Wages, pay
systems andpensionpackages

Hours, worktime andleavearrangement

Work healthand safety
and workcompJobinsecurity

Quality ofwork, work/
non workbalance (egchildcare)Jobsatisfaction,commitment
and work
intensity

British J of
IR

37
19%

37
19%

12
6%

21
11%

15
8%

9
5%

5
3%

1
1%

0

6
3%

7
4%

Economic &Industrial
Democracy
European J
of IR

24
18%

21
16%

30
22%

9
7%

6
5%

2
2%

0

5
4%

6
5%

6
5%

2
2%

12
12%)

18
18%

29
29%

1
1%

7
7%

4
4%

0

0

6
6%

1
1%

0

Ind. &
Labor
Relations
Review
Industrial
Relation

17
10%

4
2%

27
15%

19
11%

21
12%

47
26%

2
1.

10
6%

8
5%

2
1%

3
2%

1
1%

15
7%

23
11%

16
8%

34
16%

29
14%

1
1%

4
2%

2
1%

6
3%

2
1%

25
13%

0

16
8%

29
15%

13
7%

23
12%

6
3%

3
2%

3
2%

0

3
2%

4
2%

8
4%

19
10%

7
4%

5
3%

41
20%

21
11%

8
4%

8
4%

1
1%

6
3%

3
2%

5
3%

7
4%

25
19%

4
3%

3
2%

0

8
6%

17
13%

20
15%

8
6%

3
2%

0

21
16%

1
1%

4
3%

3
2%

202

208

89

103

8

69

197

109

122

108

12

50

26

35

26

Percentage

15%

15%

7%

8%

1%

5%

15%

8%

9%

8%

1%

4%

2%

3%

2%

Substantive
studies

12

6

0

1

0

3

32

10

51

84

7

30

21

27

22

Percentage

6%

3%

0

1%

0

4%

16%

9%

43%

78%

58%

60%

81%

82%

79%

IR history

Table 1: Frequency (per cent) of articles published in eight key IR journals by main subject and substantive working conditions content 2002-2008

6

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

Table 1 presents the results of this review. At one level, the review highlights differences in
the focus of particular journals that seem to reflect a combination of editorial policy andlocation. For example, other forms of worker organisation (such as works councils) are amore prominent topic in Economic and Industrial Democracy and, to a lesser extent, otherjournals based in Europe. On the other hand, wages are a far more frequent subject in the two
US-based journals. At another level, there are also some clear patterns shared by most, if notall, journals. Not surprisingly, studies concerned with the organisation and strategy of
employers or unions make up almost a third of all articles. Politics, laws, tribunals andenforcement is the next most common subject area (15 percent of articles). When combined,
these three categories account for almost 45 percent of the total. Articles focusing oncollective negotiation and action account for just over 5 percent of articles representing
almost certainly a decline over the last 30 years. Articles on gender, immigrants and minority
groups (the vast majority of which deal with gender) account for over 9 percent –undoubtedly an increase over earlier periods. Even including several historical pieces on IR
theories and frameworks (usually confined to the last 20-30 years), the number of studies ofIR history was very low – suggesting both a lack of long-term historical reflection and apreference for a current policy focus.
Turning to those subject areas that might be deemed to deal with substantive working
conditions (the last six columns of Table 1), it can be noted that, in total, they were the focus
of only 20 percent of the articles. By far the most popular subject was wages, although thetwo US journals account for two thirds of these articles. Hours of work at one percent isconspicuous by its infrequency even though it may be seen as one of the most basic ofworking conditions. Although OHS is the most popular topic after wages, it accounts for only
four percent of all publications and one journal, Relations Industrielles, accounts for over 40
percent of this.
Articles focusing on substantive working conditions do not always contain relevant empiricalevidence. For example, articles on OHS and gender may largely be concerned withdescribing policies or legislation. On the other hand, articles focusing on employer
organisation or legislation might include a body of empirical evidence on substantive
working conditions, but not sufficient to categorise them as primarily concerned with thissubject. To address this issue, we reviewed articles to identify whether the content included a
substantial component (25 percent or more) on substantive working conditions. With someslight variations, the findings tended to reinforce the ranking based on article title. Of 1349
articles, 306 (23 percent) contained what was deemed to be systematic empirical evidence on
substantive working conditions.
The last row in Table 1 expresses the raw count as a proportion of the total number of papers
published on that subject. Broken down by subject heading, the proportion of studies withevidence on substantive working conditions was employer organisation (six percent), unions(three percent), other forms of worker involvement (zero), IR (one percent), IR history (zero),collective action (four percent), politics and law (16 percent), labour markets (nine percent),
gender and minority groups (43 percent), wages (78 percent), hours (58 percent), OHS (60percent), job insecurity (81 percent), work-life balance (82 percent) and quality of work (79percent). In short, the second count reinforced the point that the vast majority of articles
where the explicit subject was conditions of work (especially wages, hours, job insecurity,
OHS and work life balance) contained empirical evidence of SWC, whereas this wascomparatively rare in articles where the subject was unions, collective bargaining, employer
organisation, labour markets and worker involvement. This finding suggests those writing on
7

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

procedural aspects of IR seldom relate this back to SWC in a detailed fashion. While notsurprising, perhaps it does suggest a gap in research in terms of relating procedures/processes
to actual working conditions.
In sum, despite the shifts described earlier, IR research has provided a limited analysis of thenature and implications of changes in work arrangements that are central to the experience ofworkers and should be of more interest to the field. Assessing the wider effects and costs ofthe growth of insecure and contingent work may contribute to a more informed policy debate
and reinvigorate IR research. It could also act as a reality check on the amount of attention
devoted to some areas of research and debate, such as the attention given to high performancework systems relative to that given to systems based on externalising and intensifying work
arrangements. The next section provides an example of what can be learned from evidence
pertaining to one specific change in substantive working conditions. It also highlights thebenefits of greater engagement with researchers in other disciplines to the field of IR as well
the reciprocal contribution IR can make to their endeavours. The argument that IR has
suffered (like other fields) from disciplinary silos is not a new one but rather than make ageneral argument, the next section tries to provide a specific and detailed case.

Why substantive working conditions matter: Changes to work and OHS
While OHS is only one substantive working condition, like earnings and job insecurity it isarguably a critical one for many workers. In terms of scope and severity, even official data(widely recognised as significantly understating the problem, Quinlan, Bohle & Lamm, 2010)
suggests poor OHS is something most workers will experience at some point and many far
more frequently. For example, every year more than 2000 Australians will die as a direct
result of their work, over 300,000 will suffer a serious injury (Quinlan et al., 2010) and a far
greater number will be exposed to hazardous substances, suffer a minor injury, work shiftsthat result in sleep deprivation, or confront poor psychosocial conditions at the work
(including overload, bullying and harassment). Even during the 1970s (when strike activity
was greater), Australian workers were far more likely to be injured at work than to take partin a strike or other form of collective action.
Like the field of IR itself, OHS draws on research from an array of disciplines, such as
medicine and epidemiology, ergonomics, occupational hygiene and safety engineering, OHS
research provides insights into substantive working conditions that should be of interest to IR
scholars wishing to understand work experiences. It is also an area to which IR specialists
may contribute their knowledge of collective behaviour and institutional mechanisms (Sass,
1989).
Over the past three decades, health researchers have become increasingly interested in how
the organisation of work affects health outcomes. Prominent in this regard was thedemand/control or job strain model developed by psychologist Robert Karasek (1979)
whereby imbalances in task demands and control are posited to have significant healtheffects. The value of the demand/control model was subsequently confirmed by numerous
studies by medical and other health researchers using a range of indices. In particular, thecombination of excessive task demands and low job control were linked to a range of poor
health outcomes, including elevated stress levels, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease
and a reduced probability of return to work after injury mental health (see, for example,
Krause et al., 2001). An alternative effort/reward imbalance model was developed by
8

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

sociologist Johannes Siegrist (1996) for which there is also a supporting body of research byhealth researchers. This model argues that health will be adversely affected where effort
levels outstrip rewards (intrinsic and extrinsic) at work. Both models capture important links
between the social organisation of work and worker health (for overviews of the models, see
Bosma, Peter, Siegirst & Marmot, 1998; Schnaul, Belkic, Landsbergis & Baker, 2000).
It might be expected that these influential models would attract the interest of IR scholars.
Demand/control and effort/reward imbalances should be readily applicable concepts in IR,
given its longstanding interest in effort bargaining, organisational justice and citizenship, andwork intensification. Indeed, this research appears to provide additional and persuasive
evidence to support greater equality and justice at work, including the application ofprocedural collective mechanisms through which these might be secured. In this regard, it
adds to other OHS research on the positive effects of worker involvement, especiallyrepresentative forms, including or supported by unions (see Frick & Walters, 1998; Litwin,
2000; Suruda, Philips, Lillquist & Sesak, 2003), some of which has found its way into theindustrial relation literature (Robinson, 1991; Eaton & Noccerino, 2000; Harcourt &Harcourt, 2000; James & Walters 2002; Walters & Nichols, 2007). However, the Karasek
and Siegrist models, and the evidence they have spawned have received little recognition in
the IR literature (for an exception, see Wood, 2008).
One example that highlights the potential contribution that IR scholars can make to ourunderstanding of the health effects of contingent work is research by Lewchuk and colleagues(see Clarke, de Wolff, King & Lewchuk, 2007; Lewchuk, Clarke & de Wolff, 2008; 2011).
Noting the narrowness of the concept of job strain and job insecurity used by healthresearchers that took limited account of the role of institutions, labour market structures andcareer histories, Lewchuk et al., (2008; 2011) developed the concept of employment strain tocapture both the effort needed to find and retain work as well as social support networks thatmoderated these impacts. Another model of how work organisation affects health developed,
in part, by IR researchers is the economic/reward pressure, disorganisation and regulatory
failure or PDR model (Quinlan & Bohle, 2008; Underhill & Quinlan, 2011). This model
argues that economic/financial pressures on workers (including incentive payment pressures),disorganisation like that arising from subcontracting and union absence, in combination withregulatory failure (like gaps in labour standards applying to self-employed workers)
compromises health and safety standards (Quinlan, Hampson & Gregson, 2013). With regard
to subcontracting these contentions are consistent with earlier work by IR researchers like
Rebitzer (1995).
As noted in the first section of this paper, over the past two decades a significant focus ofinternational OHS research has been to assess the health and safety effects of changes towork organisation, including job insecurity, outsourcing/subcontracting and the increased useof temporary workers (including temporary agency workers). This research was a response torecognition of profound changes in work organisation and labour markets corresponding to
the rise of neoliberalism. Studies have been undertaken in over 25 countries (mostly inEurope, North America, Australia and developed parts of Asia like Japan, Korea and Japan),covering a wide array of industries (as well as population-based studies), and using a range of
methods (longitudinal, case control, survey and official data) and OHS indices (injury rates,
disease and hazard exposures, mental health, occupational violence, compliance withrules/laws and knowledge of and influence on OHS).

9New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

Other studies examined how changes to work organisation, such as downsizing or
outsourcing impacted on public or client safety in particular industries, especially thehealthcare and homecare sectors and transport (see Quinlan et al., 2013). For example, lower
hospital staffing levels have been linked to increased error and infection rates (Aiken, Clarke,
Sloane, Sochalski & Silber, 2002; Andersen et al., 2002; Stegenga, Bell & Matlow, 2002).
Another growing body of research points to how these changes to work arrangements haveundermined the regulatory regimes designed to protect workers, especially in the context ofanti-collectivist changes to IR laws (Johnstone et al., 2001; 2005; 2012; Quinlan &Johnstone, 2009).
From 2001 onward, a series of reviews were undertaken to assess the growing body ofinternational research on the health effects of changes to work organisation, most notably thegrowth of precarious employment (see for example Virtanen et al., 2004; Cheng & Chan,
2008; Quinlan et al., 2001; Quinlan & Bohle, 2008; 2009). It is worth noting in passing thatin fields, such as health sciences, meta reviews are used regularly to assess the state ofknowledge in relation to a particular issue. They provide a basis for analysing a body offindings to establish the overall trends; identify methodological issues (for example, thosestudies whose findings should be given more weight on the basis of methods, data or indices;draw conclusions about the size of particular effects; identify moderating or confounding
factors); identify knowledge gaps and point to new directions for future research. Meta
reviews are not confined to a narrow set of phenomena and can focus on those, like job
insecurity, which are clearly of interest to IR researchers. Meta reviews can also draw on
qualitative studies where the methods are explained and rigorous. Further, some reviews –sometimes called narrative reviews – can draw on the ‘grey literature’ and qualitative studies
because this helps to identify gaps in research as well as providing clues as causal pathways
that are not apparent from a more confined selection of published research.
Unfortunately, meta reviews of published and peer-reviewed research are rarely undertaken
in IR (for exceptions see Doucouliagos & Laroche, 2003; Greenberg, Michalopoulos &Robins, 2003), even though the volume of research and shift to using quantitative researchmethods (Whitfield & Strauss, 2000) makes this more practical than it would have been 25
years ago. Electronic publication, electronic databases and the internet have clearly facilitatedglobal reviews of research publications. Further, it is now more typical for such reviews to bereferred to in reports prepared by governments, tribunals and policy-makers, including
industrial tribunal judgements and government reports relevant to IR (see, for example,
Fooks, Bergman & Rigby, 2007; Secure Employment Test Case (2006) NSWIRComm 38).
Notwithstanding some differences and gaps (for example, there are relatively few studies of
the impact of downsizing on injury or of subcontracting on disease), the reviews tended tofindasubstantial
weightofevidencethat
downsizing/job
insecurity,
outsourcing/subcontracting and temporary work arrangements were associated withsignificantly inferior OHS outcomes. For example, in a review of 86 studies ofdownsizing/job insecurity 85 percent of studies found negative OHS outcomes, eight percent
found mixed results and seven percent found nil or positive OHS effects. Similarly, a review
of 25 outsourcing/subcontracting and homecare/home-based work studies (Quinlan & Bohle,2008) revealed that 92 percent found adverse OHS outcomes with the remaining eightpercent having mixed results (i.e both positive and negative effects). Reviews of research into
temporary employment (both directly employed and agency labour) have also found an
association with worse OHS, although the findings are not quite as pronounced as those justmentioned (see Virtanen et al., 2005). A number of studies have found the adverse health
10

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

effects are not confined to precarious workers but extend to non-precarious workers engaged
alongside them, competing for the same jobs, or surviving repeated rounds of organisational
restructuring (Saksvik & Gustafsson, 2004; Mayhew & Quinlan, 2006).
While a considerable body of this research does not seek to explain the connection between
precarious work and poor OHS, a significant number of studies have used the job strain or
ERI models and a handful have used the employment strain and PDR model. A number of
researchers have sought to establish measurable definitions of precariousness that takeaccount of a raft of working conditions or look at changes in institutional and regulatory
infrastructure (Louie et al., 2006; Benavides & Benach, 2011). Further, as indicated above,others like Richard Johnstone et al. (2001; 2005; 2012) and David Weil (2009; 2011) haveanalysed how the growth of precarious work has unravelled OHS laws and labour standards
regimes in terms of both the substance/form of law and the capacity of inspectorates toenforce them.
Evidence of the profound OHS consequences of changes to work has exerted little influence
on IR research and scholarship, reflecting the neglect of SWC (see Table 1). There areconspicuous exceptions both in terms of individual researchers (like Lewchuk and Weil),articles and journals (most notably, Relations Industrielles and to a lesser extent Economic
and Industrial Democracy) but they remain exceptional.
Ironically perhaps, IR research has lagged behind trends where OHS has become a more
central concern for unions, especially as they seek to deal with significant work
reorganisation and reverse declining membership levels, and also as public policy-makers try
to address the adverse consequences of these same changes. Examples of this include theprimacy of OHS (and public safety) in union campaigns (some successful) for regulating
subcontracting/supply chains in road, maritime and air transport and with regard togarment/clothing manufacture (Weil, 2009; Rawling & Kaine, 2012). In California (USA)and Victoria (Australia), nurses unions conducted successful campaigns to mandate
nurse/patient ratios to counteract the OHS, public health and quality impacts of downsizing in
the 1990s (Clark, Clark, Day & Shea, 2001; Gordon, Buchanan & Bretherton, 2008).
Equally, the OHS challenges posed by changes to work organisation, including the growing
use of supply chains, and the difficulty of regulatory regimes (including inspectorates) in
dealing with these challenges has been the subject of a series of reports commissioned in theEuropean Union, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere (Goudswaard & de Nanteuil, 2000;
Goudswaard, 2002; Bohle, Cooke, Jakubauska, Quinlan & Rafferty, 2008; Cardiff University
et al., 2011).

Substantive working conditions, inequality and the future of Industrial
Relations
The past four decades have witnessed profound changes in labour markets, particularly in the‘old’ industrial countries in Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.
The changing world of work has been marked by a growth of temporary (including agency
labour) and part-time employment as well as multiple-jobholding and self-employment(facilitated in part by increased subcontracting). In Australia and Canada, for example,
around 40 pe cent of the workforce holds contingent jobs, either through temporary work or
self-employment (Felstead & Jewson, 1999; Robertson, 2006; Vosko, 2006). Further, the11New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

growth of precarious work arrangements in combination with repeated rounds ofdownsizing/restructuring in the public and private sector has led to widespread job insecurity
amongst those holding notionally permanent/ongoing jobs. These changes have brought withthem substantial changes in working conditions, and an overall increase in inequality at work
(Benach et al., 2007). The previous section provided evidence of the magnitude of theseeffects with regard to but one dimension of working conditions, namely OHS.
Evidence on the adverse health effects of precarious employment and policy debates
surrounding this, as well as linking OHS to other working conditions in this regard, raises anumber of questions about fractured academic discourse. It is arguable that disciplinary silos
have inhibited a more integrated study of inequality at work, especially its consequences forhealth. Not surprisingly, perhaps, by far the bulk of research on the health effects ofprecarious employment has been published in health and medical journals with relatively few
studies (including Rebitzer, 1995; Park & Butler, 2001) appearing in industrial relations,
HRM, sociology, labour law or management journals. Of the fields just mentioned IR is, in
our view, best suited to facilitate a more integrated approach to exploring the health and otherdimensions of precarious employment. The reasons for this include its interests in public
policy; procedures affecting working conditions and job quality; and (unlike HRM with its
more micro focus) institutions, collective interests and regulation of work. Engagement withother fields, such as labour law and psychology (especially research on control of working
hour relationships) is essential but IR is especially central.
There is a case for stronger engagement between health and IR researchers in terms of better
understanding the impact of inequality at work and devising measures to counteract this. In
particular, we can identify five justifications for or benefits of greater engagement.
First, health and safety outcomes – like earnings, hours of work, work/life balance and work
intensity – are substantive conditions of work and central to workers’ experience of work.
Substantive conditions are arguably critical to any assessment of inequality at work and havethe advantage of being easier to measure and compare than procedural standards. The use ofmeta reviews – common in the health sciences but comparatively rare in industrial relations –to bring evidence together on substantive working conditions is worthy to note in this regard.
Further, OHS, like other substantive working conditions, are important at a policy level.
Minimum labour standards (both global and national) are an attempt to set boundaries as towhat is socially acceptable in relation to some substantive working conditions, such as
minimum wages, hours and OHS. The ILO’s Decent Work Agenda is an effort to bothglobalise and integrate an array of substantive working conditions into the standard setting
debate (see also Bachelet, 2011). Research into substantive working conditions can contributeto more informed standard setting and enforcement practices. At another level, it would seemto be difficult to discuss more ambitious policy objective of ‘quality work’ without reference
to substantive working conditions which not only provide floor labour standards but (as withOHS and work/family balance) can also be used as indicators of superior work arrangements(see below).
Second, while there has been a growth of multi-disciplinary research teams and someindustrial relations scholars (like David Walters and Wayne Lewchuk) have also published inhealth and medical journals (and vice versa) most of those researching on the health effects ofprecarious employment have been trained in medicine, epidemiology, other health sciences or
psychology. In general, despite some notable efforts, these researchers lack knowledge of
how institutions (including unions) and regulation shapes labour markets – something more
12New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

typically found within the fields of industrial relations and labour law scholarship (if anythinglabour law has engaged more with this area, see Johnstone et al., 2001; 2005; 2012; Lippel,
2006). In short, IR scholars have something to offer in terms of their knowledge of collective
behavior and institutional mechanisms (Sass, 1989; Nichols et al., 2007). Further, as the workof Lewchuk et al. (2008) demonstrates IR researchers can also provide insights into how thereshaping of labour markets and work impacts on other working conditions like earnings,
hours of work and work intensity as well as institutional effects relating to union presence.
Of course, inter-disciplinary engagement needs to be a two way process. A growing numberof health researchers (including psychologists focusing on health) have recognised the needto understand more about labour market structures, work arrangements, labour regulation andother aspects of IR, including lean production (Aronsson, 1999; Landsbergis, Cahill &Schnall,, 1999; Saloniemi, Virtanen & Vahtera, 2004; Berntson, Sverke & Marklund, 2006;
Benach et al., 2010). A number, like Aronsson and Virtanen, have published in IR and related
journals on work (like Work, Employment and Society). Landsbergis et al. (1999) wrote on
the link between the employer strategy of lean production and OHS (for an exceptional pieceof parallel research on the same theme involving collaboration between an OHS and IR
researcher, see Wright & Lund 1996; 1998). In 2001, a leading epidemiological journal
published a glossary of terms concerning unemployment, job insecurity and health because
the editors believed it was important for its readership to better understand social factors inhealth and disease (Bartley & Ferrie, 2001). A report on employment conditions and healthinequalities prepared for the World Health Organisation (Benach et al., 2007) drew on IR andlabour law literatures, especially in the section dealing with policies. Health scientistdominated research teams have also sought to develop more precise measures of precarious
employment (and sub-categories of it) on the basis of labour market characteristics and tolink this to broader socio-economic inequalities (see, for example, Louie et al., 2006;
Benavides & Benach, 2011). This would seem to provide a useful area for engagement with
IR researchers.
One of the critical reasons to build such bridges is that they can facilitate, not simply a better
appreciation of the overall effects of workplace change on the health and well-being ofworkers, but also assist to develop understanding of why and how these effects occur and theinteraction with other working conditions such as irregular working hours and earnings (seeAronsson, Dallner, Lindh & Goransson, 2005; Boivin, Tremblay & James, 2007). With its
knowledge of institutions and laws regulating work, employer strategies and unions, the fieldof IR has an important contribution to make here – and some have already pursued this path(see the work of Lewchuk, and Lund and Wright already referred to).
Third, consistent with the last point, we would also suggest industrial relations as a field hassomething to gain from engaging with health research on work organisation. Notwithstanding
some limitations, the job strain and effort/reward imbalance models have provided a
substantiated link between work organisation and health outcomes and the notions of job
control/demand and effort/reward imbalance would seem to fit neatly within an industrial
relations perspective. Siegrist’s effort/reward model incorporates both extrinsic and intrinsic
rewards and would seem to offer parallels with the notion of effort bargaining familiar to IR
scholars. Similarly, serious social debate about worker participation or industrial citizenshiphas largely evaporated since the 1970s, subsumed by a new authoritarian climate dominatedby notions, such as corporate leadership, teamwork, and high-performance work systems.
However, the Karasek model provides global evidence that giving workers greater decisionmaking latitude in their work and moderating the demands made on them (or balancing to
13

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

better match the control they exercise) is not simply a desirable social option but a measurethat safeguards their health and wellbeing. Further, research into teamwork and highperformance work systems is hardly balanced by a similar degree of analysis of the larger
number of precarious workers in industries like hospitality or transport, who lack even themost basic decision making latitude in their work. A report on changing work arrangements
prepared by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work observed that there “is alasting difference in job control: even when we take several other variables into account,workers with a non-permanent contract have less autonomy in their work” (Goudswaard,
2002: 32). Even those who appear to exercise independent control (such as own-accountsubcontractors), formal legal independence and nominal task control may be insignificant
when measured against their limited economic resources and organisational control (Carayon& Zijlstra, 1998).
Fourth, there are policy grounds for a stronger focus on substantive working conditions.
Evidence concerning the OHS effects of precarious employment provides further justification
for new policy interventions addressing work arrangements. It strengthens criticism of theinequality fostered by these arrangements, in terms of wages for example, emanating from IR
research (Bhartia & Katz, 2001). Indeed, it adds a powerful policy leverage point because of
the level of concern about health issues in the community. There are also potential policy
benefits in using Karasek models etc. to set benchmarks and objectives. For example,
decision latitude and demand items could be used to establish exposure benchmarks withregard to psychosocial conditions at work which could, in turn, be used to set minimum
labour standards (i.e exposure levels that are not health-damaging) or intervention points forgovernment inspectors as well as tools for identifying superior working conditions. Similarly,
measures of financial/economic pressure, disorganisation and regulatory failure could guideinterventions or reorganisation of work and associated policies. Consistent with earlier points,
the benefits of this approach are likely to extend beyond health. At a broader level, healthresearch pointing to spillover effects between work arrangements and public health, andsafety referred to earlier require attention when considering arguments for regulating labour
markets or facilitating institutional arrangements, such as collective bargaining that have thiseffect. Echoing the findings of government inquiries a century ago (Quinlan, 2013a, b)
research points to the health damaging effects not only of inequality at the workplace but thelocation and quality of housing that flow on from this as well as effects on diet and children’s
education (see Barling & Mendelson, 1999; Muntaner et al., 2011).
Fifth but not least, health research on precarious employment in particular, and social
inequality, more generally, provides both evidence and a focus for IR scholars, who areconcerned with addressing adverse shifts to work organisation and institutional relationships.
For example, in addition to research on health costs of inequality discussed earlier (see, too,Marmot, 1998 for how the social gradient shapes health inequalities), there is researchsuggesting more equal societies outperform less equal societies in terms of macro-efficiency(Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). We would argue that IR as a field has much to gain from astronger focus on inequality and engaging with scholars in other fields researching inequality
at work which, as in the case of health research, is highlighting the profound and cascading
effects of precarious employment.
Adverse health is but one outcome of inequality at work. Equally, the rise of precarious
employment is only one of number of consequences of neoliberalism that impact on workwith others, including declining union density and economic/labour market imbalances. In
short, the argument for a greater focus on inequality in the field of IR is both timely, and will
14

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

have benefits beyond those identified in this chapter. The need for a shift in IR
research/scholarship has been debated for some time, and our argument can be seen toparallel Kelly’s (1998) contention that IR needs to focus on injustice at work as a pivotal
point for understanding collective mobilisation by workers.
We prefer the concept of inequality to injustice because, in our view, inequality is a wider
term and arguably underpins injustice. Indeed, as Grayling (2007: 116-117) observes,
inequality has long been a defining characteristic of work illustrated by Aelfric’s pre-Normanexchange between a master and a ploughman (“Yes it is hard work, because I am not free”)
through to William Holderby, the first organiser of agricultural labour against landowners;
the emergence of journeymen combinations in the 13th century; the Diggers’ call for common
ownership of land in the 17th century; revolts by and campaigns against slavery in 17th to 19th
centuries, the growth of unions; the sabotage of Luddites and Captain Swing in the early 19 th
century; Chartism and campaigns against child labour and for shorter working hours in the
19th century and the great social reform mobilisation of the late 19th and first half of the 20th
century. As Grayling (2007) also argues, these struggles did not occur in isolation. Theyinteracted with, or drew on, gains made in struggles for religious freedom/individual
conscience, independent scientific method and inquiry, human rights/dignity and equality
over the past five centuries that made the liberal democracies of the modern West. It is not bycoincidence that totalitarian societies like Nazi Germany (1933-1945) or China today refuse
to tolerate independent unions of workers. It also remains contested ground within liberal
democracies as dominant elites (economic and political) seek to retain and extend theirwealth and power.
The emergence of collective organisation amongst workers was a response to inequality
associated with changes to work organisation, (notably contractual employment and thedivision of labour), which were cornerstones of modern capitalist societies. It is also worth
recalling that a critical set of issues underpinning labour mobilisation in period 1880-1920 in
the UK, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere were substantive working conditions, notably
the combination of low wages with long and irregular hours of work (often referred to as
sweating), and its association with workplace hazards and cascading effects the resulting
inequality on the community. It was also a struggle against precarious employment and,indeed, this very term was repeatedly used in the press, House of Commons debates andextensive government inquiries into working conditions that documented these impacts, suchas the House of Lords inquiry into sweating 1889-1890 and UK Commission into Labour
1892-4 (Quinlan, 2012).
As noted in the introduction to this paper, the consolidation of organised labour in richcountries in the 20th century, including growing political influence and legislative changes(labour standards and the welfare state) in combination with Keynesian macroeconomic
policies wrought changes to the regulation of work, including collective bargaining, that
became the substance of IR research and teaching. Also noted from the mid-1970s onwards,
these institutional arrangements came under sustained attack and the field of IR with it. If IR
is to survive and flourish as an academic field and important source of public policy, it must
accommodate to this challenge and recognise that, in the broader historical context, inequality
at work and the struggle for greater equality is what gave rise to IR and should be its focus.
Greater attention to changes in substantive working conditions provide a particularly
important (though not the only) focal point for IR scholarship – one of both significance inunderstanding problems at work, but also public policy debates surrounding this – both those15

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24

that occur currently and those that should occur (like the pursuit of greater quality andequality at work).
Finally, the term IR itself remains relevant and worthy of use in preference to other terms
currently proffered. The term IR is pluralist, collectivist and inter-organisational inconnotation whereas the field of HRM is intra-organisationally focused (as do terms likeworkplace relations) and connotes an explicit and managerialist commodification of work
arrangements. Other terms like employee relations or employment relations are also flawed(not all workers are employees, indeed, an increasing number are not).
In sum, we contend that IR should be concerned with studying the outcomes (in all forms),
institutions and processes arising from inequality at work.

Conclusion
This paper has illustrated how an examination of the health and safety consequences of amajor shift in work arrangements, the growth of contingent and insecure work, provides
compelling evidence of the sort of inequalities, and ill-considered policies, that should
occupy a more central place in industrial relations, as an academic field and as a contributor
to society. Health constitutes an influential policy lever because of the stark nature of theevidence and the tendency of health issues to stimulate action at both the individual andcollective levels. However, OHS is only one aspect of substantive working conditions thatwarrants more attention from IR researchers. Hours of work (and their consequences forwork-life balance) and job insecurity, for example, are other potentially critical areas thatreceive little attention from IR researchers. Further, as we have sought to show, there are
already fruitful bodies of research in other fields, which IR scholars can both draw from andcontribute to in this regard.
It needs to be reiterated that the argument being mounted here is not simply that IR should
give more attention to OHS. Rather, the argument is that the case of OHS provides one
example of what is to be gained from giving more attention to substantive working conditionsin IR research. More detailed research is required on other substantive conditions like hours
of work, work intensity and earnings/payment systems in particular industries and countries.
In some of these areas, too, there is a capacity to collaborate with other fields (for example,
psychological and medical research into work hour arrangements). Further, periodic meta andnarrative reviews are needed to evaluate the evidence to identify global trends and researchgaps that need to be filled. In our view, such research will not only enrich the field but also
increase the capacity of IR to contribute to important policy debates, including reinforcing theneed for procedural justice and collective decision-making at work.
IR should not abandon its focus on collective, institutional and regulatory aspects of work.
Rather, both conceptual development and policy impact would be enhanced by exploring
how changes to work organisation affect workers and society more generally. Substantive
working conditions provide a basis for this focus. Similarly, IR should not ignore procedural
labour standards (such as the right to organise and union rights of entry). However, wesuggest that if a parallel is drawn with the major wave of labour mobilisation and legislativereform experienced by developed countries a century ago, it should be recalled that a criticalfocus of these struggles was on substantive working conditions, notably minimum wages,
reduced hours of work, protection of the vulnerable and basic safety protections. We consider
16

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 1-24
that substantive conditions – the manifest outcomes of inequality – then as now provide a
powerful justification for legislative and other interventions to secure industrial citizenship.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 25-34

Before and beyond the Great Financial Crisis: Men and education,
labour market and well-being trends and issues in New Zealand
ERLING RASMUSSEN* and BRIAN HANNAM**
Key Words: Gendered education, educational achievement, labour market participation trends

Abstract
This paper provides an overview of a research area in which there is scant research and limited
impact on public policy; namely men and the issues they face concerning their education,
participation in the labour market and their well-being and trends in New Zealand. Men have had
lower levels of educational achievements compared to women across primary, intermediate andsecondary schools for some time and this has become a long-term, embedded pattern. This has
subsequently influenced tertiary education where the current dearth of domestic male students has
become noticeable in several fields (including some concerning ethnicity patterns). The labour
market trends have recorded two rather contradictory patterns: on one hand, some traditional
occupational and industry gender patterns have been remarkable slow to change while other gender
patterns, particular in service and professional occupations, have recorded a dramatic transformationin recent decades. Finally, men’s poor well-being, such as their high rates of suicide, incarceration,(particularly among young men), and work-related deaths and sickness, needs to be a public policy
concern.

Introduction
There have been significant changes in gender participation patterns in education and paid
employment over several decades, and these changes have had widespread economic, social andwell-being effects. While most of the research has focused on women and their situation, this paper
will predominantly focus on trends and issues associated with men. The reasons for focusing on men(as opposed to women) are that there have been considerable changes in men’s educational
attainment and participation in the labour market and these changes will have wide-ranging impacts.
Moreover, the education, labour market and well-being issues associated with men have often been
bypassed or downplayed in the gender literature.
While some studies take a rather inflammatory or hostile approach to new gender participation
patterns, this paper will take a more descriptive approach since there is still – even amongst genderresearchers – a considerable lack of understanding of basic trends and issues associated with men. In
particular, the paper will focus on New Zealand trends and debates. It will also raise concerns whenit comes to the dearth of thinking and research into practical ‘solutions’ in New Zealand. These
concerns are even more alarming when we consider the poor rates of well-being among a growing
number of men, particularly groups of boys, and the major implications that these have for oursociety.
*

Erling Rasmussen AUT Business School, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland.
Brian Hannam. Researcher, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland
Contact: erling.rasmussen@aut.ac.nz This research has been supported financially in 2012 by the NZ Work ResearchInstitute, AUT, Auckland.
**25

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 25-34
While this paper focuses on men, it is important to acknowledge that there are still considerable
educational, labour market and well-being issues for women (Dye, Rossouw & Pacheco, 2012). Thevery slow adjustment in gender patterns amongst highly paid jobs and board positions has been amainstay in recent research and media reports (e.g. Black, 2012; Human Rights Commission, 2012)
and it is an indictment of the current New Zealand society. While these powerful and well-paid
positions are important, they only represent a fraction of overall jobs and positions, and there aremany more women clustered in traditional and/or low paying occupations and in atypicalemployment arrangements. As with male labour market trends and issues, until recently there has
been too little research into the work experiences of these groups of women. Finally, many men andwomen will be affected by the post-2008 punitive changes to social welfare benefits, statutory
minima and employment rights in New Zealand (see New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations
36(3), Fletcher, Hanna & Anderson, 2012; Rasmussen & Anderson, 2010).
The paper will first address the educational gender patterns which show that, although both sexes
have increased their level of educational participation, the educational achievements of women haveleaped that of men. Although this is not the case across all forms of education, there are many formsof education where traditional gender differences have reversed and/or the gender imbalance infavour of women has increased over the last decades. Then, the paper overviews labour market
trends which show two rather contradictory patterns: on one hand, some traditional occupational andindustry gender patterns have been remarkable slow to change while other gender patterns –particular in service and professional occupations – have recorded a dramatic transformation inrecent decades. Finally, the paper presents briefly some well-being trends and issues which show
some rather disturbing gender patterns in terms of suicide, incarceration and work-related deaths andsickness.

Educational gender patterns
It is important to note that female students have been doing better across primary, intermediate andsecondary schools for the past three decades and continue to do so. The increasing number of female
students excelling at school was already well established trend in the 1980s, although Baker (2006)
argues that there was a small gender gap of around 2.3 percent as early as 1970, with girls leading in
12 School Certificate subjects and boys in nine subjects. While it took some time to become anestablished trend, there was already a significant gender gap of 6.1 percent in 1993. At that time,boys were ahead in only four of 21 School Certificate subjects (Baker, 2006).
Why is it important to highlight the fact that there has been a gender gap in school achievements fora considerable time? The answer is because it puts the current debate and its inability to foster
practical interventions into perspective. It also shows that there has been an inexplicable reluctanceto react to the growing gender gap, and there are, even today, very few suggestions of how to deal
with the growing gender gap in school achievements. There have been a considerable bias for several
decades and it is only recently that this gender imbalance favouring women has become a focus forresearch amongst a selected, limited band of researchers. This considerable time-lag and thecontinuous lack of focus on countering gender imbalances and opening of educational and labour
market opportunities appear driven by an embedded research bias which highlights areas where agender imbalance favours men but overlook areas where a gender imbalance favours women. It isalso necessary to acknowledge a well-established research bias in favour of focusing on well-paid,
high level jobs amongst professionals and managers (McLaughlin, 2000).

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 25-34
Not only has there been a significant gender gap among school children, but there has also been afundamental shift in gender patterns amongst teachers and that this shift has been remarkably swift.
While teaching has attracted women for a long time, it was traditionally a male-dominated profession(especially when it came to senior positions). Most observers appear to have forgotten that men
constituted 42 percent of all primary school teachers in 1956. These days, the picture is totallydifferent. In some primary schools, boys will seldom or not at all be taught by male teachers. This
trend will be compounded in the future by the low proportion of new primary school teachers joining
the profession in the new millennium. With just around 10 percent of new primary school teachers
being male and with a considerable number of new teachers leaving the profession, it is expected thatmale primary school teachers will become a rarity in most primary schools in the coming decades.
Similar trends can be found amongst secondary school teachers. In 1971, nearly two-thirds (59percent) of secondary school teachers were male. In recent years, the percentage is around 40 percent
and, as older male teachers start to retire, there will be a strong decline in the proportion of malesecondary school teachers. This could be very problematic as recent studies show that secondary
schooling has become less attractive to teenage boys and they are now leaving secondary schools indroves. Many of these boys are not participation in other form of education or vocational training
and thus become part of the NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) statistics. The‘young NEET people’ have become a key focus for the government’s employment and social welfare
policies with an emphasis on ‘encouraging’ them into either education or (often low-paid)
employment (Fletcher et al., 2012).1 There are, however, still a significant number of teenage boys
leaving secondary school who are going on to gain some form of vocational training in maledominate industries, such as construction, etc., (see below).
Whether the gender of school teachers really matters in the development of boys and girls has now
become a key question. Many gender researchers, however, have previously been concerned (andsome still are) about the lack of suitable role models for women. It has also been suggested that how
we construct classes and subjects and, in particular, how subjects are taught and assessed will have astrong impact on student interest. Currently, the wider impact and acceptability of the newassessment system, NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement), are heavily debated.
Several schools have decided to either run with two assessment systems (giving students a choice of
which assessment system they prefer) or offer another standard assessment approach (e.g. theCambridge International Examination). Leaving these wider considerations aside, it has been argued
that the NCEA system is better suited to how female students prefer to learn and be assessed.2 Thus,
the NCEA system has been associated with the further increase in gender imbalance in favour ofgirls. Whether this is really the case is far from certain and this debate is still unfolding. What iscertain is that the gender imbalance has not narrowed since the introduction of the NCEA system.
When it comes to overall gender patterns in tertiary educational achievements the picture is fairly
similar to educational achievement in schools. There has been a gender imbalance for a long timeand it has continued to grow over the years, and the gender imbalance gap favouring women willcontinue to grow, based on gender patterns in NCEA results. There were already 75,000 more
women than men graduating in 2004. Interestingly, there was a fall in the sheer number of malestudents enrolled in bachelor degrees during 2006-2008 while female students increased theirenrolments. While there is no doubt that women generally have higher enrolments, higher averagepass rates and obtain more degrees than men, there are considerable differences when one considers
particular degrees, subject areas as well as under-graduate versus post-graduate studies. There arestill three areas – engineering, information technology, architecture and building – where men
constitute the majority of students. In many of the other traditionally male-dominated professions –medicine, law, accounting and management – women have higher enrolments than men. In someareas, men have become a very small minority – for example, education and human resource
27New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 25-34
management – and their overall numbers will probably decline further as NCEA results start toinfluence future enrolments.
In terms of gender patterns amongst tertiary education staff, there has been a predominance of men in
most fields until recently. In that light, what is of considerable interest for current and future trends,
is the age distribution of male and female faculty staff and what type of positions and employment
arrangements male and female staff are working under.
Given that men have dominated trades occupations for a long time, these jobs are of particularinterest for the future of male labour market participation. There have been attempts to make trades
education more attractive to women but the participation levels are still very low. Not only aretrades education critical for New Zealand industries, it is also an area in which men have succeeded.
However, in 1992, the National Government introduced a new approach to vocational training – theIndustry Training Act 1992 – as the previous approach was considered unsuitable for the postindustrial society and it provided insufficient flexibility, portability and continuous upskilling (for an
overview, see Rasmussen, 2009: 250-254). Since its introduction, there have been some worrying
signs, such as considerable skill shortages (which have also been influenced by volatile economic
trends and insufficient investments in skills), indicating that the current approach is not working.
There a several factors that have influenced negatively on young people’s training and job
opportunities and, in particular, there are at least three types of systematic problems with the current
training approach. First, the underfunding of technical schools has been conflated by these schoolssometimes taken rather short-term and financially driven decisions which have not favoured‘expensive’ vocational programmes. This was definitely the case during the late 1980s andthroughout the 1990s but it is also a current concern. Second, most vocational programmes rely on anapprenticeship type of training and this relies again on employers providing a ‘public good’ type ofservice where they develop low skill employees into high skill trades people. To make these
employer driven schemes function well in a volatile, open economy can be difficult (Rasmussen &Foster, 2011) and, while it is attuned to prevailing business conditions, it can lead to considerable
skill shortages and timing issues. Third, time-lag issues have been and are currently rampant invocational education and training. At the moment, New Zealand is faced with massive pent-up
building demands as the fall-out from the Christchurch earthquake, leaking building syndrome(affecting thousands of buildings) and insufficient housing development start to influence future job
opportunities. However, the investment in vocational programmes is still flat and young people havegreat difficulty in finding apprenticeships and training places. This has clearly been bad news for acohort of young men who were interested or could have been made interested in vocational educationand training. It also indicates that it is time to reconsider how we manage the flow and ebb of
vocational opportunities and investments.
The above discussion leaves us with one important question: what is being done about this longterm, well-embedded gender gap in educational achievements? The general answer is: not a greatdeal.
The attempts to reconsider traditional policies and practices must be applauded. The blanket supportof female students is no longer in place in most New Zealand universities, Victoria University(Wellington) has quietly dropped its general policy preference favouring female staff, and there arequestions being raised about areas where the gender imbalance favouring women has become verylarge. However, in the latter areas, there needs to be some new thinking since there has been limited
long-term success associated with traditional interventions in male-dominated areas. For example,
targeted attempts to shift the gender balance in the engineering programmes at the University of
Auckland did lead to higher number of female students but they still stayed below 30 percent of all
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 25-34
engineering students. One can only wonder what it would take to shift the low male enrolments in,for example, tertiary programmes in education with the current gender bias in educational
achievements in schools.
There also seems to be a lack of willingness to debate the issues and trends. The problem appears tobe that the underlying thinking seems to be biased in two ways. There has been limited debate,
generally, of the gender imbalances in educational achievements and/or there are attempts to fit
issues and trends with the classical notion of female disadvantage. An interesting example can befound in the various reports on equal opportunities from the Human Rights Commission (HRC)
where the focus tends to be firmly on female disadvantages. As Callister, Leather and Holt (2008:31) point out:
A 14 percent difference in pay, in favour of men, is seen as a ‘wide’ gap by the HRC, but thesame 14 percent gap in tertiary participation, in favour of women, is seen by the HRC as a‘slight’ gap. This suggests that the perceptions of the observer rather than the actual data areoften important.
Similarly, the HRC has also defended women-only scholarships when it was questioned whether
such scholarships were discriminatory (see Callister, Leather & Holt 2008: 31-32). While there is an
overhang amongst older women (50+ years in the latest 2006 Census) where education and skills are
below average, this is no longer the case across the working population and, as shown above, thegender imbalance favouring women in educational achievements is gaining traction and the gap iswidening amongst younger cohorts. If one was concerned about female disadvantages then it would
probably be more fruitful to focus on the educational choices of females and whether their choices
are aligned with high-paying job opportunities. This could, for example, also be aligned with targeted
encouragements in areas such as engineering and IT (despite the associated issues/failures mentioned
above). However, as discussed below, having high-paying job opportunities are not enough; there
needs to be wider career considerations.
In short, overall, there have been few attempts to tackle the gender gap in educational achievements
in a comprehensive fashion in primary, intermediate and secondary schools, the gender gap continues
to widen, the gender bias in tertiary education is also growing, and the large gender imbalance foundamongst school teachers continues to grow. There appears to be very strong forces at play whichkeep these trends and issues off the political agenda, and we have personally been surprised at theunwillingness of professional and union associations to discuss these issues and to present
comprehensive, viable plans.
It is telling that when the 2006 figures of graduates were published, Massey University’s Pro
Vice Chancellor in Education, Professor James Chapman pointed to the long-term
consequences for education of having fewer male teachers but he also commented on thedisappointing response by Ministry of Education officials when these concerns were raised.
While other countries are considering ways of evening up the gender imbalances, there havebeen hardly any suggestions of how this growing gender imbalance is going to be tackled in
New Zealand (Rasmussen, 2009: 230).

Labour market gender patterns
With regard to gender patterns in the labour market, there are several important issues which require
further discussion. First, the labour market participation rates have changed considerably since the29New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 25-34
1960s where paid employment amongst women started to become more of a norm. This has probably
been the most important change in terms of modern labour markets. What has happened with men’slabour market participation is highlighted in figure 10, presented in Dye et al. (2012: 284). There areprobably three outstanding trends illustrated by Figure 10. There has been a dramatic drop in maleparticipation rates over the measured period. The rise in female participation rates is very strong,particularly in the age cohorts beyond 25 years of age. There is still a difference between male andfemale participation rates and this is marked in the crucial ‘career years’ from the mid-20s to the
mid-40s. The latter point needs to be investigated further.
Second, while labour market participation and working time patterns have changed considerably inrecent decades, it is still possible to observe distinct gender patterns. For example, traditional job
patterns still dominate and that means that there are gender imbalances across a number ofoccupations and job types. Thus, men are still dominating in trades, engineering, and manual labour
while women can be found in nursing, education, retail, hospitality and cleaning. Part-time
employment is still predominantly taken up by women and women’s labour market participation andworking time patterns continue to be influenced by child-rearing.3
Third, there has been considerable change within professional and service sector jobs where theincrease in female educational achievements has had significant influence. In short, there is a
noticeable decline in the number of young male doctors, lawyers and accountants graduating. This
indicates that the dominance of men in these professions is now becoming a thing of the past. In New
Zealand, there are also clear ethnicity patterns and this has meant that fewer young male
professionals are of European decent.

Source: Dye et al. 2012: 284.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 25-34
Fourth, the notion of ‘mancession’ has become popular in the USA media debates (Laurence, 2011).
This implies that this and future recessions will mainly affect men as they are employed in industries
and job roles which are recession ‘sensitive’. Whether this argument really applies in the USA as
well as in other OECD countries is yet to be determined, but it fits with the decline in blue-collar andlow skilled manual jobs. It also fits with the rise of women becoming the main ‘breadwinner’ inmany USA households. There are some indications that the New Zealand labour market has
experienced something of a ‘mancession’ during the current global financial crisis:
Between the December 2007 and September 2009 quarters the economy shed 34,000 jobs; 80
percent of these jobs were held by men. Since the December 2007 quarter, women’s
employment has declined by 0.7% compared to a 2.3% fall for men. As a result, there has
been a larger increase in men’s unemployment rate compared with women (DoL, 2010).
One has to be careful not to over-estimate the short-term changes as recent research has indicatedthat the severe downturn in construction post-2008 has also influenced negatively the manufacturingsector (Fallow, 2012). These two sectors have lost a lot of jobs and most of these jobs were occupied
by men.4 It is clear that the upturn in construction will favour men and the associated effects could beeven more beneficial for male employment.
Fifth, there have been some interesting changes in working time gender patterns. The Time Usesurveys have indicated that there is generally little difference in the amount of work that both sexesdo, but there is a stark difference between the amount of paid and unpaid work done by men andwomen. Men put in a considerable number of paid working hours. In fact, New Zealand men scorevery high, compared with men in most other OECD countries. This has prompted concerns about
long working hours and, while this concern is mainly directed at males, this is another area where
women may be ‘catching up’. In fact, Rasmussen, Lind & Visser (2005) suggested that there was aconvergence of male and female long working hours; this is still to be analysed in-depth. The
growing number of women employed in professions is seen as part of this growth in females working
long hours. As Callister (2005) has pointed out, many well-educated women marry well-educatedmen and this tends to lead to ‘working rich’ households. Callister found that many couples withchildren were working (in total) more than 100 hours per week.
Sixth, the debate about women’s access to senior jobs and particularly the low level of female board
directors has featured strongly in the recent New Zealand media stories (as it has in many otherOECD countries). The annual reports from the HRC have focused on the very, very slow progressionof women into executive and board positions. This has now become part of a long-running media
campaign which has prompted some firms to take more proactive steps to lift the number of womenin senior positions. These proactive steps are still very timid, and there needs to be wider
considerations of organisational and career approaches. Moreover, given that these senior positions
only constitute a fraction of the labour market, the current vigorous debate and media attention areperhaps a little out of proportion. However, the HRC has also started to look at female-dominatedoccupations in low paid sectors such as age-care, which is a positive initiative.

Well-being gender patterns
A recent article by Dye et al. (2012) has shown that there are number of concerning well-being
trends amongst women (for example, high level of self-mutilation, depression and domestic
violence). It becomes an even more depressing picture when we consider the men’s well-being
trends/levels for most of the classical well-being indicators. It is well-known that men tend to have amuch shorter average life span than women and it also appears that, generally, women keep fitter for
31

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 25-34
much longer. Being in the workforce, working long hours in paid work and having unhealthy
lifestyles are all ingredients in the shortening of the life of many males. What is of grave concern isthe continuously high rates of male, youth suicides, compared to female suicide rates. This is adisturbing trends and it can only be countered if further research is done focusing on the time period
before the suicide and the reasons why such a drastic step is taken.
…the rise in the suicide rates for males in the late 1980s was driven by a sharp rise in youth(15-24 year olds) suicide deaths. This age group also tends to have the highest suicide rates
across the years, compared with older members of the population. It is a worrying fact that, in
2007, male youth had the second highest suicide rate amongst the 13 most comparable OECD
countries (Dye et al., 2012: 292).
Men also dominate the prison population (over 90 percent are men) and New Zealand has a relatively
high number of men in prisons. There is also a strong ethnic skew and, for example, the highproportion of Maori men being imprisoned is a sad record. This concentration amongst particularmale groups creates a number of associated labour market and social issues. While less severe in
New Zealand, it does remind us of the USA where the high number of prisoners means that
integration and upskilling of ex-prisoners become part of labour market development plans (eg.
Fischer & Reiss, 2010: 36-37). Finally, the high rate of work-related deaths and injuries amongst
men is currently in the spotlight after the Pike River disaster and the government’s attempt to cut
accident compensation costs. Again, men constitute more than 90 percent of all workplace deaths as
they are often employed in high risk industries such as mining, forestry, agriculture and construction.

Conclusion
This paper has focused on issues and trends associated with men in New Zealand. The overallfinding is that many New Zealand men are struggling in terms of education, employment and healthand well-being. The prevalence of high suicide rates amongst young men should be a warning signthat there are serious issues confronting many of these young men. It is also clear that there is more
research required in this area that links male suicide rates with educational, labour market and social
position. Moreover, the widening gender gap (favouring women) in educational achievements signalthat something is not working in New Zealand schools when it comes to boys and young men.
However, this gender gap has been noticeable for a considerable number of years and appears
growing constantly. Furthermore, the underperformance of boys and men has wide implications aswell as serious well-being impacts. Therefore, one has to question: why has it been so difficult to get
this issue on the public policy and education agenda and to get researchers interested in the topic inorder to develop much needed solutions?
While the lack of significant progression of women at senior managerial and board levels is a ‘hot’
media topic, there is still too little research looking into the low paid, and often atypical, employment
done by many women and men. The lack of educational achievements has become a burden formany men and the debate of so-called ‘missing men’ and a limited choice for women has become
part of popular media stories. Men also constitute a large proportion of the NEET figures andamongst those who drift in and out of the job market. This has become a serious public policy issue
subsequent to the 2008 global financial crisis and the current National-led government is determined
to make radical changes in terms of social welfare and employment protection. At the same time, itappears that the underlying reasons for systematic biases and inferior labour market outcomes will
not be addressed sufficiently (if at all).

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 25-34

References
Baker, P. (2006). Understanding the gender gap. New Zealand Herald. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10378016
Black, J. (2012, August 11). The female factor. Listener, p.20-25.
Callister, P. & Lawton, Z. (2011). The New Zealand ‘man drought’. Is it real, what are its causes,
and what are the implications for partnering. Working Paper, October 2011, Wellington.
Callister, P., Leather, F. & Holt, J. (2008, August). Gender and tertiary education: Is it useful to talkabout male disadvantage? Institute of Policy Studies Working Paper, 08/10, Wellington
Davidson, I. (2009, November 5). Gender gap widens among university graduates. New Zealand
Herald. Retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10607333
DOL (Department of Labour). (2010). Why are men more affected by labour market
downturns?Retrieved from http://www.dol.govt.nz/publications/lmr/hlfs-investigation-reports/menlabour-market-downturns-2009dec/men-labour-market-downturns-2009dec.pdf
Dye, J., Rossouw, S., & Pacheco, G. (2012). Well-being of women in New Zealand: the changing
landscape. New Zealand Economic Papers, 46(3): 273-302
Fallow, B. (2012, November 27). Construction growth may be key to manufacturing. New Zealand
Herald, p. B1.
Fischer, D.J. & Reiss, J. (2010, January). Closing the Skills Gap: A Blueprint for Preparing New
York City’s to Meet the Evolving Needs of Employers. Community Service Society & Center for an
Urban Future. Retrieved from http://nycfuture.org/pdf/Closing_the_Skills_Gap.pdf
Fletcher, M., Hanna, K., & Anderson, D. (2012, October 19-29). Income management and extensions
to conditionality in the New Zealand welfare system – the Case of the Youth Payment and Young
Parent Payment. Paper presented at the Labour, Work and Employment Conference, Victoria
University, Wellington.
Human Rights Commission. (2012). New Zealand Census of Women’s Participation 2012.
Wellington: Human Rights Commission
Laurence, J. (2011, March 5). Future looks bleak for males as ‘mancession’ bites. New Zealand
Herald, p. B7.
Lind, J. & Rasmussen, E. (2008). Paradoxical patterns of part-time employment in Denmark?
Economic and Industrial Democracy, 29(4): 521-540.
McLaughlin, C. (2000). Mutually Beneficial Agreements’ in the Retail Sector? New Zealand Journalof Employment Relations, 25(1): 1-17.
Rasmussen, E. (2009). Employment Relations in New Zealand. Pearson: Auckland.

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Rasmussen, E., & Anderson, D. (2010). Between unfinished business and an uncertain future. In E,
Rasmussen. (ed.). Employment Relationships. Workers, Unions and Employers in New Zealand.
(pp.208-223). Auckland University Press: Auckland
Rasmussen, E., & Foster, B. (2011). New Zealand Employer Attitudes andBehaviours: What are the Implications for Lifting Productivity Growth? New Zealand Journal of
Employment Relations, 36(2): 61-76
Rasmussen, E., Lind, J. & Visser, J. (2004). Flexibility meets national norms and regulations: parttime work in New Zealand, Denmark and the Netherlands. British Journal of Industrial Relations,42(4): 637-658.
Rasmussen, E., Lind, J. & Visser, J. (2005). Working time arrangements: what can New Zealandlearn from EU countries? In B, Luciano & D.G, Mayes. (eds.) New Zealand and Europe:
Connections and Comparisons. European Studies Vol 21. (pp.53-74). Editions Rodopi: Amsterdam

Notes
1

Recent controversial changes to legislative minima have curtailed employment protection (personal
grievance rights) and allowed for payments below the statutory minimum wage for unemployedyoung people2

An example of such a position is: “Auckland Grammar headmaster John Morris said the NCEA
curriculum had contributed to the gender gap, as the internal assessment system favoured girls. He
said boys succeeded better in exam-based schooling” (Davidson, 2009: 2).
3

There are some countries where this traditional gender pattern has started to evaporate, as discussed
in Rasmussen, Lind & Visser, 2004; Lind & Rasmussen, 2008.
4This has prompted questions about ‘missing men’ and ‘man drought’ as well as a number of
popular media articles about the difficulties of finding a ‘suitable’ man. “In 2005 Australiandemographer Bernard Salt coined the term ‘man drought’. Based on census data, he described how inAustralia there was a shortage of men in the prime labour market and couple forming age groups.
But at the time he noted that the man drought was more severe in New Zealand stating the reason for
the imbalance being ‘…32-year-old men are not in New Zealand. They’re in Australia, they’re in theUK, they’re in Europe’” (Callister & Lawton, 2011: 12).

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56

Employee-focused Corporate Social Responsibility in practice: Insightsfrom managers in the New Zealand and Australian financial sector
KIRSTY RAUBENHEIMER* and ERLING RASMUSSEN**
Key Words: corporate social responsibility (CSR), employee-focused CSR, managers’ opinions,financial sector and Global Financial Crisis (GFC)

Abstract
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is no longer an optional extra. Global competition, demanding
customers, and media pressures have refocused organisations on their wider social obligations. However,this increased focus on the importance of CSR theoretically has not brought with it a clear indication ofwhat this actually means for organisations and how it is practically implemented. In addition, the role andinclusion of employees remains unclear and often segmented despite their significance being increasingly
acknowledged both within organisations and as a crucial part of the CSR process.
This study aims to fill some of the empirical gaps in the predominantly normative CSR literature byresearching how organisations define employee-focused CSR and, in particular, what employee-focused
CSR-based activities the organisations participate in and promote. Twenty-eight managers from sevenfinancial organisations across New Zealand and Australia completed a questionnaire to this end as part ofa larger doctoral study. The respondents’ definitions highlight a conceptual understanding of CSR and afocus on the organisation’s relationship with a number of key stakeholders. By identifying theorganisation’s approach to CSR, a development process for the formulation and integration of anorganisation’s CSR policies and practices can be illustrated. The findings also suggest specific employeefocused CSR activities have developed with Human Resource Management activities dramaticallyincreasing in focus and importance to the point of becoming embedded in some organisations.
This research, therefore, makes a timely contribution in providing some initial findings and empiricalinsights amongst financial organisations into the practical application and integration of the dynamic andelusive concept of CSR during the global financial crisis.

Introduction
The role of organisations is changing. Customers are demanding increasingly personalised service, themarketplace is becoming increasingly global and competitive, and expectations of media, international
bodies, and society at large have intensified dramatically. Organisations are, therefore, under greatpressure to fulfil an increasingly broad range of stakeholder needs (Garavan & McGuire, 2010). Whileachieving profits has dominated corporate strategies in the past and remains vital to organisational
success, organisations are now, through necessity, focusing on their broader social responsibilities as
well.

*

Doctoral Student, Department of Management, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland (AUT),
kirstyraubenheimer@aut.ac.nz**
Professor of Work and Employment, Department of Management, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland (AUT),
erling.rasmussen@aut.ac.nz

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is, therefore, taking a more prominent position on corporate
agendas (Smith, 2003), and there is a growing global consensus that CSR not only remains a mainstream
business concept (Werther & Chandler, 2006) but increasingly should be “at the heart of business”(Bevan, Isles, Emery & Hoskins, 2004: 35). However, despite an increased focus on its importance, there
is still major disagreement as to what CSR actually means and, more specifically, how it is implemented(Garavan & McGuire, 2010).
Significant research has been conducted on the development of CSR (Freeman, 1984; Carroll, 1991;
Blowfield & Murray, 2008; Bolton, Kim & O’Gorman, 2011). The research has sought to define CSR(Carroll, 1999; WBCSD, 1998; CEC, 2001; Decker, 2004; Werther & Chandler, 2006; Blowfield &Murray, 2008; Garavan & McGuire, 2010), and there has also been some research addressing CSR
standards and what CSR should include of organisational activities (Vuontisjärvi, 2006). This standard
setting has been promoted by several non-academic bodies (Bitc, 2007; FTSE, 2007; GRI, 2011).
However, little attention has been given to empirical investigations of what organisations think CSR
means for them and what they are actually doing. In addition, while environmental and communitybased initiatives have dominated media and organisational attention (Pirsch, Gupta & Grau, 2007; Young& Thyil, 2009), employees have, for the most part, been neglected from the discourse. This is in spite of
the fact that it is well recognised in the literature that the important asset of a business is its employees(Pfeffer & Veiga, 1999; Young & Thyil, 2009; Bonfiglioli, Moir & Ambrosin, 2006).
The purpose of this study, therefore, is to build on the predominantly normative literature and empiricallydetermine how organisations conceptualise and implement CSR. More specifically, this study aims toprovide insight into how employee-focused CSR is defined by financial organisations in New Zealandand Australia and if employee-focused activities are included in their CSR initiatives. The rest of thispaper is structured as follows: first, it reviews the literature relevant to defining CSR and employeefocused CSR, as well as identifying activities currently considered part of employee-focused CSR. Then,the research methodology is presented and data analysis methods are explained. Next, the findings arepresented and discussed. Finally, implications, limitations, and directions for future research areprovided.

Literature Review
Refocusing on CSR
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has had a long and dynamic history of conceptualisation (Carroll,
1999; Smith, 2003; Truscott, Bartlett & Tywoniak, 2009) in both corporate practice and academia. An
extensive array of terminology and synonyms associated with the concept has become established in theliterature during its development (Bolton et al., 2011). Contemporary research appears to have cemented
CSR as a meaningful area of inquiry, with it receiving more attention than ever before (Margolia &Walsh, 2003; De Bakker, Groenewegen & Den Hond, 2005).
Companies and, in particular, large multinationals are increasingly taking, with their influence, power,
and economic strength, a dominant position in society (Blowfield & Murray, 2008) and sometimes evenbeyond the role of government in certain instances and countries (Smith, 2003). Responsible for thedelivery of many of the necessities of modern life, including food, housing, and medicine, businesses arepromoted and recognised as the “engines of society that propel us towards a better future” (Werther &Chandler, 2006: 5).
However, after a number of international scandals in recent years, including Enron, Paramalat,
WorldCom (Silberhorn & Warren, 2007), the gulf of Mexico BP oil spill as well as the more recent
banking financial crisis, CSR has again been brought to the forefront of the business agenda (Dunning,36

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
2003; Bolton et al., 2011). Combined with a proliferation of media exposure, legal guidelines, andincreased stakeholder expectations (Hill, 2006), companies are being forced to “embrace the notion they
exist to do more than just make a big profit” (Glade, 2008: 51) for the sake of maintaining theirreputation, brands, and profits.
Besides being prominent on the corporate agenda (Smith, 2003), CSR is also being promoted as a leading
topic by many international bodies, including the World Business Council for Sustainable Development(WBCSD, 1999). The World Economic Forum (WEF) has also noted the need for business to focus not
only on corporate competitiveness but corporate governance (including increased integrity,
accountability and transparency), as well as corporate citizenship (beyond compliance and philanthropy)
as their integration will “play a crucial role in shaping the agenda for business leaders in the coming
decades” (WEF, 2003: 2).
In response to these pressures, businesses are “working harder than ever to display that they are
responsible corporate citizens” (Bolton et al., 2011: 62) and this requires “effective management of thecompany’s wider impacts on and contributions to society (namely CSR), making appropriate use of
stakeholder engagement” (WEF, 2003: 2).
I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is
an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons forour being...[companies] is to make a contribution to society, a phrase which sounds trite, but isfundamental (Dave Packard, a co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, as cited in Handy, 2002: 54)
CSR activities aren’t optional anymore. The evidence is clear. We know that unless we placesuch activities at the heart of our business strategies, we won’t deliver the performance benefits
clearly available. CSR is no longer about buffing up one’s corporate reputation. It’s about doing
good business (Paul Bateman, HR and Operations Director, Boots Group, as cited in Anonymous,
2004).
As a result, not embracing CSR activities is often viewed as more costly than engaging in them and has
become less and less of a viable option for organisations (Pirsch et al., 2007). Instead, organisations are
expected to take on roles beyond a single bottom-line (profit) philosophy and realign themselves to focus
on the individual needs of all their stakeholders (Garavan & McGuire, 2010). This perspective wasdeveloped a while ago in Freeman’s (1984) Stakeholder Theory, which states that:organisational survival and success is contingent upon satisfying both its economic (e.g. profit
maximisation) and non-economic (e.g. corporate social performance) objectives, by meeting theneeds of the company’s various stakeholders (Pirsch et al., 2007:127).
This has, unfortunately, also made CSR more difficult to implement. With customers, employees,
investors, suppliers, government, trade unions, and environmental groups (Clarkson, 1995; Donaldson &Preston, 1995; Whitehouse, 2006) all possible stakeholders to be considered, it is understandable thatmeeting all of their distinct and often contradictory needs can be problematic and raises issues of
stakeholder salience (Mitchell, Agle & Wood, 1997; Seitanidi, 2009).
CSR defined?
Although there is agreement about its importance (Blowfield & Murray, 2008), there is still major
disagreement as to what CSR means and, more specifically, how it is to be implemented (Garavan &McGuire, 2010). Having increased in scope, it is apparent the concept incorporates a number of different
elements, ranging from “values and philosophies, to societal and environmental issues, businessstrategies, and the relationship between business and society” (Decker, 2004: 714). Therefore, according
to the literature, a meaningful definition needs to be dynamic and focus on the management of37

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
businesses, their stakeholders, financial legitimacy, and community and environmental impacts (Decker,
2004).
CSR is an eclectic field with loose boundaries, multiple membership, and different
training/perspective; multidisciplinary. It draws on a wide range of literature; interdisciplinary(Carroll, 1994: 14).
Corporate social responsibility means something, but not always the same thing to everyone. To
some it conveys the idea of legal responsibility or liability. To others it means socially
responsible behaviour in the ethical sense. To still others, the meaning transmitted is that of‘responsible for’, in a causal mode. Many simply equate it with a charitable contribution. Sometake it to mean socially conscious. Many of those who embrace it most fervently see it as a meresynonym for legitimacy in the context of being proper or valid, while a few see a sort of fiduciary
duty imposing higher standards of behaviour of businessmen than on citizens at large (Garriga &Melé, 2004: 52).
The lack of a widely agreed definition contributes to misunderstanding and cynicism towards theconcept itself. If CSR means different things to different people then debate on its importance inbusiness strategy formulation and stakeholder management becomes confused, if not impossible(Decker, 2004: 714)
As the above quotations illustrate, not having a clear definition is problematic and adds to the difficultyof practical implementation (Godfrey & Hatch, 2006; Garavan & McGuire, 2010). This lack ofconsensus does hinder the theoretical development of CSR (Silberhorn & Warren, 2007). Thus, CSR is
still considered to be in a “continuing state of emergence” (Locket, Moon & Visser, 2006: 117), with“highly permeable boundaries” (Busentiz et al., 2003: 285), meaning it is constantly changing and being
influenced and incorporated into other disciplines.
On the other hand, the dominating themes and areas of focus within CSR definitions are very similar andthey focus mainly on:
 understanding and managing stakeholder relationships (Werther & Chandler, 2006), in balancewith profit maximisation (Blowfield & Murray, 2008).
 the desirability and effectiveness of market-based solutions to societal and environmental
challenges (Blowfield & Murray, 2008).
 contributions to social good (Husted & Allen, 2007)
 moving beyond mere compliance by implementing voluntary and self-regulated CSR policies andpractices (Blowfield & Murray, 2008).
In an attempt to provide a comprehensive and all-encompassing definition, the World Bank (2003)
defines CSR as:
the commitment of business to contribute to sustainable economic development, working with
employees, their families, the local communities and society at large to improve their quality oflife, in ways that are both good for business and for [international] development.
(as cited in Petkoski & Twose, 2003: 1)
While this definition provides a comprehensive overview, some, including Blowfield and Murray (2008),
prefer to describe CSR in terms of company values and codes of practice, including fairness, integrity,and honesty. In addition, the size, wealth, power, and sphere of influence of a company are believed bysome to impact on or affect the responsibilities of an organisation. For example, a multinational’s CSR
responsibilities and activities will be considerably different from those of a small to medium-sizedenterprise (SME) (Windsor, 2001).
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
Werther and Chandler add to this view by distinguishing the responsibility differences across industries
and conclude that, with so many variables to consider, it is “impossible to prescribe what mix of
responsibilities a company faces” (2006: 7). Subsequently, instead of focusing on a non-existentuniversal definition, companies should build their CSR strategies around their particular stakeholders andthe strategic priorities of the firm (Werther & Chandler, 2006; Blowfield & Murray, 2008).
CSR, therefore, requires a “mental shift in communicating (internally and externally) and beingtransparent as a company, towards employees, clients and other stakeholders” (Cramer, Jonker & van der
Heijden, 2004: 216). It should work towards building lasting and cooperative relationships that, while
recognising and understanding the international context, focus on the specific strategies and priorities of
its business and its stakeholders (Preuss, Haunschild & Matten, 2009).
Despite this increased focus within the literature, many companies still find integrating their corebusiness with CSR awkward and difficult (Anonymous, 2008; Crane, McWilliams, Matten, Moon &Siegel, 2008; Truscott et al., 2009). In addition, the possibility of meeting public demand, while
positively impacting on the bottom line at the same time, becomes unlikely and improbable (Henderson,2001). Unfortunately, the continued confusion and debate around the definition and meaning of CSR(Truscott et al, 2009) has been echoed in the haphazard and dispersed literature on CSR practices(Campbell, 2007; Matten & Moon, 2004).
Focused predominantly on standardised systems (Truscott et al, 2009), limited attention has been given
to a more focused and organisational specific approach that links with corporate strategy to provide clear
and practical CSR guidelines (Bolton et al., 2011; Porter & Kramer, 2006). This is probably not overly
surprising, given that the majority of literature in this area is normatively based and includes limited
empirical data on actual organisational practices.
Employee-focused CSR
CSR literature tends to be focused on external pressures and outcomes (Bolton et al., 2011) with aparticular strong environmental and/or society angle, and a large part of the literature neglects employees
and their potential role. Despite employees or ‘human resources’ being increasingly acknowledged as themost important asset of a business (Pfeffer & Veiga, 1999; Young & Thyil, 2009) and providing vital
input into the creation and implementation of the CSR process as a key stakeholder (Bolton et al., 2011),
employees are generally treated as a separate labour issue and not a central and integrated component of
CSR. In the literature, employees are for the most part seen as:… something of a by-product of CSR activity rather than an integral part of the process. The
actual engagement of employees with and the role they play in the creation of the CSR brand isbarely acknowledged (Bolton et al., 2011: 64).
However, in order to deliver flawless service, as well as keeping up to date with rapid technologicaladvances and developing core competencies, organisations, according to Bonfiglioli et al. (2006), needskilled and motivated employees. Organisations are dependent on these skilled employees forknowledge and know-how, as well as improvements in customer service and, ultimately, businessperformance (Bevan et al., 2004). Therefore, understanding, engaging, and developing employees is ofvital importance to all organisations (Bonfiglioli et al., 2006).
The relationship between a business and its employees can be regarded as a precondition for
CSR: if a company does not assume a high level of responsibility for its employees, how can it beresponsible to its customers or to the social or natural environment in which it operates(Vuontisjärvi, 2006: 333).

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
In terms of focusing on employees, organisations are called to include philanthropic activities on their
CSR agendas (Carroll, 1991) or, taking this one step further, become corporate citizens (WEF, 2003;
Bolton et al., 2011). Yet, there remains very limited explanation as to what any specific activities mightbe, other than being told that being philanthropic should include “issues within a corporation’s discretion
to improve the quality of the life of employees, local communities, and ultimately society in general(donations, sponsorship, etc.)” (Mattila, 2009: 541), and activities should add stakeholder value (Peloza& Shang, 2011), and involve stakeholder engagement (Bolton et al, 2011).
Looking beyond mainstream academic literature, a growing number of global standards and initiatives
have been developed to assist organisations with their CSR reporting. These standards, which include
environmental, economic and social classifications, provide greater insight into specific CSR-related
activities. Employee and/or workplace related activities will be focused on for the purpose of thisresearch, The following table provides a summary of the employee-focused performance indicators ofsome of the better known global bodies.
Table 1: Employee-focused performance indicators
GlobalBusiness in FTSE4GOOD Dow
Jones EU and its Green
Reportingthe
Sustainability
Paper (CEC)
Initiative
Community
Index (DJSI)(GRI)(Bitc)
Employee- employment  training and  diversity,
 training and lifelong learning,
focusedrelations,careerdevelopment,  empowerment, flexible
indicesdevelopment, working, benefits,
 remuneration,  communication,
diversity,
 collective
 benefits, performance work-life balance,culture,bargaining,
management,  diversity, health and supportive
 health and benefits,safety, remuneration andworkingsafety,training and diversity,
benefits,
environment,
development,  freedom of training and health and safety,
health anddevelopment, employment
association
 diversity,
safety,diversity
relations, anti-discrimination
flexibility and collective
work-life
bargaining,balancecharitable
donations
Bitc (2007)  FTSE (2007)
GRI (2000SAM Indexes
European2011)GmbH (2006)
Commission(2001)

The above criteria were made more specific by Vuontisjärvi who, based on an analysis of the annual
reports of Finland’s 205 largest companies, identified and compiled a list of the most commonly included
employee-focused policies and practices. These include, in order of importance at the time: training and staff development pay and benefits participation and staff involvement
 values and principles
 employee health and wellbeing
 measurement of policies
 employment policy security in employment
 equal opportunities (diversity) work-life balance(2006: 337).
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
Building on Vuontisjärvi’s (2006) criteria, as well as drawing on the other well-known global reporting
indicators from the table above, the following set of employee-focused CSR criteria was established(Raubenheimer, 2008: 95). In no particular order, these include: training and career development: life-long learning emphasis and spending per employee
 diversity: organisational demographics, anti-discrimination, equal opportunity promotion,
minority and disability group inclusion, women in management programmes, age-neutral
policies, and cultural inclusion
 supportive working environment: work-life balance, part-time and flexible working options,employee participation and involvement, two-way communication channels, and family support,
including childcare facilities and maternity and paternity leave policies
 health and safety: employee wellbeing, education, counselling, and workplace policies andpractises remuneration and benefits: share plans, employee appraisals, performance standards, and bonus
schemes employee engagement and satisfaction: surveys and employee empowerment
 employment relations (ER): union relationships, collective bargaining, and freedom of association
 organisational values: codes of ethics, mission statements, value, and business principles
 employment policy: layoffs, restructuring policies, turnover, retirement, recruitment and selection
policies, and job creation initiatives.
With the above activities in mind, it is also important to note that an organisation’s CSR purpose isinfluenced by a number of factors, including in which country a company operates, the consumers acompany serves, the industry in which a company operates, the international institutional standards acompany must meet, and the local and international trends a company faces (Blowfield & Murray, 2008).
As a result, as the mix of these issues will evolve over time and vary from company to company, it is
impossible to prescribe the exact combination of issues included in a company’s CSR purpose at any
particular time (Whether & Chandler, 2006).
However, with limited empirical studies available, it remains to be seen whether practicalimplementation reinforces or contradicts the literature’s positive assessment of CSR and its benefits.
Research Questions
The above discussion highlights the positive but normative nature of the current literature and illustrates
the absence of a clear definition and lack of certainty around CSR activities. The present study, therefore,
aims to fill some of these gaps in the literature by exploring and answering the following questions: How do organisations define and conceptualise CSR?
 Are, and if so, how are employees included in this understanding?
 What employee-focused CSR activities do organisations participate in and promote?
The following sections will explain, therefore, how this research set about trying to answer thesequestions empirically and what it uncovered.

Methodology
SampleOrganisations within the financial sector in New Zealand and Australia were chosen as the area of focus
for this research. Ten organisations (five pairs) were approached because of the potential for comparative
41

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
analysis between their Australian and New Zealand based operations. Unfortunately, only sevenorganisations agreed to participate. All five New Zealand organisations are involved but only two of thefive Australian organisations agreed to participate.
As well as the potential for comparison, all organisations were chosen because they publically state, via
their websites and annual CSR reports, that they are actively engaged in CSR-related activities. Thus, thesample selection cannot be considered random and is not intended to be representative of the financial
sector in either country but rather to provide some initial new empirical insights about employee-focused
CSR.
While basic financial services are seen as “important in creating a cohesive society” (Decker, 2004: 716),
the financial sector also provides a service sector and multinational enterprise perspective of large
economically powerful companies, with organisations based across national boundaries. This allows for acomparative analysis, which was a key reason for targeting pairs of organisations in Australia and New
Zealand.
Secondly, as discussed by Welford (2005) and Pedrini (2007), large corporations are more likely to havespecialised HRM departments, with more developed and specialised policies and processes that link inwith the organisations’ strategies than would their smaller counterparts. Thirdly, large organisations tend
to be more transparent (Guthrie, Petty & Ricceri, 2006) in respect of their internal systems and tend to beunder greater public scrutiny (Paveline & Porter, 2008). Therefore, their CSR compliance and reportingare often promoted and reports are more readily made publically available.
Given the recent financial crisis, financial organisations have come under greater scrutiny. Both the
public and media have been very critical of organisational practices and strategic choices, particularly
with regard to issues of ethics. Transparency has subsequently become even more important. The
financial sector and banks in particular have had to refocus on regaining the trust of their customers.
Dependent on their intangible services (Decker, 2004), this has meant an increased focus on employees
as a means to meet these more discerning and demanding consumer needs (Bevan et al., 2004).
Focused on better understanding an organisation’s relationship with its employees, this study centres on
managers within each organisation who hold roles or are closely associated with Human Resources,
Corporate Social Responsibility, or Employer Branding focused departments. This research reports on 28
managers from these areas across the seven organisations. They ranged in age from 18 to 50 years with
19 women and nine men participating. Respondents ranged from three to six per organisation.
Research design
This paper draws on some initial results from a larger Doctoral thesis project (see Raubenheimer, 2012).
Given the limited and predominantly normative literature, as well as the research questions underinvestigation, this study is based on a constructivist epistemology (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994; Creswell &Plano Clark, 2007), with an interpretist paradigm (Hussey & Hussey, 1997; Grant & Giddings, 2002),
and draws on phenomenological methodology (Goulding, 2005; Conklin, 2007). As a result, qualitative
research methods (Leedy & Ormrod, 2010) were used for data collection.
Data collection and analysis
The larger doctoral study included a two-tiered data collection approach in the form of qualitative
background questionnaires, which, subsequent to their completion, were followed by a semi-structured
interview. However, the questionnaires will form the primary focus of empirical data for this article. In
addition, for the purpose of this article and to investigate the research questions above, the data analysis
focusses on answers about definition and activities to the following two questionnaire questions:
42




New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
How would you define employee-focused CSR?
What employee-focused CSR activities are a focus for your organisation?

Thematic content analysis (Creswell, 2009) was adopted as the best method to analyse the answers
provided to the above questions. Although traditionally considered a quantitative method, it isincreasingly being used in organisational studies (Duriau, Reger & Pfarrer, 2007), as well as being
helpful when dealing with open-ended interpretist data (Hussey & Hussey, 1997).
In addition, an inductive approach (Gibbs, 2009; Saldana, 2010) was adopted when looking at answers
about definitions. This approach, although accepting of the fact that not all preliminary ideas andpreconceptions can be completely excluded, aims to “as far as possible, try to pull out from the data what
is happening and not impose interpretations based on pre-existing theory” (Gibbs, 2009: 46). For theactivity-focused question, a combination of both an inductive and deductive approach was adopted. A
deductive concept driven approach draws on frameworks or concepts established in the literature orprevious research (Gibbs, 2009), which for this research includes a list of employee-focused activities
compiled from the literature. Thus, the data was analysed in terms of the recurring themes that presented
themselves around the definition of CSR. Activities were analysed in terms of the incidence of frequency
that they were included and were grouped according to the list of activities outlined above.

Findings
How is employee-focused CSR defined?
In line with the theoretically focused discussion above, the definitions provided by the respondents
ranged considerably although some common themes were identified.
Conceptualising CSR
In providing a definition, three distinct categories were noted around the conceptualisation of CSR.
Explored more comprehensively below, these include: employee-focused CSR as the main definition focus
 CSR holistically defined employee-focused CSR defined as a subset of CSR.
The large majority of participants, as illustrated below, focused only on providing an explanation of theirunderstanding of employee-focused CSR (just as the question asked).
CSR related activities that connect with and drive engagement with your employees. 3A
Investing in the skills and capabilities of our employees. 4E
When the organisation partakes in activities that proactively supports its employees in a
responsible way either in their role, their community or with their families. 4D
Policies and procedures to ensure employees are valued and respected. 7A
However, a number of respondents, when providing a definition, focused more holistically on CSR as abroader social concept. They noted that:
CSR is going beyond the business requirements (financial) and looking at how the organisation
can help others and society in general. 1F
43New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
CSR (to me) is an organisation ensuring a positive impact through its activities on theenvironment, clients, employees and society; playing their role in ensuring a sustainable andprosperous society. 2B
The remaining respondents chose to differentiate between CSR and employee-focused CSR whenproviding a definition. By doing so, they consciously or unconsciously presented employee-focused CSR
as a subset of CSR.
Corporate social responsibility focusses on corporate led/related activities and the impact on any
stakeholder connected with or impacted by its actions. Employee focused CSR would lookspecifically on how corporate actions impact employees directly. 2D
To me CSR is about sustainability and corporate collaboration in the community. Employee
focused is the engagement of employees in that process and those outcomes. 6A
The following table provides a summary view of how the respondents’ definitions were classified
according to the three categories. As illustrated below, there is limited consistency both between andwithin organisations, with only three of the seven organisations focused on similar conceptualisations.
However, all organisations were able to provide some explanation as to what and how employees were
included in their conceptualisation of CSR.
Table 2: Classifying employee-focused CSR definitions
Classification
Employeefocused CSR
Holistic CSR
Differentiated

Org 1
(NZ)
4

Org 2
(AUS)

Org 3
(AUS)
2

2

2
2

2

Org 4
(NZ)
5

Org 5
(NZ)
2

Org 6
(NZ)

1

3

Org 7
(NZ)
3

Total
(28)
16
6
6

Note: Organisation 1 to 4 includes the two pair of participating companies.

Stakeholder relationship
Despite the variation when defining CSR, all respondents included a focus on people/stakeholders inconjunction with a locational context. These can be grouped broadly into two main categories, namely: interaction with employee within an internal/organisation setting
 interaction with multiple stakeholders including employees both within and outside theorganisation.
None of the respondents took a purely external focus, highlighting the fact that CSR is relationally based
and relies on the interaction of the organisation, as a given, with a range of stakeholders. Employees
were, therefore, found to be always, in some way, part of this process.
Given the question is employee focused, it was expected that participants would mainly refer to theiremployees and the internal environment or workplace and a number of them did:Our business is only as good as the people who work for us. The success of both areinterdependent. Ensuring people are safe, rewarded and connected. 4A
Policies and procedures to ensure employees are valued and respected. Could be in the form offlexibility, support, training and development, and an appreciation of social and cultural
diversity. 7A
44New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
Taking into account employees’ values, personal circumstances and ambitions. Work/life balance
initiatives. Equal opportunities – integrity, collaboration, respect, accountability, excellence. 5B
Several respondents, mainly from organisation four, also stated that a focus on employees should bepersonalised and can and should extend beyond their time at work, extending the locational setting
externally.
Employment practices that recognise and support needs of employees beyond just the work place.
4B
Having a responsibility for the care and wellbeing of staff that extends beyond the workplace.
Caring about staff as individuals. 4C
When the organisation partakes in activities that proactively supports its employees in a
responsible way either in their role, their community or with their families. 4D
Taking into account employee’s values, personal circumstances and ambitions. 5B
Building on this external organisational focus, the other half of the respondents included multiple
stakeholders (internal and external to the organisation) in their definitions.
It is where an organisation provides employees with the opportunity to do non-paid work andhelp charities, as well as ensuring the employees are cared for in a responsible way and theirinterests are looked after. Finally, CSR is about a company looking after the environment andbeing ethically responsible. 2A
Our purpose guides us in our decision making and in every aspect of our engagement with ourcolleagues, our customers, and our key stakeholders including community, government, consumer
groups and the media. 3D
CSR (to me) is an organisation ensuring a positive impact through its activities on theenvironment, clients, employees and society. 2B
For us it is about our purpose in action every day by our employees: doing the right thing,helping our customers and communities, belief in potential. It is at the core of our business. 3B
When looking closer at these stakeholder relationships, a distinction can be seen regarding anorganisation’s focused intention. Employees were either seen as one of the stakeholders to whom theorganisation was responsible, or they were seen as part of the process and a means by which to deliver
these responsibilities to external stakeholders.
In line with the above, while some referred to the organisations taking a lead in driving and taking
responsibility for its CSR initiatives, others placed responsibility upon their employees to take the leadand be accountable. This distinction is illustrated below.
Employee – the focus
Employee focused CSR would look specifically at how corporate actions impact employees
directly. 2D
CSR related activities that connect with and drive engagement with your employees. 3C
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
Employee focused CSR is about treating employees well eg, working conditions, development
opportunities, meaningful work as well as being explicit with employees about the company’s
CSR agenda. 5A
CSR can focus on a number of areas, employees being one. 6B
Employees – part of the process
Employee focused Corporate Social Responsibility is making sure your employees are taking
responsibility for socially responsible activities. 5C
It is about enabling employees to understand what their organisation does for CSR, allows themto get involved via feedback, ideas or hands on participation. 1D
Employees taking responsibility for caring for environment/community eg, involvement incommunity projects. 7C
Again, when looking at how organisations compared, there was considerable inconsistency within andbetween them. When comparing these results, with the previous classification, other than minor
variations, for the most part the results reinforce one another in terms of areas of focus.
Table 3: Stakeholder relationship focus
Stakeholders
Employees/
Internal
Multiplestakeholders

Org 1
(NZ)
3

Org 2
(AUS)

Org 3
(AUS)
2

3

4

2

Org 4
(NZ)
5

Org 5
(NZ)
2

Org 6
(NZ)

Org 7
(NZ)
2

Total
(28)
14

1

3

1

14

Organisational approach to employee-focused CSR
In the same way that organisations hold a view on the role their employees can and should play within
the context of CSR, they also held distinct beliefs on what their role was and how CSR was positioned
within their organisation. In comparing the definitions, the following four continuums were identified tobroadly describe how these respondents characterised CSR within their organisations. These continuums
include: proactive to reactive approaches
 voluntary to mandatory approaches
 intrinsic to segmented from strategy approaches
 ideological to activity orientated approaches.
As an exploratory investigation, it was valuable to consider both ends of the spectrum. However, as the
below examples illustrate, not all the definitions displayed each criterion while others included a variety.
CSR (to me) is an organisation ensuring a positive impact through its activities on theenvironment, clients, employees and society. Playing their role in ensuring a sustainable andprosperous society. 2B
This definition describes CSR as something the organisation is committed to as a given for them(mandatory), with set associated activities. It is, however, more ideological in its description of these
activities and does not list any specifics. It also highlights the need for the organisation’s actions to havea positive impact on their stakeholders (proactive), instead of having to react to any negative outcomes.
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
CSR is a way for companies to self-regulate; to ensure the workplace meets legal, ethicalstandards and internal/social norms. 1E
In comparison to the above, this respondent discusses CSR in terms of compliance and adhering to a setof standards highlighting their CSR to be more reactive and box ticking.
It is about enabling employees to understand what their organisation does for CSR, allows themto get involved via feedback, ideas or hands on participation. 1D
For the employees of this organisation there is a voluntary element to them ‘understanding’ and having
the opportunity if they chose, through multiple options, to get involved with CSR. In contrast, however,for the organisation, “what their organisation does for CSR”, as with the first example, assumes a moremandatory or expected element for the organisation’s responsibilities.
Investing in the skills and capabilities of our employees, ie. OHS and wellbeing, learning anddevelopment, talent management, performance and reward, industrial relations, diversity ofinclusion, flexible working and our organisation culture. 4E
While proactive with its focus on ‘investing’, this definition focusses on very specific activities when
explaining how employees’ skills and capabilities can be enhanced. Although the use of ‘investing’ again
carried with it a strategic connotation, other than this there is very little connection to its organisation’s
overall strategic direction (segmented).
In contrast to the previous definition, the following outlines its specific stakeholders, but its CSR is
described in more general and ideological terms and as a core and strategically aligned (intrinsic) part oftheir organisation.
Corporate Responsibility (CR) is how we do things. It is intrinsically linked to our enduring
purpose – to do the right thing. Our purpose guides us in our decision making and in every aspectof our engagement with our colleagues, our customers, and our key stakeholders including
community, government, consumer groups and the media. 3D
When looking at the above approaches and taking into consideration the categorisations and stakeholder
relationships, it would appear that there is little consistency within and between organisations’approaches to CSR. Alternatively, these could also be viewed as more of process, with stages ofdevelopment.
Overall, a continuum can be drawn from what could be considered a basic and more add-on complianceapproach to CSR to those organisations who take a more holistic, integrated, strategic, and proactive
approach to CSR. From the information provided, the organisations can be approximately ordered along
this continuum as follows.
Figure 1: Continuum of CSR development
Org 7

Basic, reactive,
segmented fromstrategy

Org 5

Org 2

Org 1

Org 6

Org 4

Org 3
Advanced,proactive andstrategicallydriven47

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
Employee-focused CSR activities
All activities noted as part of employee-focused CSR were listed as the questionnaires weresystematically analysed. These were then grouped according to the frequency or replication of theirreference and then again grouped according to the list compiled from the literature.
The following table outlines the frequency of recurring activities, as well some initial observations.
Table 4: Comparison of employee-focused CSR activities
Original list
(roughly according to
Vuontisjärvi’s order)

New list: Order of importance/ additions
Activity
Number ofreoccurrences
Community involvement 26

Areas of interest

Addition to originallist. Volunteer days afocusWork-life balance a
focus
Increasingly focusedon wellbeing
Talent and leadershipa big focus.
Additional to originallist
Culture and women afocus

Training and careerdevelopment
Remuneration andbenefits
Supportive working
environment

Supportive working
environment
Health and safety

23

Training anddevelopment

14

Employee engagement
and satisfaction

Diversity

13

Organisational values

Organisational values

9

Health and Safety

6

Employment Relations(ER)

Employee engagement
and satisfaction
Remuneration andbenefits

5

Value and purpose of
focus
Focuses on
empowerment
Not a big focus

Employment policy
Diversity

Employment policy(Employment relations)

20

Mentioned only once
Not mentioned at all

22

While the original order has shifted, there has also been a new addition. Not only was community
involvement (including employee volunteer days and employee fundraising), not included previously, it
is also now the most frequently noted employee-focused activity.
In addition, employment relations were not mentioned at all and employment policy was only mentioned
twice. it is interesting to observe that according to this group of respondents those activities that have
moved towards the top of the list include more HRM-based and focused activities.

Discussion
This study aimed to explore how employee-focused CSR was practically defined and used by financial
institutions. With such a diverse and fragmented body of normative literature on the topic, it was hoped
an empirically focused study could help provide some insight into actual understandings and practices.
Consistent with the literature that views CSR as a broad, poorly defined, and loosely focused concept(Decker, 2004; Garriga & Mele, 2004; Godfrey & Hatch, 2006; Garavan & McGuire, 2010), the48

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
definitions provided by the individual respondents varied considerably when assessed according tocategorisation, stakeholder relationships and characteristics of approach. All respondents were able,
however, to articulate their understanding of CSR and what activities their organisation engaged inwithin the employee-focused CSR space. Although some were employee-focused and others more
holistic in their application, this highlights that CSR is still evident within organisations, reinforcing theview that CSR has become a prominent focus for corporates (Smith, 2003).
In addition, in line with Werther and Chandler (2006), and Blowfield and Murray (2008), all respondents(whether implicitly, or more explicitly) focused on stakeholder relationships when discussing CSR. Not
only were organisations seen as central and inherent to this process when discussing these relationships
within the CSR context, but, by definition, these included the organisation’s interaction with andresponsibility to different groups of people, be they employees, customers, or the community.
Subsequently, CSR can be seen to be intrinsically focused on people and, therefore, dynamic andindividualistic to each organisation.
Despite the literature conceptualising employees as more of a separate labour issue or by-product of CSR(Bolton et al., 2011), it was clear that employees were viewed and described by most respondents asmuch more central and critical to CSR. The respondents either focused specifically on employees or, inline with the literature and reporting bodies (Decker, 2004; Bitc, 2007; GRI, 2011), chose to provide amore holistic definition. Including economic, environmental, and social elements, the holistic definitions
merely differentiated employee-focused CSR as a sub-set of a more broadly focused CSR field.
In considering an organisation’s relationship with its employees, organisations emphasised how they
viewed their employees’ responsibilities, as well as their own responsibilities to employees in the CSR
process. These perspectives differed widely between organisations. Inconsistent with the literature’s
assessment that employees are excluded from and not acknowledged in the CSR process (Bolton et al.,2011), a number of respondents described employees as very much part of the CSR process and themeans by which their organisation’s CSR initiatives are delivered to their external stakeholders.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, some respondents, in support of Bonfiglioli et al. (2006) and
Vuontisjärivi (2006), believe employees should not only be part of the CSR process but should berecognised as a key stakeholder. Organisations should, therefore, be responsible to their employees aswell. The definitions from a number of respondents subsequently focused on enhancing employee skills(Bevan et al., 2004), employee engagement (WEF, 2003; Bolton et al., 2011), and an organisation’s
impact on its employees.
Solely focusing on employees within the internal setting of the workplace was a key area for half of the
respondents when providing a stakeholder relationship context for their CSR definitions. As discussed
above, based on relational interactions, stakeholders (Freeman, 1984) and stakeholder relationships(Whether & Chandler, 2006) are also acknowledged in the literature as a key focus for CSR, as well as away to build more tailored and organisationally appropriate CSR strategies (Blowfield & Murray, 2008).
Interestingly, a number of respondents, in line with the World Bank (2003, as cited in Petkoski & Twose,
2003) and the WBCSD (2000), looked not only at their impact on employees within the context of CSR
but also beyond their immediate work environment to their employees and their families. This is in linewith Vuontisjärvi’s (2006) view that an organisation’s relationship with its employees should be aprecondition for all other CSR activities.
The other half of the participants’ definitions focus on a multiple stakeholder approach. This view isconsistent with a more holistic conceptualisation of CSR (Decker, 2004; Bitc, 2007; GRI, 2011) and afocus on meeting the needs of all of an organisation’s stakeholders (WBSCD, 1998; Whitehouse, 2006;
Whether & Chandler, 2006; Decker, 2004; Pirsch et al., 2007). Employees and the internal environment
49

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
were still recognised, in addition to external stakeholders, including customers, the community as well as
the natural environment.
Finally, when defining CSR, respondents outlined their view of their organisation’s role within the CSR
process and the characteristics these approaches included. These characteristics provided significant
insight into the degree of CSR integration within each organisation.
The WEF (2003) called for corporate citizens who operate beyond compliance, and Blowfield andMurray (2008) called for voluntary and self-regulated approaches. The use of language is important here.
Many organisations, without alluding to mandatory directives, described their action and responsibilities
around CSR as a given or self-imposed mandate. In line with public and global pressures (Glade, 2008;
Bolton et al., 2011), it would appear that either organisations are voluntarily imposing mandatory
responsibilities or the push to become good corporate citizens (WEF, 2003; Bolton et al., 2011) is
evoking an active response.
In contrast, when looking at the way respondents described their employees’ CSR participation, this was
described as being much more voluntary in nature.
When assessing the degree of integration within an organisation’s strategic direction, or, as described by
Paul Bateman (Anonymous, 2004), ensuring CSR is at the heart of the business strategy, a range ofperspectives were provided by the respondents. One organisation in particular, with several other
respondents from other organisations alluding to it, took this intrinsic, ideological, and more holistic
view of CSR. This highlighted a level of development and maturity in their CSR processes and practices
that were integrated throughout the organisation and supported its strategic objectives. It also reinforced
Werther and Chandler’s (2006) appeal for CSR to be specific to an organisation and its strategic
priorities.
The remaining respondents provided a range of variations from the above emphasis, with some includingor alluding to a strategic element to others who provided no link to any core strategy and instead took amore tactical approach and discussed specific activities they considered to be part of employee-focused
CSR. It is important to note that it is hard to determine, as no further information was able to becollected, whether this is a true reflection of their organisation’s CSR programme or merely a segment, inline with the question asked. The literature in this area is very sparse (Matten & Moon, 2004; Campbell,2007) on any specifics. Therefore, drawing on Vuontisjärvi’s (2006) list as well as those activities
outlined by the global reporting bodies, a comparison was done between the two to establish a list tocompare to the respondents’ provided definitions.
The order of importance of specific activities has changed considerably. Training and careerdevelopment dropped from first to fourth, and remuneration and benefits dropped dramatically fromsecond to eighth. In contrast, health and safety, a supportive working environment, and diversity all
moved up some places.
Work-life balance and flexibility, both part of a supportive working environment, were heavily
discussed, in support of the increasingly flexible organisational structures organisations are adopting
currently. Likewise talent development, part of the training and development category, was also a big
focus for many respondents as such development was seen as important for ensuring sustainedorganisational success (Bonfiglioli et al., 2006; Young & Thyil, 2009). The focus within health andsafety has also changed with wellbeing dominating most references to it.
All these areas that have advanced up the list have a strong HRM association and focus. Interestingly,
while not previously included, community involvement was the most frequently discussed activity for
employees. This increased frequency of reference could, therefore, be because the respondents, for the
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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
most part, hold positions within or closely aligned to the HRM space. These particular areas are probably
most relevant to them and their points of organisational reference in the CSR space. Alternatively,
workforce developments and social changes may have affected their increased attention, with the aim forthem to be developed further.
The drop in importance of other activities down the list could be described as more ‘hygiene’ oradministrative functions. This could be because these activities are no longer an issue and taken more as
given; for example, in the case of employment relations, which was not mentioned at all.
These changes to the list of activities and their subsequent degree of focused importance all support
Locket et al.’s (2006) view that CSR is constantly changing and continues to develop. These results also
illustrate that the size of an organisation (Blowfield & Murray, 2008), as well as the country and industry(Werther & Chandler, 2006) within which it operates, could potentially affect how organisations
prioritise their CSR-related practices. It could also confirm that, in line with developing understandingsof CSR and international events relating to CSR, approaches can vary considerably over time.
In answering the research questions, it would appear that organisations, like the literature, are stilldeveloping their definitions and understanding of how to implement employee-focused CSR. It may bethat agreeing upon a universal definition is an unlikely actuality due to the numerous influencing
variables. Perhaps a universal definition would need to be significantly more encompassing andfundamentally based than current propositions.
Based on respondents’ answers, some organisations may not appear to be prioritising their CSR policies
and others are starting to progress to a more meaningful approach. The latter organisations have alreadyactively engaged in linking their organisationally specific activities with their key stakeholders andoverall purpose and strategy. The findings not only provides a range of approaches to consider but also a
potential process for development and improvement.
What is clear is that CSR and specifically employee-focused CSR is a dynamic and context specificconcept that is not only relationally based and action orientated but can become an integral part of anorganisation’s strategy. What now remains to be seen is how this conceptualisation and integration of
employee-focused CSR affects each organisation’s success, not only in the employee space, but in its
strategic orientation and competitive advantage.

Conclusion: implications, limitations, and future research
While CSR is increasingly becoming an important organisational consideration (Smith, 2003) withorganisations acknowledging and embracing their role in this process (Handy, 2002; Anonymous, 2004),
what that means and specifically what it involves remains unclear at best. This is in part due to thelimited empirical data available. As a result, it is hoped that these initial findings will not only provide aclearer understanding of the ways organisations conceptualise CSR but also an update on the specifics
they are focusing on at present.
Employees are now definitely part of the CSR discussion. While it appears that each organisation is at adifferent stage of CSR integration, practitioners can determine where they fit into this continuum andthen draw on those ahead of them on their CSR journey for further insights and development
opportunities. Although location, industry, and organisational size will affect the degree of relevance,some key lessons about how organisations conceptualise and approach CSR can be noted.
Limitations of this study relate to the means of data collection and the included participants. While only apreliminary review, the use of questionnaires limited the ability for the researcher to seek further
51

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 35-56
elaboration, provide contextualisation, and ask additional questions dependent on the respondent’s initial
responses. In hindsight, it would have been beneficial to first ask participants to define CSR and thenemployee-focused CSR. Future research should, therefore, adopt a more interactive qualitative method,such as in-depth interviews to draw more complete results. Secondly, while the research looks at
employee-focused CSR, the organisational perspective came across very strongly through the opinions of
the respondents. It would have been very beneficial to have been able to include employees’
perspectives. This clearly constitutes an opportunity for further research.
Although sufficient for a qualitative study, the sample size is still rather small and the differentiation inparticipant opinions between and within organisations could account for some of the variations noted andconclusions drawn. An increased number of respondents would have provided further insight andallowed for a more detailed analysis. Limited access also hindered a more comprehensive comparative
analysis, as well as a more complete view of the industry. Gaining access proved especially difficult and,
although the financial sector is of particular interest, alternative industries or locations could be explored.
The next stage will, therefore, include further analysis of the questionnaires as well as the semistructured interviews. This will not only provide further insight into the context of each respondent’s
understanding of employee-focused CSR within their organisation but also provide a morecomprehensive interpretation of the practical application and integration of the dynamic and elusive
concept of CSR.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3): 57-70

The Right to Strike: Commentary
PAUL MACKAY*
Introduction
In its 2012 General Survey Report “Giving Globalization a Human Face” (the 2012 General
Survey), the International Labour Organisation’s Committee of Experts on the Application ofConventions and Recommendations (the CEACR) argued that ILO Convention 87 on
Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise 1948 (C87) is the source ofworkers’ right to strike on workplace, economic and social issues. This is despite the fact that
C87 contains no reference to strikes, and makes no provision whatsoever for a right to strike.
This article examines the source of the right to strike, and the nature of strikes, and concludes
that the right to strike is not supported by C87. Instead, it finds strong support for the ideathat the right to strike currently is an issue for individual countries to regulate. It also argues
that if an international reference point for the right to strike were to be established, it would
be more appropriately aligned to conventions governing collective bargaining than to C87.
Finally, it discusses whether or not there is an urgent (or any) need for a global labour
standard on the right to strike, and concludes that there is not.

Source of the Right to Strike
The CEACR started by opining that the absence of specific provisions establishing a right tostrike did not prevent such a right from being read into C87. It stated that:the absence of a concrete provision is not dispositive, as the terms of the Convention
must be interpreted in light of its object and purpose. While the Committee considers
that preparatory work is an important supplementary interpretative source ….it may
yield to the other interpretative factors, in particular, in this specific case to thesubsequent practice over a period of 52 years (see articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties).1
Then it said:
the right to strike was indeed first asserted 2 as a basic principle of freedom of
association by the tripartite Committee on Freedom of Association in
1952…Moreover, the 1959 General Survey, in which the Committee first raised its
consideration in respect of the right to strike in relation to the Convention, was fully*Paul Mackay is Manager Employment Relations Policy at Business New Zealand. He participated in thediscussion on the right to strike in the Committee of Application of Standards during the International Labour
Conference of 2012.
1
Paragraph 118 of the 2012 General Survey.
2
In fact, despite being “asserted”, the right to strike was deliberately not recognised in Convention 87 (or 98)
because during the Cold War of the late 40s, 50s and 60s, western governments viewed it as a socio-economic
right (the forte of communist countries) while unions feared that entrenching the right would have meant setting
limitations on it. The issue was deliberately left “at large” to the great relief of both sides.

58

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):discussed by the Conference Committee on the Application of Standards without any
objection from any of the constituents.3
The CEACR…highlights that the right to strike is broadly referred to in the legislation of the great
majority of countries and by a significant number of constitutions, as well as byseveral international and regional instruments 4 , which justifies the Committee’sinterventions on the issue5 [emphasis added].
This last statement is something of a non sequitur in the context of the preceding two. The
fact that many, if not most, countries have enshrined a right to strike, together withrestrictions on that right, is not determinative of the proposition that C87 is the source of thatright. To the contrary, it is far more supportive of a view that countries have rightly found it
necessary to regulate this important issue in the face of a lack of clear and explicit guidancefrom a globally authoritative source, e.g. C87. Furthermore, it is illogical to cite national
practice as a basis for interpreting an international document as providing an otherwise
unstated right.
The CEACR then went on to say “…the affirmation of the right to strike by the supervisory
bodies lies within the broader framework of the recognition of this right at the international
level,”6 which appears to conflict with the CEACR’s opening statement7 that it was “mainlyon the basis of Article 3 of the Convention which sets out the right of workers to organise
their activities and to formulate their programmes, and Article 10…, that a number ofprinciples relating to the right to strike were progressively developed.”
In making these remarks, the CEACR gives apparently contradictory primacy both to C87
and to international practice.
Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise
Certainly, it is hard to see how Articles 3 and 10 of C87 support the CEACR’s views.
Article 3 states:
1. Workers’ and employers’ organisations [emphasis added] shall have the right to draw
up their constitutions and rules, to elect their representatives in full freedom, toorganise their administration and activities and to formulate their programmes.
2. The public authorities shall refrain from any interference which would restrict thisright or impede the lawful exercise thereof.
Article 10 states:
In this Convention the term organisation means any organisation of workers
or of employers for furthering and defending the interests of workers or of
employers.

3

Paragraph 118 of the 2012 General Survey.
Paragraph 35 of the 2012 General Survey
5
Paragraph 119 of the 2012 General Survey
6
Paragraph 120 of the 2012 General Survey
7
Paragraph 117 of the 2012 General Survey
459

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):Article 3(1) relates unequivocally to the right of workers and employers to set up
organisations and for those organisations to be able to plan and organise their programmes
and activities free from official interference. This is quite different from the CEACR’s
proposition that C87 Article 3 “…sets out the right of workers [emphasis added] to organise
their activities and to formulate their programmes…” 8 At face value, Article 3 does notextend to individual workers and employers because the rights are conferred upon therelevant organisation. Article 10 emphasises Article 3’s focus on “organisations” by definingthat term. This is important because workers’ organisations per se cannot go on strike; only
workers employed by employers can, even if those workers are also members of a workers’organisation. Likewise, employers’ organisations cannot lock out workers but individual
employers can.
The injunction in Article 3(2) that the public authorities “refrain from interference which
would restrict this right or impede the lawful exercise thereof” qualifies the right in Article
3(1) to establish workers’ and employers’ organisations but does not expand it.
Clearly, there are no explicit grounds on which the rights conferred by Article 3, permitting
workers’ and employers’ organisations to form and operate, can underpin a right to strike byworkers, whether or not they are members of workers’ organisations. A right to strike canonly be drawn from Article 3 by the use of a wider interpretation.
However, wider interpretation is made difficult by the fact that Article 3 relates equally toemployers, to whom the right to strike does not apply. Here, it is notable that the CEACR’s
analysis of Article 3 does not address the right of employers to lock out (the corollary of theright to strike). Indeed, the CEACR made no reference to employers when it stated that it was…mainly on the basis of Article 3 of the Convention which sets out the right ofworkers to organise their activities and to formulate their programmes, and Article
10…, that a number of principles relating to the right to strike were progressively
developed [emphasis added].9
The lack of any mention of employers’ right to lock out is discussed in more detail later inthis article but it is immediately apparent that, however Article 3 is interpreted, it must apply
equally to both employers’ and workers’ organisations and their activities; and nothing in
Article 3 indicates that the right of worker and employer organisations to “organise theiractivities” or “formulate their programmes” can be extrapolated to create any form of right tostrike, let alone for workers to undertake the broadest forms of strike contemplated by the
CEACR (e.g. strikes on economic and social grounds).
For its part, Article 10 confers no jurisdiction whatsoever; it merely defines the meaning of
the term “organisation”, from which extrapolation of a right to strike is unsustainable in any
interpretative context.
Consequently, there are weak, if not unsupportable, grounds for relying on Articles 3 and 10
of C87 to support the importation of any right to strike into Convention 87.

89Paragraph 117 of the 2012 General Survey
Paragraph 117 of the 2012 General Survey

60

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):The International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights of the United
Nations
Notwithstanding its citation of C87 Articles 3 and 10 as at least partly authoritative, the
CEACR relied more strongly on external indicators and custom and practice as its sources ofauthority to interpret a right to strike into C87. It said…the affirmation of the right to strike … lies within a broader framework of therecognition of this right at the international level, particularly in the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the United Nations (Article 8,paragraph 1(d)) 10
Inconveniently for this proposition, Covenant Article 8(1)(d) requires the exercise of the rightto strike to be in conformity with member states’ laws and regulations. The only constraint on
the restrictions countries may place on strikes in their national laws is imposed by Covenant
Article 8(3) 11 prohibiting nations that have ratified C87 from establishing laws that
contravene C87’s guarantees.
However, Covenant Article 8(3) was not cited by the CEACR in the 2012 General Survey,
possibly because C87 does not mention the word strike, let alone provide an express
guarantee of any right to strike. Nor did the CEACR cite Article 8 of C8712, which is couchedin exactly the same terms as Covenant Article 8, i.e. that the exercise of the rights in C87 is
subject to national laws which, in turn, must protect the convention’s guarantees.
A “guarantee” is a “promise or assurance, especially one in writing, that something is of
specified quality, content, benefit, etc” 13 Since C87 does not provide any promises orassurances of a right to strike, and since all other international instruments that do provide aright to strike14 require that right to conform to national laws and practices, there is arguably
no legal capacity to find national restrictions on the right to strike to be in breach of C87.
This being so, the CEACR could only fall back on custom and practice and/or surrounding
circumstance arguments to make its case.
The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
The apparent heart of the CEACR’s interpretation of C87 as providing a right to strike is that“subsequent practice over a period of 52 years”15 justifies such an interpretation. Supporting

10

8(1) - The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to ensure: ….(d) The right to strike, provided that
it is exercised in conformity with the laws of the particular country.
11International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the United Nations Covenant Article 8(3)- Nothing in this article shall authorise States Parties to the International Labour Organisation Convention of1948 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise to take legislative measures
which would prejudice, or apply the law in such a manner as would prejudice, the guarantees provided for inthat Convention.
12
C87 Article 8(1) In exercising the rights provided for in this Convention, workers and employers
and their respective organisations, like other persons or organised collectivities, shall respect the lawof the land. (2) The law of the land shall not be such as to impair, nor shall it be so applied as toimpair, the guarantees provided for in this Convention.
13
www.http://Dictionary.com
14
Paragraph 35 of the 2013 General Survey
15
Paragraph 118 of the 2012 General Survey

61

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):this argument, the CEACR cited Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law ofTreaties (the Vienna Convention), which provide:
Article 31 – General rule of interpretation
1. A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary
meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in thelight of its object and purpose.
2. The context for the purpose of the interpretation of a treaty shall comprise,in addition to the text, including its preamble and annexes:
a. any agreement relating to the treaty which was made between all
the parties in connection with the conclusion of the treaty;b. any instrument which was made by one or more parties inconnection with the conclusion of the treaty and accepted by theother parties as an instrument related to the treaty.
3. There shall be taken into account, together with the context:
a. any subsequent agreement between the parties regarding theinterpretation of the treaty or the application of its provisions;b. any subsequent practice in the application of the treaty which
establishes the agreement of the parties regarding its interpretation;c. any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations
between the parties.
4. A special meaning shall be given to a term if it is established that theparties so intended.
Article 32 – Supplementary means of interpretation
Recourse may be had to supplementary means of interpretation, including the
preparatory work of the treaty and the circumstances of its conclusion in order
to confirm the meaning resulting from the application of article 31, or todetermine the meaning when the interpretation according to article 31:
a. leaves the meaning ambiguous or obscure; orb. leads to a result which is manifestly absurd or unreasonable.
Custom and practice
Article 31 of the Vienna Convention is couched in terms familiar to most common andRoman law jurisdictions. In simple terms, it says that proper interpretation is based in thefirst instance on the plain and ordinary meaning of the words in the treaty. Only if themeaning is unclear is it permissible to look beyond the document to ascertain a complete
interpretation.
Article 31 permits changes to interpretation to occur over time, for instance through custom
and practice becoming more of a reality than the original words of the treaty would otherwise
suggest. Article 31 provides that a departure from the plain meaning of the words of thetreaty is possible, inter alia, because of “...any subsequent practice in the application of thetreaty which establishes the agreement [emphasis added] of the parties regarding its
interpretation.”62

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):The CEACR argued that the ILO Committee on the Application of Standards (CAS) 16
discussion of the 1959 General Survey covered the issue of the right to strike “…without any
objection from any of the constituents,” inferring that the five decades on from this one event
offered a sound basis for establishing a custom and practice interpretation under Article 31.
However, there is strong evidence that there has been no agreement on the issue since theright to strike was first discussed in 1948. Before 1959 and since, employers have objected
strenuously to the view that C87 provides a right to strike, objections all recorded in theproceedings of successive International Labour Conferences. Furthermore, the CEACR
devoted an entire page of the 2012 General Survey to recalling employers’ objections to thenotion that a right to strike could be read into C87.17
Surrounding circumstances and intent of the parties
Without support from C87 Articles 3 and 10, the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights or Article 31 of the Vienna Convention the CEACR was left with only
Article 32 of the Vienna Convention to justify implying a right to strike into C87. Article 32
is available in circumstances where an interpretation based on Article 31 remains unclear;
whereas Article 31 permits interpretations based on custom and practice, Article 32 permits
the use of extraneous information to validate the prevailing circumstances and the parties’
intent leading up to the establishment of the convention.
However Article 32 does not aid a view that a right to strike can be implied into C87. The
preparatory work and records of the discussion that led to the adoption of C87 both support
the view that the omission of a right to strike was deliberate. During the Cold War period(late 1940s to late 80s) western governments viewed it as a socio-economic right (the forte ofcommunist countries) while unions feared that entrenching the right would have meantsetting limitations on it. The issue was deliberately left “at large”, to the great relief of bothsides.

What is a strike?
Having discussed its justification for implying a right to strike into C87, the CEACR
examined the scope of that right, stating that “the Committee considers that strikes relating to
the Government’s economic and social policies, including general strikes, are legitimate andtherefore should not be regarded as purely political strikes, which are not covered by theConvention. 18
In asserting that political strikes are not covered by C87, the CEACR distinguished politicalstrikes from other strikes, thereby concluding that all non-political strikes are legal strikes(notwithstanding the fact that C87 is silent on any form of strikes).

16

One of the standing committees of the annual International Labour Conference, the CAS is the tripartite body
responsible for monitoring and supervising international labour standards. This is the body that calls countries
to account for failing to meet the standards they have committed themselves to through their ratification of ILO
Conventions. However, issues of interpretation of conventions are outside the mandate of the committee; thispower is vested via Article 37 of the ILO Constitution in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), or in aninternal tribunal established specifically for the purpose.
17
Page 47 of the 2012 General Survey.
18
Paragraph 120 of the 2012 General Survey

63

New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):Put another way, the CEACR’s view that strikes over economic and social issues are notpolitical placed such strikes within the ambit of the CEACR’s interpretation of C87 as
embodying a general right to strike. This is less a matter of law than of “social engineering”,
in part because, historically, the majority of general strikes have occurred over political orpolitically sourced issues. In any event, the CEACR is on shaky ground in interpreting a
document silent on the right to strike on any ground as permitting strike action on specified
grounds.
At the broadest level, the CEACR saw strikes as a basic right “which must be enjoyed byworkers”.19 However, to put this view in context, it is necessary to understand how basic
rights manifest themselves. It is a truism that basic or fundamental human rights (the right toliberty, free speech, freedom of association and so on) are themselves recognition of basic or
fundamental human needs (food, water, shelter, clothing, warmth, a sense of community,
self-respect and dignity20). However, these core human rights have real meaning only when
considered in the context in which real events and situations give life to the wider right. If
the right to strike is indeed a fundamental or basic right, it is at the practical level that it must
be examined.
The practical level
The CEACR, in distinguishing between political (unlawful) and other (lawful) strikes in aninternational labour standard, implicitly recognised the truism that strikes involve a
withdrawal of labour. By extension, since withdrawal of labour requires a workplace fromwhich to withdraw, it can be inferred that strikes are workplace issues covered byinternational labour standards, whereas political strikes and, arguably, strikes over economic
and social policies are not.
While workers join together for the general purposes of protecting and advancing theircollective employment interests, they typically join a particular union or workers’ association
because that organisation covers their work, i.e. the nature of their work is the common
denominator between workers who associate with each other for the general purpose ofcollective protection.
Without the worker’s work as the context, any discussion of freedom of association can relate
only to the general democratic right of citizens to associate with one another. It follows that itis the worker’s work that creates the practical context of freedom of association for any given
worker.
Thus, if the right to strike is a corollary of the right to freedom of association 21 and theworker’s work is the practical context for the worker’s right to freedom of association, then
the worker’s work must also be the practical context for the right to strike. It can, therefore,
readily be concluded that as strikes are inextricably linked to the work the worker does, they
are also linked by extension to where the worker works. This proposition is importantbecause it clearly undermines the CEACR’s ability to broaden its interpretation of the right tostrike beyond the workplace (e.g., sympathy strikes and strikes on economic or social
grounds).
19

Paragraph 122 of the 2012 General Survey
c.f. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
21
This the basic premise on which the CEACR has articulated its views.
2064New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):Furthermore, the CEACR’s view that C87 is also the source of a right to strike on economic
and social grounds is inconsistent with the facts that Article 3 of C87 gives equal rights toworkers’ and employers’ organisations (but not to workers and employers per se), and that an
employer can only exercise the right to lock out (the corollary of the right to strike) in theworkplace context22.
Overall, none of the grounds cited by the CEACR as underpinning its belief that a right tostrike can be implied into C87 has any real merit.

Wherein really lies the right to strike?
Freedom of association, in the context of C87 (particularly Article 3), is the right of workers
and employers to associate, each with their own kind, together in organisations, federations orconfederations for purposes including solidarity and mutual protection. Freedom of
association carries with it the corollary right not to associate with one’s own kind. A personor organisation should be free not to associate in the first place or, having associated, todisassociate.
However, since a strike is a withdrawal of labour from the workplace and, as discussed
earlier, neither international custom and practice nor the provisions of C87 Articles 3 and 10
support the view that C87 provides for a right to strike, the CEACR’s assertion that the rightto strike is derived from the principle of freedom of association (which transcends
workplaces) is open to question.
The vast majority of workplace strikes are, in fact, caused by the refusal of an employer toagree to worker demands for improved conditions of work, in turn most commonly linked tocollective bargaining. Arguably, the CEACR’s views on the right to strike are moreconsistent with the principles of the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention
1949 (No 98) than they are with C87.
Strike or protest?
Taking all the above into account, the CEACR seems to have confused the right to strike withthe general right to protest, one of the most precious rights in any democracy. Indeed, the
CEACR stated that…trade unions and employers’ organisations responsible for defending socioeconomic and occupational interests should be able to use, respectively [emphasis
added], strike action or protest action to support their position in the search forsolutions to problems posed by major social and economic policy trends which have a
direct impact on their members.23
As mentioned earlier, the corollary of the right to strike is employers’ ability to lock
employees out. Protests per se are not part of an employer’s armoury in terms of bringing
22

Employers cannot lock their workers out of a public street or their homes, only from the workplace. Similarly,
an employer cannot lock out employees because the employer feels strongly about economic and social issues
created by governments.
23
Paragraph 124 of the 2012 General Survey

65New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):pressure to bear on employees even though they may be part of the employer’s social ability
to bring pressure to bear on government. That said, it is unheard of, nor is there supporting
logic, for employers to protest government actions or policies by locking out their employees.
This contrasts starkly with the CEACR’s belief (stated in the preceding paragraph) that
employees should be able to abandon their employers as part of a protest against government
actions or policies.
As discussed earlier, socio-economic issues transcend workplaces and may indeed havenothing to do with conditions of work. Protest is the democratically available response tosuch issues whereas strikes, by definition, connote the withdrawal of labour from aworkplace. The CEACR, however, used these terms apparently interchangeably and, in sodoing, seemingly adopted an ideological socialist perspective of workers’ rights rather thanobjectively examining the right to strike in the context of the world of work and the labour
standards that govern it.
Support for this view comes from the CEACR’s statement that systems in which“…agreements are seen as a social peace treaty of fixed duration during which strikes andlockouts are prohibited... are compatible with the Convention.”24 In other words, the CEACR
was promoting collective bargaining as a means of achieving negotiated periods of peace inan otherwise permanent state of class warfare. While a possibly interesting insight into thepolitical perspectives of the CEACR, this statement further strengthens the view that the rightto strike is aligned more closely to the practice of collective bargaining than to the concept of
freedom of association.25
Sympathy strikes
Having espoused the right to the broadest form of protest for workers (general strikes), the
CEACR, paradoxically, also supported the notion of sympathy strikes.26
With regard to so-called “sympathy” strikes, the Committee considers that a generalprohibition of this form of strike action could lead to abuse, particularly in the context
of globalization characterized by increasing interdependence and theinternationalization of production, and that workers should be able to take suchaction, provided that the initial strike they are supporting is itself lawful. 27
The CEACR’s support is paradoxical because, in espousing sympathy strikes, the committee
has tacitly supported the workplace context of strikes (i.e. workers leaving their workplaces)
rather than the broader civil right to protest exercised outside the workplace context.

24

Paragraph 142 of the 2012 General Survey
In the author’s view the global source of any right to strike, should one ever be developed, would mostappropriately be located inside instruments dealing with collective bargaining, e.g. the Right to Organise andCollectively Bargain Convention, 1949 (No. 98) and the Collective Bargaining Convention, 1981 (No. 154)
26
Sympathy strikes may be defined as the withdrawal of labour by workers at a workplace or workplaces not
involved in the dispute causing the strike, in solidarity with the striking workers at the workplace(s) directly
affected by the dispute.
27
Paragraph 125 of the 2012 General Survey
25

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):Restrictions and guarantees around the right to strike
The argument that a general right to strike can be derived from C87 is further weakened by
the CEACR’s discussion of permitted restrictions and compensatory guarantees.28
Having implied a right to strike into C87 in the most general terms, the CEACR thenrecognised that the right to strike may be constrained; e.g, “the right to strike is not absoluteand may be restricted in exceptional circumstances”29 and, “the Committee of Experts andthe Committee on Freedom of Association consider that States may restrict or prohibit theright to strike of public servants ‘exercising authority in the name of the state.”30
However, with respect to public servants, the CEACR failed to mention in the 2012 General
Survey that the ability to restrict public servants’ right to strike is derived directly from theRight to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention 1949 (C98). This permits states to
exclude “members of the public services engaged in the administration of the state” from theright to bargain collectively, because C98 does not cover them.31 The absence of a right tostrike for affected public servants is derived directly from the absence of their right to bargain
collectively, not from any restriction on freedom of association. Once again, there is an
explicit link between the right to strike and the right to bargain collectively, rather than the
more general right to protest seemingly supported by the CEACR. There is also a corollary
link to the idea that exercise of the right to strike is a matter for national regulation as C98
clearly leaves it to countries to determine which, if any, of their public servants will be
excluded from the right to bargain collectively.
Outside the public service, the CEACR had equally explicit views, viz;
The second acceptable restriction on strikes concerns essential services. The
Committee considers that essential services, for the purposes of restricting or
prohibiting the right to strike, are only those ‘the interruption of which would
endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole of [sic] part of the
population’. This concept is not absolute… 32
Having opined that the right to restrict strikes exists for, at least some, essential services, the
CEACR noted thatin practice the manner in which strikes are viewed at the national level varies widely:
several states continue to define essential services too broadly… others allow strikes
to be prohibited on the basis of their potential economic consequences…or prohibit
strikes on the basis of the potential detriment to public order or to the general or
national interest. Such provisions’ are not compatible with the principles relating to
the right to strike [emphasis added]. 33

28

Paragraphs 127 - 142 of the 2012 General Survey
Paragraph 127 of the 2012 General Survey
30
Paragraph 129 of the 2012 General Survey
31
C98 Article 6 - “This Convention does not deal with the position of public servants engaged in theadministration of the State, nor shall it be construed as prejudicing their rights or status in any way.”
32
Paragraph 131 of the 2012 General Survey
33
Paragraph 132 of the 2012 General Survey
29

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):Here, the CEACR has effectively said that, while states may impose restrictions, these cannot
be incompatible with the principles that the committee has implied into C87, in stark contrast
to the provisions of C87 itself. These require national practices to be compatible with “theguarantees provided for in this Convention,”34 putting member states in a nearly impossible
position. Almost all restrictions applied to the right to strike are likely to fall outside thebroad application of the principles the CEACR has espoused, even if there is no conflict with
the non-existent guarantees in C87.

Is there a need for global labour standard on the right to strike?
Whether or not a global standard on the right to strike is needed has been the source of debate
for many decades, at least as far back as the creation of the League of Nations in 1919. The
right to strike is important for any democracy, as is the right to protest. In this regard, while
there is disagreement on whether or not there is already (via C87), or needs to be, a global
authority for the right to strike, most countries recognise that it is a right and that it needs tobe regulated.
However, at least since 1948 35 , countries have explicitly regulated the right to strike
themselves. They have not needed the sort of guidance a globally applicable labour standard
would provide. Moreover, any attempt to create an explicit global authority risks placing
countries that have enacted their own laws and regulations outside the new authority’s ambit.
As much as anything, this is because the reasons why it was not possible to agree on thenature of the right to strike in 1948 were much the same as they are today. The inherent
conflict between workers who traditionally favour a right to strike on the broadest possible
grounds and employers who prefer strikes to be confined to the workplace is still in play.
The negotiations necessary for resolving this conflict risk a compromise that pleases no one
and leads to the conclusion that it may be better to let sleeping dogs lie. Exactly the sameconclusion was reached in 1948.

Conclusion
Overall, the fact that many, if not most, states have adopted restrictive practices that do notmeet with the CEACR’s approval suggests that, realistically, the notion of the right to strike
can only be manifest in the context of workplaces subject to national jurisdiction. To beotherwise, international instruments should be explicit both about the existence of a right tostrike and the parameters within which it can be exercised.
It is telling that no globally applicable international instrument is explicit about the existence
and nature of a right to strike and even more telling that all international instruments
establishing a right to strike explicitly restrict its exercise by means of national laws andregulations.
This article argues that the CEACR was wrong to imply a right to strike into C87 byimproperly applying long-established legal principles of interpretation. It argues that the34

C87 Article 8(1)The year in which C87 was adopted, and the discussion for which included the possible introduction of a rightto strike.
35

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):CEACR, and by extension the ILO, need to revisit their position on the right to strike. In sodoing, it has identified four main areas in which it may be argued that the CEACR, andpotentially the ILO, have departed from established principles.
First, employers as a rule accept that strikes are a legitimate tool in dispute management.
Lockouts, the corollary of strikes, are equally legitimate. However, these are workplace
tools; they are tools to be used by workers and employers on each other as means of lastresort, and are not to be used on the wider, uninvolved, population and economy. Contrary to
all the evidence that says strikes are a workplace issue, the right to strike as interpreted by the
CEACR allows strikes over which employers have no control, because they cannot “settle” adispute with those who are not their employees.
Second, the grounds on which the CEACR justified its importation of the right to strike into a
Convention silent on the matter are arguably indefensible. Inconsistencies exist in the
CEACR’s cited sources of authority and its application of international standards ofinterpretation appears to be flawed. Furthermore, explicit references to a right to strike inother, later, international instruments support an argument that the absence of any mention ofthat right in C87 is deliberate.
Third, there are considerable inconsistencies between the assertions of a general right tostrike couched in the most general terms and the CEACR’s pronouncements on the scope andparameters of strikes and on the restrictions placed upon them.
Last, widely varied practice in ILO member states, and the general disapproval of the
CEACR of much of that practice, suggest no determinative international instrument espouses
a general right to strike. Notwithstanding attempts to hold C87 up in that regard, it is probablethat individual nations have recognised they need to manage their own affairs; certainly, they
have been reminded by conditional mentions in numerous international documents of thenecessity of regulating this issue. Moreover, the fact that most countries have indeed
regulated this issue themselves also suggests that the need for a global labour standard on theright to strike has passed.
An objective consideration of the circumstances surrounding the creation and operation of
C87, as well as most countries’ current reality, suggests that the concept of the right to strike
was intended to be defined in practice by individual nations based on national circumstances.
This, in turn, suggests that the right to strike is not a corollary of the universal principle offreedom of association but instead is a workplace issue linked to collective bargaining andshould be confined to the workplace where the motivating dispute exists.

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New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 38(3):Appendix 1
Excerpts from cited 36 international instruments containing the right tostrikeInternational Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights of the United Nations Article 8(1) – The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to ensure: ….(d) The right to strike,provided that it is exercised in conformity with the laws of the particular country.[emphasis added] …
3. Nothing in this article shall authorize States Parties to the International Labour Organisation
Convention of 1948 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize totake legislative measures which would prejudice, or apply the law in such a manner as would
prejudice, the guarantees provided for in that Convention.
Charter of the Organisation of American States Article 45 – The Member States, convinced thatman can only achieve the full realization of his aspirations within a just social order, along witheconomic development and true peace, agree to dedicate every effort to the application of thefollowing principles and mechanisms:… c) Employers and workers, both rural and urban, have theright to associate themselves freely for the defence and promotion of their interests, including theright to collective bargaining and the workers’ right to strike, and recognition of the juridical
personality of associations and the protection of their freedom and independence, all in accordancewith applicable laws [emphasis added];
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union Article 28 – Right of collective bargaining
and action - Workers and employers, or their respective organisations, have, in accordance with
Community law and national laws and practices [emphasis added], the right to negotiate and conclude
collective agreements at the appropriate levels and, in cases of conflicts of interest, to take collective
action to defend their interests, including strike action.
Inter-American Charter of Social Guarantees Article 27 – Workers have the right to strike. The
law shall regulate the conditions and exercise of that right [emphasis added].
European Social Charter and European Social Charter (Revised) Article 6 – The right to bargain
collectively - With a view to ensuring the effective exercise of the right to bargain collectively, theParties undertake: …3. to promote the establishment and use of appropriate machinery for
conciliation and voluntary arbitration for the settlement of labour disputes; and recognise: 4. the rightof workers and employers to collective action in cases of conflicts of interest, including the right tostrike, subject to obligations that might arise out of collective agreements previously entered into[emphasis added].
Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the area of Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights Article 8 - Trade Union Rights – 1. The States Parties shall ensure: …b.
The right to strike. 2. The exercise of the rights set forth above may be subject only to restrictions
established by law, provided that such restrictions are characteristic of a democratic society andnecessary for safeguarding public order or for protecting public health or morals or the rights andfreedoms of others. Members of the armed forces and the police and of other essential public services
shall be subject to limitations and restrictions established by law [emphasis added].
Arab Charter on Human Rights Article 35 – 3. Each State Party shall ensure the right to strike
provided that it is exercised in conformity with its laws [emphasis added].

36

Paragraph 35 of the 2012 General Survey

70