bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Health and Social Effects of Downsizing: A Review
Authors: Bose Lakshmi , Bohle Philip
Published: March 2013

Extensive organisational downsizing and restructuring has occurred in many countries since the 1980s. The negative consequences for workers forced into unemployment are well recognised. However, a growing body of evidence suggests there are also substantial, though less obvious, negative effects on workers who are retained. These effects may include impaired teamwork and productivity, damaged social networks and diminished social support, negative attitudes to work, elevated work-life conflict, a greater prevalence of negative health behaviours and impaired physical and psychological health. A cluster of behavioural and health effects observed amongst retained workers, described as ‘survivor syndrome’, is characterised by demoralisation, risk aversion, diminished organisational commitment and poorer health. These negative effects may be moderated to some extent by factors such as personality, gender, organisational level and age. A focus on more specific research questions and methodological refinements are likely to enhance future research in this area.
The Collapse of the Riskless, Middle-Class Economy
Authors: Freedman Craig
Published: March 2013

The very basis of Japan’s post-war economic growth was time and place specific. A fundamental failure to recognise the temporary nature of Japan’s success led the Japanese to make ad hoc changes, which served largely to prop up the prevailing status quo. Inevitably, Japan’s ability to sustain the level of growth required to maintain its economic system periodically faltered, before collapsing in the nineties.

Since capitalist enterprise, by its very achievements, tends to automatize progress, we conclude that it tends to make itself superfluous — to break to pieces under the pressure of its own success. The perfectly bureaucratized giant industrial unit not only ousts the small or medium-sized firm and ‘expropriates’ its owners, but in the end it also ousts the entrepreneur and expropriates the bourgeoisie as a class which in the process stands to lose not only its income but also what is infinitely more important, its function (Schumpeter 1950: 134).
The Global Strategies and Employment Relations Practices of the Hyundai Motor Company in Korea and India
Authors: Lansbury Russell D. , Purcell William , Suh Chungsok , Kwon Seung-Ho
Published: March 2013

This paper examines the experience of the Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) managing its employees in a new plant established in Chennai, India. The establishment of the Indian plant in 1998 marked an important attempt by HMC to ‘relaunch’ its globalisation strategy after an earlier failure to manufacture in Canada. The ability of HMC to adopt an appropriate employment relations strategy in India will be an important factor determining its success as a global manufacturer. A key issue facing the Hyundai Motor Company of India (HMI) is the role to be accorded to unions and employee representation in the plant.
Union Strategies in the Sri Lankan Tea Plantations: Rediscovering the Movement Dimension
Authors: Biyanwila Janaka
Published: March 2013

With the launch of export-oriented industrialisation policies in 1977, trade unions in Sri Lanka entered a new set of challenges. The state promotion of labour market deregulation and privatisation has directly undermined union strategies based on bureaucratic modes of organising worker solidarity. Nevertheless, among the gamut of union strategies are tendencies characterising what is described as social movement unionism (SMU). The SMU approach focuses on strategies of independent unions combining participatory democracy internally with structured alliances externally. This paper looks at the case of a union in the tea plantations and its potential towards developing a SMU strategic orientation. In particular, the discussion focuses on the deepening of democratic tendencies within the unions which may be capable of reinforcing the movement dimension of unions.
Regulation, Human Capital and Increasing the Level of Transparency in Investment Recommendations
Authors: Royal Carol
Published: March 2013

Regulatory agencies, the financial community and the investing public need to be aware that more effective investment recommendations and decisions require human capital analysis. It is important to the work of securities analysts, their clients and their industry. Bassi, Lev, Mcmurrer and Sissfield (2001) suggest that non-financial insights, particularly human capital related insights, make up a large proportion of investment decisions. More rigorous qualitative human capital analysis can illuminate the working of an organisation in a way that primary financial data on its own cannot achieve need. A model for outlining the human resource drivers of sustainable human capital is introduced and discussed in response to this need. In essence, an integrated approach is needed for the purpose of making more transparent investment recommendations. In Australia the Regulatory Agency, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission can assist in the adoption of this integrated investment process through the Training of Financial Product Advisors, Licensing Policy Statement 146.
Rapid Ageing and Old-Age Income Security in Korea
Authors: Yun Sukmyung
Published: March 2013

The Korean old-age income support system is at a crossroads. The population is ageing rapidly and the public pension schemes are facing bankruptcy. Proposals to downsize the National Pension Scheme have been held up in the National Assembly by political parties who have argued for multi pillar arrangements as advocated by the OECD and the World Bank. However, with the recent passing of legislation to allow the conversion of retirement allowances to private pensions, many commentators believe that a better approach would be to covert the current National Pension Scheme from a ‘low contribution-high benefit’ scheme to an adequate contribution-adequate benefit scheme. For the future of the nation, reform of the pension system is urgent and inevitable.
Command and Control in the Workplace: Agreement-Making underWork Choices
Authors: Cooney Sean
Published: March 2013

This article provides an overview of the radical changes in workplace agreement-making introduced by the ‘Work Choices’ amendments to the Workplace Relations Act. It outlines the six types of statutory workplace agreement and the procedures, termination rules and content requirements associated with them. While some agreement-making procedures have been simplified, this has come at the cost of independent oversight. Furthermore, the government's overall regulatory approach is shown to be prescriptive, punitive and one-sided. The article contrasts the new workplace agreements with contracts and observes that alternative regulatory frameworks could readily have been created, with greater respect for party autonomy.
Markets, Madness and a Middle Way Revisited
Authors: Harcourt G. C.
Published: March 2013

A lecture delivered at a Public Meeting of the Centre for Applied Economic and Policy Research, held at Swinburne University of Technology on 10 July 2006. The author is Emeritus Professor in the History of Economic Theory, Cambridge, Emeritus Fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge and Professor Emeritus, Adelaide.
Statutory Union Recognition in North America and the UK: Lessons for Australia?
Authors: Briggs Chris
Published: March 2013

Should the Australian labour movement pursue a system of statutory union recognition? The experiences of the UK and Canada illustrate that such a system can address some of the worst breaches of freedom of association under the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cth). However, the influence on union density and collective bargaining coverage is likely to be modest. It may also constitute a structural impediment to multi-employer bargaining, boxing unions into a system of fragmented bargaining, and results are sensitive to institutional design so there could be serious consequences if the system was re-engineered towards the US model in the future.
Minimum Wages, Unions, the Economy and Society
Authors: Nevile John , Kriesler Peter
Published: March 2013

One of the characteristics of the WorkChoices legislation introduced by the Howard government was the anti-union bias that permeated it. Some argue that this is appropriate because unions increase minimum wages, and economic theory shows that this will decrease employment and hence output. The Rudd government has signalled that it intends changing this anti-union bias, while at the same time restoring the role and coverage of minimum wages. This paper examines the arguments around these issues and concludes that neither side of the economic theory debate has delivered a knockout blow. The theoretical analysis is followed by a section looking at empirical evidence on the effects of deregulating labour markets. Again there is not complete consensus among the economics profession. However, both sides of the debate on the effects of labour market deregulation agree that strong minimum wage legislation does significantly reduce earnings inequality by increasing earnings at the bottom end of the distribution. The paper concludes that the increase in inequality consequent on labour market deregulation has adverse effects on the economy in the short run and disturbing longer run effects on society.
Discretionary Fiscal Policy and Budget Deficits: An ‘Orthodox’ Critique of Current Policy Debate
Authors: Hart Neil
Published: March 2013

A return to discretionary fiscal policy is required in the current economic crisis. Advocacy of deficit spending is consistent with mainstream economic models, whether those relying on traditional textbook analysis or those aligned with the New Neoclassical Synthesis. The notion that deficit budgets are necessarily profligate rests on an outdated theory of public finance that ignores endogenous money. It is the productive capacity of the economy and not the government's extent of taxing its citizens, or borrowing from them, that provides the limit to the use of fiscal policy levers.
Developing an Analytical Framework for Analysing and Assessing Public-Private Partnerships: A Hospital Case Study
Authors: Chung Demi
Published: March 2013

Public-Private Partnerships have been a popular public procurement policy in a number of countries including Australia, the UK, and New Zealand since the early 1990s. This article examines the experience of the Port Macquarie Base Hospital (PMBH), the first public hospital delivered under the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model in the State of New South Wales, Australia. Using a framework adapted from Macário, this study focuses on the political climate in which this PPP mechanism was implemented, identifying the underlying motives driving the use of a PPP to deliver public health services and clarifying the essential conflicts undermining the PPP process. The article covers the entire life cycle of the PPP hospital, from the initial contracting process to its eventual sale. A political desire to reduce public debt, allied with an ideology assuming private sector superiority, made this approach particularly attractive, but failed to deliver the desired outcome. The success of PPPs would appear to depend strongly on goal alignment in a multi-level political system. Auditing processes during the implementation process need to take account of the presence or absence of such alignment.
Off-Shored Services Workers: Labour Law and Practice in India
Authors: Penfold Carolyn
Published: March 2013

The growth of information technology has enabled the ‘off-shoring’ of many business processes, and such off-shoring has grown exponentially in the past decade. India has been a major recipient of such off-shored work. To understand the effects of this phenomenon on off-shore workers, it is necessary to understand the legal context within which such work is undertaken.

This article thus explains the labour law framework of India, from Constitutional protections down to local laws, policies and rules. It then examines labour practices, and identifies the gaps between formal labour law and actual practice in this sector. The article notes that some of these gaps between law and practice are a result of public matters, such as corruption, legal exemptions, and lack of law enforcement; but others are due to features of the sector itself, such as its newness, the types of work it offers, and the ready availability of alternative jobs.
Devolution, Job Enrichment and Workplace Performance in Sri Lanka's Garment Industry
Authors: Jayawardana Ananda , O’Donnell Michael
Published: March 2013

The article examines the impact, in one Sri Lankan garment industry, of a management initiative devolving to line employees the responsibility for decision-making about workplace performance. At the time of the study, garment manufacturers in Sri Lanka faced increased pressure from international buyers to improve product quality and to meet stringent production delivery schedules, along with growing concerns from Western consumers regarding factory conditions and labour standards. One outcome of these pressures was increased experimentation with a range of quality management techniques to elicit workforce commitment to improved efficiency levels and higher quality standards. This study documents one experiment whereby production line operators rotated the role of production supervisor amongst themselves and accepted responsibility for minimising production bottlenecks, and for communicating data on workplace efficiency, product reject rates and absenteeism levels to other line operators. We found that workplace productivity and product quality increased over the 18-month period of the study, while levels of labour turnover and absenteeism declined. Nevertheless, the study also found that the increased role in workplace decision-making provided to employees also came with increased expectations that line employees would achieve higher production targets, improve quality and monitor workplace attendance.
Time Use, Gender and Disadvantage in Australia: Conventional Income and ‘Full Income’ Approaches to Estimation
Authors: Hill Trish
Published: March 2013

Conventional poverty and inequality measures, based only on comparisons of financial resources, may underestimate gender differences in living standards. The value of time spent in household work by oneself and partner, and the value of leisure are key elements that need to be considered in measures of living standards. This article develops a method for measuring wellbeing at the level of the individual, rather than the household. Following the tradition of Australian models of ‘full income’, the final measure of wellbeing includes the value of time in leisure and unpaid work along with individual income, the benefits accruing from the social wage and the welfare gains from the ownership and use of assets. The article then compares the conventional income distribution and the ‘full income’ distribution to identify population subgroups disadvantaged on each of these measures. The results show that gender inequalities in living standards may be underestimated by conventional income measures, and that inequalities in personal income and time use contribute most substantially to gender inequality in the full income distribution.
Adam Smith and the Labour Contract: Is Labour Exchange Analogous to Commodity Exchange?
Authors: Aspromourgos Tony
Published: March 2013

In his seminal and canonical text for the new science of political economy, theWealth of Nations, Adam Smith seems to proceed as if there are markets for labour, akin to markets for ‘commodities' in the ordinary sense of that term. It might therefore seem as if for Smith, the production, distribution and exchange (or pricing) of commodities finds a more or less strict analogy in the production, distribution and exchange (or pricing) of labour or labour services, in ‘commercial society’ (his term), or in a liberal capitalist social economy. But how close, really, is the analogy between commodities in the ordinary sense and labour, in Smith's understanding?
Pension Adequacy and the Pension Review
Authors: Saunders Peter , Wong Melissa
Published: March 2013

It has long been accepted that the adequacy of payments is a key objective of any social security system, where adequacy is defined as the ability of a payment to support a basic acceptable standard of living that is consistent with prevailing community standards. The 2009 Harmer Pension Review directed attention to the adequacy of the pension, an issue that has not been systematically examined in Australia for several decades. This article reviews alternative definitions of adequacy and shows that its basic features have been consistently recognised in official reports conducted over a long period. The deprivation approach is then described and shown to produce estimates that have a direct bearing on this conception of income adequacy. Using the results from two recent surveys, conducted in 2006 and 2010, the article compares levels of deprivation among groups defined on the basis of their principal source of income, including those dependent on an Age Pension and several other forms of social security payment. The results indicate that the adequacy of the Age Pension in 2006 was above that of payments awarded on the basis of disability, unemployment or sole parenthood, and also that the pension increase awarded following the Pension Review reduced deprivation among those who received it. However, the increase was not well targeted to those groups who required further assistance, as indicated by the levels of deprivation they were facing. Further application of the deprivation approach would provide new insights into the nature and extent of existing income inadequacies.
Dracula in Charge of the Blood Bank
Authors: Kingston Geoffrey
Published: March 2013

The Harmer–Henry pension and tax review resulted in an increase in the common value of the single rate of Age Pension and Disability Support Pension from 25 per cent to 28 per cent of male total average weekly earnings. It also recommended a Resource Super Profits Tax that would have initially taxed mining ‘rents' at 36 per cent, on top of the pre-existing 30 per cent federal tax on profits. These recommendations represent two sides of the same coin: higher federal spending alongside higher federal taxes. The pension rise is likely to reduce participation in the labour force. The proposed tax rise would discourage mining activity as miners considered their options to delay or abandon projects. There is a lot to like at the level of detail in the Harmer–Henry package, but future efforts to reform our tax-transfer system should focus on promoting saving and investment, including investment in human capital.
The Debate on Expansionary Fiscal Consolidation: How Robust is the Evidence?
Authors: Chowdhury Anis , Islam Iyanatul
Published: March 2013

This paper critically examines the key empirical evidence used to support the fiscal consolidation argument, complemented by a brief assessment of the limitations of the analytical foundation of the growth promoting benefits of the fiscal consolidation thesis. It also reviews the evidence on the debt-growth relationship at some length. It finds that the negative relationship between debt and GDP growth is influenced by outliers or exceptionally high debt-GDP ratios. It also points out that the composition of public debt matters. Additionally, the debt-GDP relationship appears to be non-linear—positive first and turning to negative, but there is considerable variation in the estimated turning or ‘tipping’ point, which is not helpful as a policy guide. Historical evidence does not lend support to the concerns that the current situation is likely to cause rapid upward spiraling of public indebtedness. Finally, the argument that fiscal consolidation is possible without adversely affecting growth is not based on robust empirical evidence. This conclusion is reinforced by a succinct overview of some country-specific experiences (Denmark, Ireland and United States).
A Primer on Australian Player Associations
Authors: Dabscheck Braham
Published: March 2013

The paper provides basic information on the operation of Australian player associations. In doing so it draws on the experience of player associations in English soccer and American baseball. England’s Professional Footballers’ Association acted as a beacon to various attempts by Australian soccer players to form associations. Its legal victory in Eastham, in 1963, where it challenged the retain and transfer system, has had a resonance in Australia with the 1971 decision of the High Court in Tutty which struck down the New South Wales Rugby League’s retain and transfer system. This and decisions by lower courts in other states aided Australian player associations in their dealings with their respective leagues. Information is provided on various failed beginnings prior to World War I, and subsequent successful attempts to establish player associations in Australia, the formation of confederations both domestic and international, details of the respective membership of associations, the average income of members and a measure of their ability to provide services for members.
Gender and pay equity in a global knowledge organisation
Authors: McGrath-Champ Susan , Jefferson Therese
Published: March 2013

The gender pay gap, the difference in earnings of men and women, has remained remarkably resilient over the past two decades in Australia and a number of other countries, despite a range of legislative and policy initiatives aimed at narrowing this difference. Drawing upon industry-wide data and an organisational case, this analysis of professional business services examines the nature of pay equity within and beyond organisational boundaries. We conclude that ‘success’ in gender and pay equity terms has been constrained by minimum government compliance requirements and limited attention to the role labour markets play in contributing to gendered patterns of pay.
Enterprise Bargaining: Making Australia Competitive
Authors: McLaughlin Peter
Published: March 2013

The Australian economy has increasingly come under the influence of international factors. This has placed greater pressures on Australian businesses to be more competitive. This requires changes in both management and union practices, and changes in the institutional arrangements in which industrial relations are conducted. The paper argues the case for the general movement to enterprise bargaining. This will necessitate a major overhauling of bargaining structures and of trade union and employer association structures and practices. The award restructuring brought about by National Wage Case decisions provides but a preliminary step in the movement to an enterprise focus which will be critical to internationally competitive industries.
The Accord: An Assessment
Authors: Fallick Leslie
Published: March 2013

The Accord has been a feature of the Labor Government's economic and industrial relations management since 1983. It has had both its critics and supporters. The paper assesses the Accord on a number of economic and non-economic criteria.
Administered Flexibility: Restructuring the Metal Industry Award
Authors: Plowman David
Published: March 2013

In recent years National Wage guide-lines have attempted to facilitate the implementation of a system of “administered flexibility”. The Efficiency and Restructuring Principle adopted in March 1987, and the Structural Efficiency Principle adopted in August 1988, have been the major instruments of this attempt. In different industries and enterprises these principles have resulted in differing outcomes and approaches. In some industries, such as the chemical, steel and aluminium industries, restructuring has taken place at a company and/or enterprise level. In other industries such as metal fabrication, road transport, building and construction, a “blue-print” industry approach has been adopted. This paper examines award restructuring in such a “blue-print” industry.
Australian Tax Reform: Which Way Ahead?
Authors: Head John G.
Published: March 2013

While the 1980s saw major changes to the Australian tax system which sought both to reduce avoidance and evasion and to reform the base structure of income tax, there are design deficiencies in some of these changes which must be attended to. Also a much closer approach to comprehensive and consistent taxation of investment income should be attempted. On the side of indirect tax the replacement of the wholesale sales tax by a broadly based value added tax is highly desirable, but is unlikely to be achievable politically unless lpart of a strategy which combines sales tax reform, tax mix change and income tax reform. In any case, meaningful and durable reform of the tax system requires a basic community consensus which cuts across sectional interest groups and political parties.
Tax Reform: Lessons from the 1980s
Authors: Grbich Yuri
Published: March 2013

The 1980s was a decade in which federal governments tackled the problem of massive tax avoidance by corporations. Taxation Reforms have reduced tax avoidance but have not been totally successful. This paper develops five propositions designed to bring about a tight and economically efficient system.
The Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey and the Prospects for Enterprise Bargaining
Authors: Callus Ron
Published: March 2013

This paper examines some of the findings from the recently released report on the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, the largest industrial relations survey undertaken in Australia. The data, which is available from the Social Science Data Archive not only provide a picture of workplace industrial relations which are at odds with many popular perceptions of Australian industrial relations, but also provide information that can inform current policy debates. The evidence is examined to assess the preparedness of workplaces for decentralised bargaining arrangements.
Australian Economic Growth: A Structural Perspective (A Preliminary Report)
Authors: Halevi Joseph , Kriesler Peter
Published: March 2013

In this paper we argue that Australia’s current economic problems are not just the result of our being at the bottom of the cycle, but rather reflect a longer term decline. The reasons for this decline are located in structural problems relating to the decline of the industrial sector and the increasing unreliability of the export sector. We view industry as the core sector which generates technology and growth. Within the industrial sector, capital goods producing industries are the ‘hot bed’ (so to speak) of structure change and technical progress. Australia has let these industries decline. As a result, traditional remedies in the form of either demand management policies or ‘waiting for the world recovery’ will not be enough. In fact, recent economic policies, rather than being a panacea, have exacerbated the problem.
The Coalition’s Plan to Regulate Industrial Relations
Authors: Dabscheck Braham
Published: March 2013

In October 1992 the federal coalition released Jobsback, a statement of its industrial relations policies. The article situates Jobsback in the context of the evolution of the coalition’s industrial relations policies since the Fraser years, outlines its major features, and provides a critique. Jobsback erects a new regulatory schema under a banner of deregulation. Three key elements are contained in Jobsback. They are tribunal avoidance and the use of the common law, legislatively imposed employment rules to ‘aid’ the transition from an award to a non-award system, and enterprise confinement. The article draws attention to the coalition’s views concerning industrial conflict, constitutional issues, transitional problems associated with establishing legislatively imposed workplace rules, minima in workplace agreements, the Office of the Employee Advocate, equality before the law and good faith bargaining.
“Jobsback” and the Future of Wages Policy
Authors: Stegman Trevor
Published: March 2013

The implications of the Liberal-National Party Coalition’s policy with regard to wage determination in Australia are assessed in relation to appropriate goals for wages policy. Although the current Accord-based system has shifted its focus over the last decade, from generally applied wage determination principles aimed at inflation control to an enterprise based system aimed at productivity enhancement, the Coalition’s policy should not be seen as merely an extension of the current system. This is because, in pursuit of faster productivity gains, the Coalition policy aims at the permanent exclusion from the wage determination process of the two institutional elements which provide the scope for an anti-inflation incomes policy in Australia — the Industrial Relations Commission and the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
A Constitutional Basis for the Federal Coalition’s Industrial Relations Policy — and Related Matters
Authors: Hulme S.E.K.
Published: March 2013

This paper argues that previous discussion of this question has erred when it looks for a particular provision of the Constitution to support the Coalition’s policy. It may be a matter of depending on several sources of power. The relevant question is: to what extent can this power help to achieve the policy? The author’s opinion is that, when considered in this light, the achievement of the Coalition’s policy is not beyond the constitutional competence of the Commonwealth.
Are Low Income Countries Catching up or Falling Further Behind? Evidence from Income and Demographic Indicators
Authors: Kakwani N. , Subbarao K.
Published: March 2013

The main objective of this paper is to measure changes in living conditions in one hundred and ten countries of the World during the period 1961 to 1990. Our concern is whether the economic and social gap is narrowing or widening. We also examine in which countries has there been a consistent improvement in average living standards. The standard of living is measured in terms of (a) per capita income, (b) life expectancy at birth and (c) infant mortality rate. The justification of these indicators is provided in terms of functionings and capabilities.
Bargaining and Participation in Norway
Authors: Sivesind Karl Henrik
Published: March 2013

In this paper, changes in Norwegian bargaining and participation since the end of the eighties are discussed in a twenty year perspective. It is argued that a corporatist bargaining structure has been reinstated as a pragmatic measure to handle a difficult economic situation. This is contrary to the general political sentiments which have prevailed since the beginning of the eighties. However, a new constellation of actors are emerging on the organisational level who may irreversibly change the bargaining structure. With regard to participation, the laws and institutions that were introduced during the 1970s are still in place. However, their content is changing from democratisation as a value by itself to a focus on productivity-improvement as the ultimate goal.
Public and Private Spending: Some Australian Evidence
Authors: Monadjemi Mehdi S.
Published: March 2013

This paper examines empirical relationships between government expenditure and private spending in Australia, to see whether government expenditure reduces, or crowds out, private expenditure or encourages it. Particular attention is paid to the effect on private investment expenditure and the possibility of a change occuring in the relationship between public and private is examined. Regression analysis found no significant evidence of crowding out. Public investment was found to compliment private investment in the period before 1974, but not in the period since then.
Direct Participation in Work Organization: A Survey of Recent International Developments
Authors: Ozaki Muneto
Published: March 2013

For more than a decade, employer-driven changes in work organization have been spreading in all industrialized countries. The changes often involved greater opportunities given to workers at shopfloor for participating in work-related decision-making as individuals or as groups of employees. Debates among researchers and practitioners on such development tend, however, not to be well focused, due to the ambiguity surrounding such direct participation. This paper therefore attempts to clarify the various forms of direct participation, the objectives they seek to attain as well as their effectiveness. The author also calls for greater union role in the regulation of direct participation.
Innovation in Isolation: Labor-Management Partnerships in the United States
Authors: Wever Kirsten S. , Batt Rosemary , Rubinstein Saul
Published: March 2013

In the United States, as in other advanced industrial countries, worker participation in management has taken on increasing importance, placing pressures on employers and unions to change how they deal with employees/members, and with each other. This paper examines two of the most impressive cases in the U.S.: the partnerships between General Motors (G.M.) and the United Autoworkers union (U.A.W.) at Saturn and between BellSouth and the Communication Workers union (C.W.A.). We outline the evolution and the basic features of these innovations, as well as highlighting certain ongoing problems. These problems, we argue, confront the parties to employment relations in the U.S. more generally, reflecting profound ambivalence about such experiments, and their continued isolation as ‘islands of excellence’. As such, these cases both illustrate the vast potential for labor-management partnerships as well as the dampening effect of the employment relations context in the U.S.
Why Privatize Airports?
Authors: Kriesler Peter
Published: March 2013

This paper examines the arguments for the privatisation of airports in Australia. The general arguments for privatisation are evaluated and found not to be universally applicable. There is no a priori argument in that all activities operate optimally in the private sector. Rather, the costs and benefits of each particular case need to be examined. This is then done with respect to airports. Firstly, the question of whether airports should be operated as networks or as individual optimizing entities is considered. It is shown that with respect to both pricing and investment decisions, efficiency requires retention of the network. Due to the nature of the product, the market will not deliver an efficient, competitive outcome. In this light the specifics of the Australian privatization proposals are examined, and found wanting. The case for privatization of airports is extremely weak.
The ‘Death’ of Comparative Wage Justice in Australia
Authors: Green Roy
Published: March 2013

This paper examines the concept and application of comparative wage justice in the transition to a more decentralised wage bargaining system in Australia. Although it is widely assumed that comparative wage justice now has little or no role in the system, the paper demonstrates that it continues to be major factor in the adjustment of wage rates within and between awards, particularly as a result of the national wage case decisions of 1988–89. The question still to be determined is whether it will also have an application to the growing disparities between the award wage structure on the one hand and the outcomes of enterprise bargaining on the other, which are addressed in the ACTU’s 1996 ‘New Living Wage Case’. The conclusion of the paper is that failure to apply the concept to these disparities will transform awards and tribunals into a ‘low pay ghetto’ with diminishing relevance to the overall dynamic of wage fixation.
Financial Deregulation in Australia in the 1980s
Authors: Nevile Ann
Published: March 2013

This article examines the process of financial deregulation in Australia during the decade when Australia’s financial system changed from a highly regulated system to a system with few quantitative or qualitative controls, a freely floating exchange rate and a deficit fully financed by the market. While existing accounts have tended to focus on a single explanatory variable (such as an ideological shift or economic pressures), this article argues that policy outcomes were the result of a more complex interaction of ideology, economic forces, institutional structures and political interests. In analyzing the effect of these significant influences, the article provides a more complete picture of the deregulatory process and places the Wallis Report in context.
On the Role of Regulation in Union - Employer Bargaining
Authors: Stegman Trevor
Published: March 2013

This paper provides some analysis of microeconomic criteria for the regulation of union - employer wage bargaining in the context of a decentralised wage determination system. Using a simple model, where the employer has monopoly power in the product market, it is shown that an efficient collusive bargain struck between union and employer will benefit the consumer. This result holds under quite weak assumptions about the objectives of the union. Under not unreasonable assumptions about the nature of union objectives, the collusive bargaining outcome will be better for the consumer them removing the monopoly power of the employer while the monopoly power of the union remains. The implication for wages policy is that rather than proscribe collusive bargaining between a union and an employer with monopoly power, regulation should assist such bargaining as there are social benefits.
Muybridge’s Magic Lantern
Authors: Fresko David
Published: March 2013

Though widely known for his contributions to instantaneous photography and studies of human and animal locomotion, the figure of Eadweard Muybridge was equally renowned during the final decades of the 19th century for his tours of the magic lantern circuit. At this time, the photographer entertained and educated audiences with a poly-generic, multi-media show alternating still views with animations produced through his projecting apparatus, the zoopraxiscope. This article examines the temporal and material dimensions of Muybridge’s lantern practice to demonstrate how it builds on 19th-century anxieties about changing epistemologies of vision and visuality, as well as time and temporality. As a dynamic process animating still images into motion, Muybridge treated animation as a palliative measure designed to bring his ungainly images of animals back into the realm of natural human vision. In so doing, he bred truth through illusion and helped prepare audiences for an emerging cinematic sensibility. By emphasizing the temporal dimensions of photographic indexicality, the author further argues that Muybridge’s endeavors amount to an archive of time, and that his lantern slides evince time made material. While the slides’ projection displayed a virtual immateriality, an examination of broken ones reveals that photographic beauty emerges from their ephemerality and fragility. The animating interchange between stillness and motion, between the material and the immaterial, functions as an indicator of the emergence of epistemic assumptions and anxieties about time and sight that took hold as cinema emerged.
Mamoru Oshii’s Production of Multi-layered Space in 2D Anime
Authors: Nakagawa Miho
Published: March 2013

This article articulates a Japanese spatial device: layering. In contrast to Western perspective, layering creates depth with contours by overlapping some 2D images. Through Mamoru Oshii’s theorisation of three layers, the author investigates the application of layering in traditional woodblock prints and anime and speculates on its derivation from calligraphy as an art form. This article addresses the idea that in anime, unlike in a unified perspective drawing, the layering system allows different depiction styles to be overlapped. Moreover, through Oshii’s films, his experiments in audio-visual exchange and the temporal application of concept of ma, pose and pause in anime’s movement are explored. The goal is to investigate the concept of ma and layering further by examining one locus of spatiotemporal experience – anime. It is speculated that the spatiotemporal concept of ma was generated by the written Japanese language, the combination of kana and ideograms.
Factors influencing the decision to participate in medical premarital examinations in Hubei Province, Mid-China
Authors: Wang Peigang , Wang Xiao , Fang Min , Vander Weele Tyler J
Published: March 2013

Background

To investigate the attitudes of premarital couples towards the premarital screening program after the abolition of compulsory screening in China and to study the factors influencing participation.

Methods

Between July 1st2010 to August 31st 2010, 650 people who registered for marriage at the civil affairs bureau of Wuhan, Suizhou, Zaoyang in Hubei province were studied using questionnaires. Logistic regression was used to examine the factors influencing participation in the premarital screening program.

Results

The premarital screening rate was 34.8% (95% Confidence Interval: 31.0% to 38.5%). Several demographic factors (age, residence, profession), awareness, knowledge, and attitudes towards premarital screening all had significant influence on participation in the premarital screening program.

Conclusions

Promotion activities and health education to improve knowledge and attitudes to premarital screening will help increase the rate of voluntary premarital screening.
Does the care dependency of nursing home residents influence their health-related quality of life?-A cross-sectional study
Authors: Tabali Manuela , Ostermann Thomas , Jeschke Elke , Dassen Theo , Heinze Cornelia
Published: March 2013

Background

Studies on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) are missing for nursing home residents independent from their health conditions or interventions after admission. Our aim was to analyse if the care dependency of nursing home residents influence their HRQOL and to describe HRQOL of nursing home residents at the time of admission.

Method

Eleven German nursing homes were randomly selected for a cross-sectional multicentre study from April 2008 until December 2009. HRQOL was measured with the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) in the six domains “Physical Mobility”, ”Energy”, “Pain”, “Social Isolation”, “Emotional Reaction” and “Sleep”. Domain scores range from zero (good subjective health status) to 100 (poor subjective health status). Care dependency was evaluated using the Care Dependency Scale, age, sex, cognitive status and diseases were documented by the research assistants. Multivariate regression analysis was performed to quantify the influence of care dependency on HRQOL.

Results

120 residents were included in total. HRQOL was mostly reduced in the domains “Physical Mobility” and ”Energy“ (mean scores >43.0), while impairment differences in the domains “Pain”, “Social Isolation”, “Emotional Reaction” and “Sleep” were only moderate (≤25.0). HRQOL was not influenced by the age. Women (n = 85) had a significantly poorer HRQOL in the domain “Pain” than men (mean score women: 29.5 ± 31.5; males: 14.9 ± 17.2; p = 0.011). Care dependency had an influence on the domain “Sleep” (ß = −0.195, p = 0.031), while the other domains were not influenced by care dependency. Residents with a low care dependency scored significantly lower (better HRQOL) in the domain “Sleep” than residents with a high care dependency (mean score 15.3; SD ± 19.0 versus mean score 32.8 SD ± 33.2; p < 0.02).

Conclusion

The level of care dependency has no influence on the HRQOL from the nursing home residents’ perspective apart from the domain “Sleep”. High care dependency residents have a lower HRQOL in the domain “Sleep” compared to moderate and low care dependency residents. We found a significantly lower HRQOL in women compared to men in the domain “Pain“.
Pharmacokinetics of a peroral single dose of two long-acting formulations and an aqueous formulation of doxycycline hyclate in horses
Authors: Zozaya Heidi , Gutierrez Lilia , Bernad Maria Josefa , Sumano Hector
Published: March 2013

Background

Doxycyline (Dox) is a semisynthetic antibacterial drug with pharmacological advantages over its parent drug (tetracycline) in the treatment of various bacterial diseases in horses. Yet, at present a horse-customized pharmaceutical formulation is not available. Based on its pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) ratio, Dox is considered a time-dependent antibacterial drug and ideally expected to achieve sustained plasma drug concentrations both at or slightly above the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) level for as long as possible between dosing intervals. Hence, the objective of this study was to formulate two long-acting (LA) doxycyline hyclate (Dox-h) formulations for oral administration and define their pharmacokinetics in non-fasted adult horses to obtain better bioavailability and longer mean residence time, features needed to comply better with its pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) ratios.

Results

Pharmacokinetic parameters were determined after the oral administration of a single 10 mg/kg bolus dose of two 20% Dox-h formulations: one based on a β cyclodextrin (Dox-β) matrix and a second one on a poloxamer (Dox-pol) matrix. The results were compared with the pharmacokinetics of a single 10 mg/kg bolus oral dose of a freshly made aqueous Dox-h solution (Dox-a). Dox-pol showed the greatest values for relative bioavailability (548%); maximum serum concentration (Cmax) value was 1.3 ± 0.7 μg/mL with time to reach the Cmax (Tmax) of 5.9 ± 1.7 h, area under the curve (AUC) of 17.0 ± 2.2 μg h/ml and elimination half-life (T½ β) of 4.9 ± 1.0 h.

Conclusions

Considering a minimal inhibitory concentration MIC of 0.25 μg/mL, clinically effective plasma concentrations might be obtained for up to 24 h administering Dox-pol. This is an oral paste formulation that might optimize the use of Dox-h in horses in terms of PK/PD ratio congruency, and it is likely that it may also improve prescription compliance due to its ease of administration.