Good Faith Bargaining Downunder

30 Pages Posted: 9 Dec 2011

See all articles by Pam Nuttall

Pam Nuttall

Auckland University of Technology - Faculty of Business & Law

Breen Creighton

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technolog (RMIT University)

Date Written: May 17, 2011

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the provisions that have been adopted by the Australian and New Zealand legislatures to encourage good faith bargaining and to attempt an assessment of the extent to which those measures have achieved, or have the potential to achieve, their objective. For almost a century the two jurisdictions uniquely relied on compulsory conciliation and arbitration rather than collective bargaining as the principal means of regulating terms and conditions of employment. With the shift to greater reliance on collective bargaining and individual employment contracts, good faith requirements have been viewed as a means of ensuring continued collective coverage and the maintenance of union density. Detailed analysis of the statutory provision and their interpretation is set in the context of a brief historical overview of the preceding conciliation and arbitration regime, followed by some tentative conclusions about the efficacy of statutory regulation as a vehicle for promoting good faith bargaining.

Keywords: good faith, collective bargaining, employment law,conciliation and arbitration

Suggested Citation

Nuttall, Pam and Creighton, Breen, Good Faith Bargaining Downunder (May 17, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1969635 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1969635

Pam Nuttall

Auckland University of Technology - Faculty of Business & Law ( email )

New Zealand

Breen Creighton (Contact Author)

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technolog (RMIT University) ( email )

124 La Trobe Street
Melbourne, 3000
Australia

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