The Accord and Strikes: An International Perspective

This paper examines the relationship between Australian and world strike activity between 1960 and 1998. Appropriate indices are constructed for which evidence of a long-run equilibrium relation is found between Australian and world strike activity. The evidence suggests Australian and world strike rate indices are cointegrated with a breakpoint in that relation occurring sometime in the very late 1960s or early 1970s. No breakpoints are in evidence before, during or after the period (1983- 96) of the Accord. This result is consistent with the view that the decline in strike activity in Australia during the period of the Accord was not a singularly Australian experience.