Start Date
2-10-1999 10:00 AM
End Date
2-10-1999 10:15 AM
Description
The 1997-98 Maritime dispute may well have been the apotheosis of the neo-liberal project in Australian industrial relations. What began as an apparent assault on the employment conditions of maritime workers was quickly shown to be part of a larger strategy which involved an attack m the Institutional of organised labour, including the unions and the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, and the very idea of a social market with systematic government intervention. In attempting to rupture the often uneasy relationship between labour and the state, the objective was to weaken simultaneously both the remnants of an organised working class and the agencies of the state which helped sustain it. In the process a new set of relationships would be established in which neo-Iiberal principles would deliver infinitely flexible and disposable labour to a market society with minimalist government.
Mapping The Road to Webb Dock
The 1997-98 Maritime dispute may well have been the apotheosis of the neo-liberal project in Australian industrial relations. What began as an apparent assault on the employment conditions of maritime workers was quickly shown to be part of a larger strategy which involved an attack m the Institutional of organised labour, including the unions and the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, and the very idea of a social market with systematic government intervention. In attempting to rupture the often uneasy relationship between labour and the state, the objective was to weaken simultaneously both the remnants of an organised working class and the agencies of the state which helped sustain it. In the process a new set of relationships would be established in which neo-Iiberal principles would deliver infinitely flexible and disposable labour to a market society with minimalist government.