The Essay On Neoliberalism's Impact On Employment Relations In Australia.

Write an academic essay on the following:

What has been the impact of neoliberalism on Australian employment relations? You may refer to case studies of Australian organisations to provide examples and to display knowledge of the concepts.

1) Please refer to University Guidelines with regard to essay writing.
2) Harvard referencing and a reference page or bibliography is required.
3) At least 8 primary refereed academic journal articles are required to support your argument.
4) Journal articles should be no older than 2010 publication date.
5) Search the library database. You will find numerous articles. Look especially for special issues that deal with specific countries or regions. Here are some

Examples:

Asian Business and Management
Journal of Industrial Relations
Industrial Relations Journal
British Journal of Industrial Relations
International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations
Journal of International Human Resource Management
International Human Resource Management
Employee Relations
Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resource Management
6) You should use appropriate theoretical models in your discussion.

Neo-liberalism and Its Definition

The term neoliberalism is used in a variety of senses by the scholars of various doctrines. The term was initially used by the scholars to refer to the various social sciences and practices. The term “neo-liberalism” majorly refers to the resurgence of the several 19^th century ideas that bear relevance in the economic liberalism that separates the private transactions from the intervention of the governmental bodies (Giroux 2018). In the present market scenario, the term neoliberalism is generally used to deal with the elimination of the price control features within the country, the de-regulation of the capital markets within the various territorial boundaries. The term also deals with the lowering of the barriers to the trade as well as the reduction of the influences of the state on the economy of the country (Mirowski 2014). The employment relations refer to the efforts that are made by the concerned company in order to maintain proper relationships among the employers and the concerned employees of the organization in discussion. The proper employee relations within the company tend to help the company to provide the employees within the consistent and the fair treatment. The following essay aims at the discussion on the various impacts of the neoliberalism on the employment relations that exist within the political boundaries of Australia. The essay opens with a discussion on neo-liberalism at large. The essay proceeds to discuss the employment relations in Australia and nears the conclusion with the discussion on the impact of the neo-liberalism on the Australian employment relationships.

Neo-liberalism majorly refers to the resurgence of the several 19^th century ideas that bear relevance in the economic liberalism that separates the private transactions from the intervention of the governmental bodies. The neoliberalism is distinguished by the presence of these ideals in the 20^th century as well. The ideas of neo-liberalism include the various policies of economic liberalization like austerity, the de-regularization, the policies of free trade as well as the policies that tend to enable the privatization. These proposed ideas were majorly based on the then market situations and were observed to be responsible for the shift of the paradigm away from consensus of Kenyesian views that were presented in the post war conditions. This is known to have lasted from the year 1945 to the year 1980 (Giroux 2015). The term neoliberalism is used in a variety of senses by the scholars of various doctrines. The term was initially used by the scholars to refer to the various social sciences and practices. However, the usage and the definition of the term faced huge changes over the due course of time.

Australian Employment Relations under the Fair Work Act of 2009

The major reason behind the implementation of the neoliberalism within the economics was to prevent the repetition of the various economic failures that had taken place during the early 1930s. The scholars who promoted the neo-liberalistic thoughts were generally known to have been blaming the various economic policies that were portrayed by the scholars who promoted the economic policies of the classic liberalism (Davies 2016). The present situation within the global economy however, observes the scholars to have been discarding the neoliberal thoughts of the global economy and thus attempting to spend researches on the development of the alternate policies in order to find solutions of the economic crises that are being faced by the majority of the nations of the world.

The neoliberal thoughts generally deal with the various matters influenced by the demands of the changes that were needed within the social as well as the democratic conditions within the concerned country. The major factor that has been related to the neoliberalism is the implementation of the policies related to the free market conditions. The propounders of this theory claim that the free conditions within the given market aims at the allowance of the greater efficiency, the growth of the economy, the proper and justified distribution of the income among the concerned employees of an organization (Veltmeyer, Petras and Vieux 2016). The scholars further argue that the free market conditions would also lead to the occurrences of the various technological processes that are related to the concerned businesses. In the present market scenario, the term neoliberalism is generally used to deal with the elimination of the price control features within the country, the de-regulation of the capital markets within the various territorial boundaries. The term also deals with the lowering of the barriers to the trade as well as the reduction of the influences of the state on the economy of the country (Otero 2018). This is generally obtained through the implementation of the austerity and the privatization within the firms that have been operating within the concerned organization.

The term neoliberalism also aims to discuss the various economic policies that had been discussed by Margaret Thatcher in the country of the United Kingdom as well as Ronald Reagan in the country of the United States (Bruff 2014). The neoliberalism views the concerned market to be the greatest processor of information as compared to the human beings. The market is thus considered to be arbiter of the truth for the potential clients of the company. The concerned thinkers of the neo-liberal theory maintain a distinction of their own by abhorring from the advocacy of the economic policies that are related to the laissez-faire (Venugopal 2015). The major point of distinction of the neoliberalist thinkers lie in the highly constructivist nature of the concerned economies. The neo-liberalist thinkers are known to be the advocators of the strength in the state that helps in the bringing about the reforms that are in alignment to the market in all the spheres of the concerned society.

Issues Faced by the Current Workforce Members

The employment relations refer to the efforts that are made by the concerned company in order to maintain proper relationships among the employers and the concerned employees of the organization in discussion. The proper employee relations within the company tend to help the company to provide the employees within the consistent and the fair treatment. This helps the company to retain the staff of the organization (Forrest and Hirayama 2015). The proper employee relations within the company helps in motivating the concerned employees to serve the organization in a better manner as well as remain loyal to the concerned company. The employment relations within Australia is maintained through the implementation of a variety of laws within the country.

The Australian employment relations are heavily dependent on the Fair Work Act of 2009 (Clibborn 2015). The salient features that were depicted by the Fair Work Act of 2009 dealt majorly with the promotion as well as the enforcement of the compliance with the various new laws that were maintained by the concerned organizations functioning within the territorial boundaries of the country. The Fair Work Act of 2009 or the FWA (2009) aimed at the extension of an additional safety net to the concerned employees of the organization (French, Boyle and Muurlink 2014). The FWA also helped in the introduction of the protection of the employees against the unfair dismissals. The employees who were excluded from the coverage of the benefit were the employees who have been employed on probationary basis and the employees who have been working in the organizations that have less than 15 employees in total (Farbenblum and Berg 2017). The FWA also led to the formation of the unions among the employees of the various organizations that have been functioning within the territories of the country. The employment relations within the country have been facing a huge amount of changes in the present times. The inclusion of the employee unions within the work culture within the organization aims to deal with the various issues that are raised by the employees of the organization.

The present situations within the work culture of the Australian companies tend to discuss the decentralization of the wages and the other forms of remuneration that is made available to the concerned employees of the organization. The other issues that are faced by the current workforce members of the organization are the ones that are related to the equality of the genders within the workplace. The inequity within the labor force of Australia tends to have an influence on the overall economy of the country (Ball 2016). The undervaluation of the service provided by the concerned female employees of the organization tends to influence the labor market within the country. The researches have revealed that though there has been a significant rise in the female members within the Australian labor force, there are certain negative forces that have been barring the women from joining the workforce. This tends to lead to the implementation of the inequality among the various genders within the organization thereby leading to the inequality among the payments that are offered to the concerned employees of the organization. this is expected to have been leading to the conditions wherein the concerned members of the organization might be facing various issues on the grounds of the gender discrimination within the organizations.

Influence of Neoliberalism on Work Environments and Company Performance

The various companies that have been functioning within the Australian boundaries have been known to be affected by the various matters that are related to the lower rates of unemployment among the concerned residents of the country. The Australian workforce has been facing a huge rise in the service industry that has been active within the country. There has also been noted a significant amount of rise in the matters that are related to the part-time involvements as well as the casualized style of employment within the country (Howell 2016). This change in the work environment within the country is noted to be driven not by the employers but by the changing lifestyles of the concerned residents within the given territorial boundaries of the nation. The women members of the workforce are observed to have been under recognized and often face undervaluation by their peers or even the employers (Silva 2018). This often leads to the enactment of the various laws for the promotion of the gender inequality within the concerned workplace. The implementation of the neo-liberal thoughts within the concerned work environments tend to influence the work environment as well as the overall performance of the companies that have been operating within the given political territories. The Australian government has implemented the legislations in order to safeguard the rights of the female employees of the organization who might have been taking leaves on the grounds of maternity.

The emergence of the thoughts of neo-liberalism tend to provide the employees of the organization with more power than has been vested in their employers. This has resulted in the conditions wherein the employees have generally been opting for the various non-standardized modes of employment rather than opting for the standardized modes of payment. This has led to the increase in the matters that are related to the policies that are driven by the market (Godard 2014). The implementation of the changes in the legislation of the work choices have led to the deeper ingraining of the neo-liberalistic approaches of the market towards the formulation of the policies. The implementation of the neo-liberalistic approaches further restricted the collective bargaining within the market. This helps in the promotion of the work contracts that were retrieved within the concerned industry among the concerned individuals. The employee unions that have been active within the Australian market have been observed to be opposing the stated reform of introducing the collective bargaining within the given market. The employee unions commented that this might lead to the conditions wherein the employees who have been serving at the lowest levels of the organizational hierarchy would be exploited due to their lack of proper skills of bargaining (Greer and Doellgast 2017). However, the trend of the implementation of neo-liberalism within the workplace was finally brought to an end during the times of the financial crisis that had struck all the economies that have been operating in the world. The Australian government had implemented certain measures that were controlled by the state in order to put a check on the neo-liberalist trends that were followed by the multitude of organizations that have been operating within the political boundaries of Australia. The implementation of the control by the state government helped in implementing the measures that helped in the retention of the employees of the organization by extending certain benefits and rights towards them. The employees of the concerned business organizations were allowed the scope of flexible work arrangements. This helped the companies to retain the staff who would otherwise have resigned due to their personal issues (Ford and Gillan 2016). This has majorly helped in the retention of the female employees of the organization who majorly resigned due to their duties of caregiving towards their own family members. This was majorly observed in the cases of the female employees who had been facing motherhood especially during the initial days after the birth of the child.

Conclusion

Thus, from the above discussion it might be derived that the neoliberalism had affected the work culture within the Australian territories in an immense manner. The Australian workforce had been facing a huge rise in the service industry that has been active within the country. There has also been noted a significant amount of rise in the matters that are related to the part-time involvements as well as the casualized style of employment within the country. This change in the work environment within the country is noted to be driven not by the employers but by the changing lifestyles of the concerned residents within the given territorial boundaries of the nation. The implementation of the changes in the legislation of the work choices have led to the deeper ingraining of the neo-liberalistic approaches of the market towards the formulation of the policies. The implementation of the neo-liberalistic approaches further restricted the collective bargaining within the market. This helps in the promotion of the work contracts that were retrieved within the concerned industry among the concerned individuals.

References

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