How Does Labour Work Now? A Quantitative Survey of Labour Practices in Japanese Multinationals Post 1996 Workplace Relations Act (Commonwealth)

The focus of this paper is the labour practices that are identified with Japanese management style and their functioning in Australian subsidiaries of Japanese MNEs. The context of their functioning is the changes in labour and management relations in Australia. The data used in this paper was collected, across Australia, in the period between February and July 2001; approximately four years after the 1996 Workplace Relations Act came into effect. The data was collected from fifty-one companies, seventeen each from the sectors of manufacture and assembly, service, and marketing and sales. The survey questionnaires were aimed at the management and asked them to rate the functioning of specific labour practices. These were crosstabulated with the union presence variable at the companies. The results are discussed along with the theoretical framework and the literature review.