With significant regulatory, social and economic change occurring in Australia and in other countries, a new agenda for employment relations is needed. Many features of work and employment relations have undergone significant changes over the past two decades. These changes have taken place in the context of lowered trade barriers, intense global competition and deregulation of financial markets. The scholarly essays in this book deal with many of the employment relations issues arising from these developments and consider the policy implications arising from them. The essays cover:

• The provision of legislated standards in determining the ‘safety net’ in Australia

• Characteristics of the ‘modern awards’

• The role of unions in the new collective bargaining regime

• New roles for employers in industrial relations

• The advent of paid parental leave and employer responses

• The demand and supply sides of skill formation in Australian workplaces

• The prospects of ‘high performance’ work systems in Australia

• Equal remuneration and undervaluation of women’s work

• Paradoxes in productivity issues

• Questioning the ‘exceptionalist’ view of Australian industrial relations

• Worker voice

• Making minimum wages effective – the UK experience

• Lessons of work and employment policy in the US ‘Flexicurity’ lessons for the EU and Australia