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This article explains the trajectory of minimum wage laws in Australia, from their initial characterisation as 'sacrosanct' following the Harvester judgment to their current status as routinely violated, in terms of changes in the protective function of labour law in Australia. Through a comparative historical analysis, we argue that state actors have consistently used minimum wage laws to make moral interventions in labour relationships to protect the viability of particular employment relations actors, although the focus of those interventions has shifted from employees towards employers. Reconnecting the 'how' of wage minima enforcement with the 'who' and 'why' of labour law protection also contributes to explaining long-term continuities in the functional exclusion of particular employee groups from protection, namely non-citizens and workers in non-unionised industries, despite the prima facie universalism of current wage laws., I Introduction The widespread non-enforcement of statutory wage minima is one example of the multitude of ways in which Australian labour law appears poorly attuned to the realities of work [...]

Sexual harassment at work is prohibited by federal and state anti-discrimination laws. Sexual assault is also an offence under state criminal legislation. Despite this, it remains nearly impossible for legal action to be taken against perpetrators of sexual harassment of temporary migrant women at their workplaces in the Australian horticulture industry. This article provides a detailed examination of the reasons why temporary migrant women on farms are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment, and the barriers they face to accessing justice within the legal system., CONTENTS I Introduction II Temporary Migrant Farm Workers and Sexual Harassment and Assault A Research Methods B Incidence of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault on Farms 1 Official Inquiries 2 [...]

This article advances research on why international students, who comprise a growing segment of the workforce in many countries, are underpaid. By revisiting Piore's dual frames of reference theory, the article builds an important knowledge base around migrant workers' tolerance of low pay. The research uses mixed methods incorporating a survey of 1433 international students, and interviews with 40 of them. Drawing on segmented labour market theory and examining workers' 'multiple frames of reference', the article seeks to explain migrant workers', in this case international students', tolerance of extensive and persistent underpayment. While migrants' reference to lower pay in their home country has long been accepted as explanation for their acceptance of low pay, it is not found to be a significant factor. The new concept of 'peer frame of reference' is developed to explain their tolerance of underpayment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much progress has been made recognising the importance of power and politics in organisational processes but legal regulatory institutional constraints on actors remain overemphasised in the extant literature. This article provides unique insight into organisational processes during the global economic crisis. The glare of crisis illuminates the negotiated nature of organisational processes and outcomes, demonstrating the range of options available to actors, both within and beyond apparent legal institutional limits. General Motors has received significant publicity for its near collapse, government bailout and restructure through bankruptcy proceedings. During the crisis the company made changes impacting its global workforce. This article tracks three key employment practices from development in the United States headquarters to implementation in the Australian subsidiary in the context of inconsistent local laws. Directives to cut pay for some employees, freeze pay for others and terminate the employment of a large number of workers were received and implemented in the subsidiary in varying and counterintuitive ways. Institutional consistency does not guarantee successful transfer, while even host country legal institutional inconsistency is no guarantee of failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For employers and employer associations, 2018 was in part a year of submissions to government inquiries, the 4-yearly modern wage review and the minimum wage review. Issues of numerical flexibility, including casual work, the gig economy and labour hire, also consumed much attention. It was also a year in which public discontent with the business world, particularly with big business, in relation to industrial relations and broader socio-political issues, and the questioning of its social licence to operate have escalated. In examining the major issues that concerned employers and their associations during the year, this article also discusses the pressures building for them in expressing and promoting their industrial relations agendas in response to a looming federal election, dynamic trade union campaigning and growing public discontent with the industrial relations system in its current form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This year's annual review of women, work and industrial relations marks an important milestone. Nearly 10 years have elapsed since the introduction of the Fair Work Act 2009, which enshrined important new rights for the progression of gender equality. It is also 10 years since the Journal of Industrial Relations commenced this annual review. In addition to focusing on developments affecting women and work in 2018, this review provides a broad summary of key events over the past decade. We explore trends in women's workforce participation, union membership, economic security and pay equity, as well as major changes pertaining to work–family policy settings, workplace sexual harassment, and family and domestic violence leave. We conclude that although policy and employment frameworks have created a foundation on which to build gender equality, policy development has been sporadic and the context for women in Australian workplaces remains far from equal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While culture is beginning to be understood as a mechanism of stratification in the labor market alongside attribute-based discrimination, we lack a corresponding understanding of how skilled migrants deal with their otherness in the labor market. This article seeks to contribute to an understanding of the lived experiences of skilled migrants by identifying the material and social consequences of performing extra work to obtain cultural legitimacy. In contrast to the recent focus on understanding cultural others' responses to pressures for conformity in terms of identity conflict, this study identifies the context in which cultural legitimacy is required and constructed, both in terms of macro-societal and institutional influences on identity regulation within organizations as well as interactional dynamics and power relations. Based on interviews with migrants in the field of accounting and finance in Australia, I draw out the main features of 'cultural work' and show the potential consequences of not performing cultural work as well as the means of migrants' resistance against pressures for conformity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate on migration has extended the scope of industrial relations research and brought questions of regulation to the centre. We suggest that there is a mutuality to the relationship between the debates around migration and regulation within the industrial relations literature: the study of migration has stimulated a new set of debates within industrial relations that allow us to reconsider issues of regulation; in turn, the study of regulation offers a useful perspective on issues relating to migration. The article applies an analytical framework based on the interplay of regulatory spaces and actors to the study of international migration. The framework offers a dynamic approach to mapping the wide range of actors involved in the regulation of migration and the boundaries between regulatory spaces, which may be fluid and contested. Through applying this framework, industrial relations issues relating to migration are located within a wider view of both regulation and the international movement of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the drivers of youth irregular migration in the Middle East and North Africa region. A multinomial logit model is implemented to test the effect of labor market and institutional characteristics on the decision of youth to migrate using a unique and novel dataset covering young people aged 15–29 from five major Middle East and North Africa countries. Specifically, the article investigates the effect of micro determinants of irregular migration: individual socio-economic factors, wealth factors, adaptability factors, labor market factors, and institutional factors. The article finds that the labor market drivers matter more for regular rather than irregular migration amongst the youth from the Middle East and North Africa region. However, institutional settings are of great importance for any decision to migrate, be it regularly or irregularly. In addition, youth from wealthier households are more likely to express willingness to migrate using regular channels, whereas youth from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to consider the irregular route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite global attention to worker rights violations experienced by temporary migrants, we lack a clear evidence base to understand the extent and nature of these abuses. This article presents findings from a pilot of a Migrant Worker Rights Database. This pilot measures rights abuses of former Temporary Work (Skilled) visa (subclass 457) entrants to Australia from 1996 to 2016. This visa was the key formal temporary visa into Australia over this period. The pilot codes all available court cases that 457 visa holders brought before the national workplace relations tribunal, the Australian Fair Work Commission and relevant state and federal courts and tribunals, to capture legally recognised rights abuses that migrant workers experienced on the ground. It also codes coverage in three daily newspapers of these rights violations. This combined evidence base generates a series of rights violations, or 'events', that are then analysed to present patterns of rights abuses of migrant workers on the 457 visa. Key findings are that ethnic background and occupational status of migrants appear to inform the level of reported rights abuses. Further, legal representation of migrant workers assists in successful outcomes, particularly through the Fair Work Ombudsman – a government body empowered with enforcing compliance with workplace laws (197). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-wage work in the US and many other places continues to be characterized by precarious and dangerous conditions, vulnerable immigrant workforces, and problems of misclassification and wage theft. Several recent initiatives are seeking to demonstrate that conditions can be greatly improved even when governments lack the capacity to broadly enforce the law on the books. In co-enforcement approaches, for instance, municipal governments are enlisting worker and community organizations to improve enforcement of wage and hour laws. Similarly, some private regulatory initiatives are taking 'worker-driven' approaches that favor enforcement by locally trusted organizations rather than unreliable 'checklist auditing'. In this article, we examine one exemplary case of each approach in the US – namely, the Seattle Office of Labor Standards and the Fair Food Program in Florida. Comparing these initiatives reveals a convergence on civil society linkages, locally grounded monitoring capacities, and enforceable penalties. The cases differ in their bases of power and the expected role of the state, though the latter difference is perhaps not as stark as it initially seems. The comparison also suggests some challenges and opportunities for extending these models into new settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]