The State, Labour Management and Union Marginalisation at Electrolytic Zinc, Tasmania, 1920-48 (Essay‪)‬

In Australia, there has been considerable debate on arbitration's role in framing union strategy and tactics with Howard arguing that arbitration had created a form of passive and dependent unionism where unions focused on arbitration as their preferred method rather than industrial action and organisation. Whilst this perspective has been challenged, it does make explicit the nexus between arbitration and union action although, as Cockfield argues, there is a paucity of research on the impact of industrial tribunals on workplace relations and worker mobilisation. (1) The state is implicitly intertwined with arbitration, setting out the types of arbitral arrangements and the interplay between the jurisdictions. While the state has often been presented in pluralist terms, others suggest the capitalist state acts as an agent of class rule securing the economic and political conditions necessary for domestic and international capital accumulation and reorganising labour/capital within its boundaries. Consequently, its image as a neutral legislator and economic manager needs to be replaced with a perspective that reveals the state's class nature. The state's forms and functions are fluid and change over time according to the stage of the economic cycle and the influence of the dominant section of the ruling class, and it is subjected to complex and contradictory pressures. State managers are faced with choosing between a range of alternatives before them, and this may involve concessions to subordinate groups or acting against the wishes of a number of groups in order to gain the legitimacy and consent of all members of society. Hence, laws are created that apply to all, and constrain both capital and labour. In Australia, the state's emphasis has been on regulating industrial conflict. Although Australia has high levels of industrial regulation, tribunals have been reluctant to intervene in the management of an organisation and have generally confined their intervention to general conditions of employment. This has seen an emphasis on protecting managerial prerogative rather than worker's interests, and this has set limits to labour's sway. But the state's contingent relationship with capital and labour can result in contradictory outcomes. Although the state may create bargaining systems that attempt to reconcile labour's rights with management's prerogatives, these can allow labour to acquire power in unforeseen ways. (2)