Employee involvement and participation under extreme conditions: The Newcastle steelworks case

Abstract

Australia’s steel industry underwent a transformation starting in the 1980s in response to an international collapse in demand and steeply heightened competition; such a crisis that it threatened the closure of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company’s iconic steelworks located at Newcastle on Australia’s eastern seaboard. Central to this transformation was the shift by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company from the firm’s highly confrontational approach to industrial relations to one that was far more collaborative. Gradual at first, the shift in participation with the steel unions accelerated so that by 1996 a joint management–union consultative committee – the Transition Steering Team – had been established at the Newcastle steelworks to facilitate a shift to electric arc furnace steelmaking. When the Broken Hill Proprietary Company announced in 1997 that it would exit all steelmaking at Newcastle and not proceed with the new furnace, the Transition Steering Team proved to be the key agency in the management of the steelworks’ closure. Instead of a calamitous fall in performance, under the aegis of the Transition Steering Team the plant set all-time productivity, safety, absenteeism, quality and other records.