An example of such classification of international strike patterns is the study by A.M. Ross and P.T. Hartman, Changing Patterns of Industrial Conflict (Wiley, New York, 1960). An application of this approach to inter-regional and inter-sectoral patterns is B.J. Gordon , "A Classification of Regional and Sectoral Dispute Patterns in Australian Industry, 1945-1964", Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 10, No. 3, November, 1968, pp. 233-42.
2.
The reading of 2.21 for Engineering, Metalworks and Motor Vehicles constitutes the only obvious contradiction of the propensities schema encountered thus far. However, it is a contradiction which arises out of a most singular episode in the industrial dispute history of this sector. The episode occurred at the outset of the twenty-year period surveyed in this paper. In 1947, the Duration of Strike in this sector was 88.4. This is an extraordinary statistic, and the highest reading subsequently attained in any one year in this sector was 13.6. (This statistic is exceeded in the other 42 sectors on only one occasion. In 1949 Queensland Engineering, Metalworks, and Motor Vehicles registered a Duration of Strike of 92.9.) If the 1947 episode is excluded, and the coefficient of variation of Duration of Strike calculated for the remaining nineteen-year period, then the result is a very much lower statistic, 0.93. Such a coefficient conforms with type of result predicted for this sector by the propensities schema.
3.
An unusual episode in the dispute history of the sector concerned accounts for the anomaly. In 1960, the Employee Involvement Ratio in Queensland Engineering, Metalworks, and Motor Vehicles reached 2.24. This is a level which far exceeds that attained by this sector, in Queensland or in any other State, in any other year. By excluding the 1960 reading, and calculating the coefficient of variation of employee involvement for the other nineteen years, the statistic obtained is 1.51. This latter falls within the range one could expect, given the propensities stated earlier.
