Abstract
The development of industrial relations in Australian and New Zealand primary industries are compared and differences in the collective organisation of shearers and agricultural workers related to the activities of employers and the state. Social and political frameworks are developed to explain this uneven development of unions and industrial regulation. It is shown that actions and decisions of parliaments and of industrial tribunals have been crucial in variously promoting or debilitating unions and industrial regulation. Such decisions are related to social and political forces which, in turn, have promoted belief that agriculture is a 'special case'.
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