Union-Employer Bargaining and Product Market Developments: The Black Coal Industry

Abstract

The main focus of this article is on the debate over changes to work rules that has emerged as the central feature of the industrial relations agenda in the Australian black coal industry, and which was the subject of an important determination by the Coal Industry Tribunal in September 1988. An attempt is made to show how changes in emphasis in the coal industry bargaining agenda were linked to developments in the product market. The nature and significance of these developments were subject to varying interpretation by coal industry employers and unions. The paper seeks to trace the path of negotiation and arbitration which was followed, culminating in the September 1988 decision, and to make some assessment of the conditions likely to favour the durability of coal industry settlements.