Employers' Choices in Workplace Regulation: Individual Agreements

In Western Australia (WA) the state IR regulatory framework has been changed substantially in recent times, firstly, by the former Coalition Government facilitating individualism and subsequently by the Labor Government attempting to reverse this trend by reinstating a greater emphasis on collective bargaining. The WA Coalition Government introduced the option for employers to negotiate and register individual agreements based on a very limited set of minimum employment standards, as a critical part of their change package. Subsequently these were abolished by the Gallop Labor Government and replaced by the less flexible Employer Employee Agreements based on awards, as part of a package of changes to encourage employers to return to collective bargaining. This article considers the response of employers in WA to these changes, focusing in particular on those who chose to utilize the individual agreements option during the 1990s and how they later responded to the Labor Government's regime favouring collective agreements.