Section 3: How are wages determined in Australia. Describe the roles of employer associations, trade unions and industrial tribunals in Australia's labour market.
             Wage determination in the labour market, has been partly based on the standard of what constitutes a fair or living wage, and the notion of comparitibility between occupations according to the notion of fair relativity The improvement of the Workplace Relation Act in 1996, ensured significant changes were made to the industrial relations system. (1) These changes included; deregulating and decentralising workplace relations by reducing the power given to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, connecting wage outcomes to productivity movements at an enterprise level of negotiation and encouraging enterprise bargaining, a system where negotiations between employers and employees agreed upon pay and working conditions at the level of the individual firm. (1) This changed the focus from the compressed wage structure, where an increase in wages for one group of workers would quickly be translated through the wage structure, to a flexible wage structure linking wages changes to the performance of industries and individual firms. Which resulted in increasing the pace of microeconomic reform in the labour market.(2)
             As an alternative to the State and Federal Industrial Courts, the enterprise bargaining system was implemented. Within this new system, the involvement of unions was limited in organising labour and engaging in wage determination. Occurred through the elimination of compulsory alliance to trade unions by employees. (1) This resulted in the introduction of the Australian Workplace Agreements, which were incorporated into the Workplace Relations Act (1996) for workers negotiating wage determinations and working conditions on an individual basis without trade union involvement, and administered by the Employment Advocate. (1) (3) This went completely again...