'As disposable as the next tissue out of the box..', Casual teaching and job quality in New South Wales public school education

This article builds on recent research into both casualization and job quality or 'decent work' by exploring the qualitative aspects of casual employment in the education industry. The article attempts to bridge two distinct positions in the literature on decent work between research that identifies objective components of decent work, and research that focuses on subjective perceptions of job quality. The article focuses on objective aspects of quality work but draws in subjective perceptions both as a path of additional evidence and as a way of capturing the crucial level of personal experience. The article draws on a recent study that explored the experiences of casual school teachers in the New South Wales public education system. It finds that casual employment can erode the job quality of otherwise decent work within professional occupations

Restructuring women's work; labour market and household gender regimes in the Greater Latrobe Valley, Australia

This article examines the impact of economic restructuring on gender relations. It examines the implications of labour market change for households within a region, in this case the Greater Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia. The argument is that the unchanging gender structures of the labour market constrain the intentions and efforts of individuals within households to significantly alter household gender relations. The analysis considers how restructuring has reshaped the regional labour market since 1996, changing opportunities for both men's and women's employment. Despite these changes, the regional labour market continues to be underpinned by a 'male breadwinner' gender regime and significant occupational and industrial gender segregation. Drawing on four vignettes, the analysis shows that the impetus towards greater gender equality in the household is constrained by a stagnant and stable labour market gender regime

Household gender regimes - what can we learn from census income data?

The paper focuses on gender relations and considers the value of aggregate income data, generated by the national census. It draws on concepts of gender order and gender regimes as well as a typology of relations of social reproduction. Utilising these concepts we examine the changing nature of gender relations and inequality in Australia between 2006 and 2011. We ask whether we can use data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in its census of population and housing to monitor changing patterns of income generation within families over time and across space within Australia? We further ask, can this data tell us much about either the changing patterns of gender relations in the domestic sphere or the changing levels of inequality in Australia

Multiple job holders in Australia: motives and impact

Multiple job holding, also called moonlighting or secondary job holding, is an important topic for research and policy, both in Australia and in several other industrialised societies. Official labour force statistics in Australia suggest that the number of multiple job holders is significant, amounting to around 6 percent of all employed persons in 2007. But beyond basic data-which map the extent of the phenomenon and provide a broad profile of multiple job holders-surprisingly little is known about the topic. Commentators remain divided on basic issues of interpretation and assessment. Is multiple job holding a plight or a pleasure? Is it a malign or benign feature of contemporary labour markets? This article uses qualitative data from interviews with a small sample of multiple job holders in Australia in order to explore motives and personal impact. It reveals the complex mix of pressures and enticements that can influence an employee's decision to work in two or more paid job

Multiple Job Holders in Australia: Motives and Personal Impact

"Multiple job holding, also called moonlighting or secondary job holding, is an important topic for research and policy, both in Australia and in several other industrialised societies. Official labour force statistics in Australia suggest that the number of multiple job holders is significant, amounting to around 6 percent of all employed persons in 2007. But beyond basic data—which map the extent of the phenomenon and provide a broad profile of multiple job holders—surprisingly little is known about the topic. Commentators remain divided on basic issues of interpretation and assessment. Is multiple job holding a plight or a pleasure? Is it a malign or benign feature of contemporary labour markets? This article uses qualitative data from interviews with a small sample of multiple job holders in Australia in order to explore motives and personal impact. It reveals the complex mix of pressures and enticements that can influence an employee’s decision to work in two or more paid jobs

Worker stress and the prospect of job loss in a fragmented organisation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance research on job loss-related stress through a critical realism framework which considers the interplay between organisational context and personal agency and its implications for worker stress in the pre-lay-off stage. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts a qualitative case study approach and considers two groups of workers confronted with the prospects of job loss in Australia’s power generation industry – permanent employees working for power stations and workers employed by associated contractors. Field research and semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 35 power industry workers including power station employees and contract workers. Findings The research shows permanent employees expressing higher levels of stress than contract workers. The different emotional responses expressed by the two groups are accounted for by differences in organisational circumstances and the conditioning of personal agency within these organisational contexts. Research limitations/implications One of the implications is that “vulnerable” workers are better prepared for plant closure and less prone to stress. Additional research involving different types of industries, organisational forms, and workforces and involving different stages of the job loss experience, however, is needed to more full advance the understanding of the complexities between organisational structure, worker agency, and the stress implications. Practical implications This study assists the authors in better understanding worker emotional experience in the pre-lay-off stage. These findings have important implications for workers, unions and social support agencies and how they can appropriately approach, prepare and assist different categories of workers confronted with job redundancy situations. Social implications This study assists the authors in better understanding worker emotional experience in the pre-lay-off stage. The study has implications for the design and implementation of assistance packages for displaced workers. Originality/value Unlike other studies which focus on the lay-off, unemployment or re-employment stage of job loss, this study focuses on the pre-lay-off stage. Conceptually, the study departs from the positivist paradigm which dominates much of the stress literature and adopts a nuanced approach inspired by critical realist understandings of the structure-agency relationship

Identification of opportunities to support structural adjustment in the Latrobe Valley region - Briefing Report Four: Scenario Methods

Part of the "Identification of Opportunities to Support Structural Adjustment in the Latrobe Valley" project is the conduct of a number of scenario workshops. These workshops will engage a range of stakeholders from relevant industries, organisations and the public sector. These scenario workshops will provide a more detailed understanding of how stakeholders in the Latrobe Valley region view their own futures and key issues with regard to the transition to a low carbon economy, as well as providing information for future planning and policy making. This briefing explains and outlines the rationale behind scenario methodology, its aims and outcomes, how the workshops will run for this project, and how these scenario workshops differ from other kinds of scenario analysis used previously in regard to studies of the Latrobe Valley. This project will employ an 'extreme scenario' approach, which is best suited given the time and participation constraints, and previously conducted research