Liberating labour: The New Zealand employment contracts act

Between 1984 and 1991, New Zealand converted its economic system from the most heavily regulated to the least regulated in OECD. The public sector was restructured to separate core administrative functions from government-owned production activities. The latter were corporatised, and many privatised. Product markets were deregulated and opened to international competition. Virtually all producer subsidies were abolished. Foreign trade was liberalised. Financial and capital markets were liberalised and foreign investment and immigration were made welcome. Labour markets were freed up, and workers were given the right to associate freely. In the process, a formerly inwardlooking, slow-moving economy with rising unemployment was turned into a flexible, globally competitive, high-growth economy with price stability, above-average job creation and small, effective government. New Zealand had long been known internationally for its system of centralised wage fixing and arbitration. Since 1991, however, it has become equally known for the new Employment Contracts Act (ECA), which was the capstone of the comprehensive economic and social reform programme. The ECA converted a centralist, corporatist industrial relations system into a decentralised 'market order. Freely negotiated labour contracts are now the basis for responsive, diverse labour markets. The effects of the Act can only be understood as an integral part of all-round liberalisation and New Zealand's reinvention of government. Previously antagonistic industrial relations have given way to cooperation between employers and workers, flexible adjustment to competitive conditions and an enhanced competitiveness of New Zealand workplaces and firms in a rapidly changing, internationally open economy. The new workplace relationship has led to profound attitude changes which have been inspired by the discipline of open, competitive product markets and the withdrawal of several labour-supply disincentives in the form of public-welfare supports. The main effect of the labour reforms has been to assist in making the supply-side of the New Zealand economy fairly price elastic. This has been underpinned by a price-level target for independent monetary policy and by fiscal downsizing, privatisation and public debt reduction. Employers and most employees have welcomed the freedoms under the new contracts system. In many sectors, productivity has risen steeply, reflecting more rational work practices. Managers are now able to effectively manage the human resources that firms hire. Real wages have risen, but slowly, reflecting productivity gains. Union membership and the number of union officials have fallen, as many workers now use bargaining agents to negotiate employment contracts. The frequency of strikes and lockouts has fallen considerably. The ECA and the other reforms have created a Kiwi job-creation machine, which has increased aggregate employment by over 10 percent during the long upswing of 1991- 95. It has nearly halved the overall unemployment rate within less than two years - in contrast to earlier upturns in the New Zealand cycle and the pattern in Australia. As labour shortages are emerging in the present cyclical upswing, many long-term unemployed, the young and Maori are being drawn back into gainful employment. Labour market deregulation has also increased the market premia for skills and reduced transaction costs in operating about markets. Most observers predict a period of sustained, inflation-free growth and further drops in unemployment (March 1995: 6.6%) as New Zealand - despite a strengthening currency - is now seen as an internationally highly competitive exporter and an attractive location to internationally mobile capital and enterprise.

Femtosecond spectroscopy of the first events of the photochemical cycle in bacteriorhodopsin

The first steps in the photochemistry of bacteriorhodopsin (BR) are investigated with light pulses of 160 fs duration. Four samples are studied: (i) the purple membrane, (ii) deuterated purple membrane, (iii) BR trimers and (iv) BR monomers. In all samples the first intermediate J is formed within 430±50 fs. No isotope effect is observed in the formation of J upon deuteration, in contrast to previous reports with much higher excitation energies. Thus proton movement to or from the retinal Schiff's base is not relevant during the first step. Comparing the data for trimeric and monomeric BR suggests an upper limit of 50 fs for the transfer of excitation energy from the excitonically coupled trimer to a single retinal chromophore

Early picosecond events in the photo cycle of Bacteriorhodopsin

The primary processes of the photochemical cycle of light-adapted bacteriorhodopsin (BR) were studied by various experimental techniques with a time resolution of 5 × 10-13 s. The following results were obtained. (a) After optical excitation the first excited singlet state S1 of bacteriorhodopsin is observed via its fluorescence and absorption properties. The population of the excited singlet state decays with a lifetime τ1 of ~0.7 ps (430 ± 50 fs) (52). (b) With the same time constant the first ground-state intermediate J builds up. Its absorption spectrum is red-shifted relative to the spectrum of BR by ~30 nm. (c) The second photoproduct K, which appears with a time constant of τ2 = 5 ps shows a red-shift of 20 nm, relative to the peak of BR. Its absorption remains constant for the observation time of 300 ps. (d) Upon suspending bacteriorhodopsin in D2O and deuterating the retinal Schiff base at its nitrogen (lysine 216), the same photoproducts J and K are observed. The relaxation time constants τ1 and τ2 remain unchanged upon deuteration within the experimental accuracy of 20%

Ethical aspects of emissions trading: Contribution to the World Council of Churches Consultation on Equity and Emission Trading - Ethical and Theological Dimensions, Saskatoon, Canada, May 9-14, 2000

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Optical picosecond studies of bacteriorhodopsin containing a sterically fixed retinal

The photochemical behaviour of an analogous bacteriorhodopsin (9,12-Ph-BR) which contains the sterically fixed 9,12-phenylretinal has been investigated with picosecond spectroscopy. The following results have been obtained. No ground-state intermediate photoproduct is found in agreement with the previous observation that 9,12-Ph-BR does not exhibit proton pumping under illumination. The excited singlet state has a lifetime of τS = 10 ± 2 ps. This lifetime agrees favourably with the value calculated from the radiative lifetime τrad = 6.2 ns and the fluorescence quantum efficiency of 1.2·10−3. Excited-state absorption occurs which results in fluorescence in the ultraviolet region. These various observations differ drastically from the corresponding findings on bacteriorhodopsin. Most important for an understanding of the differences is the fact that 9,12-phenylretinal does not isomerize in the protein's binding site in contrast to retinal. Our data therefore suggest that the formation of the intermediate K observed in bacteriorhodopsin is accompanied by the all-trans to 13-cis isomerization

Distinctive Imperatives for Mission Driven Teaching in Catholic Business Schools

We contend that there are distinct and socially beneficial perspectives, rooted in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) and Catholic Social Teaching (CST), which can help nurture future managers to be more attuned to the societal and ethical impacts resulting from their marketing decisions. In this paper, we briefly review several of these themes and illustrate how such messages can be integrated into the marketing instruction that takes place inside of business schools at Catholic universities