Industrial relations in workplaces employing Indigenous Australians

Abstract

The enactment of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 by the Howard Government represented an acceleration in the pace of industrial relations reform. Amid these significant and widespread legislative developments, little attention was paid to the plight of groups traditionally disadvantaged in the labour market-including Indigenous people. The Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS) 1995 is the first publicly released data set that permits analysts to directly examine the industrial relations environment in firms that employ Indigenous Australians. Information from the AWIRS employee survey and AWIRS Employee Relations Managers survey are used in the analysis