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In three parts, using Australian examples, this paper reviews the intersection between trade unions and vocational education and training (VET). Part one considers the global and Australian contexts of the union-VET relationship by explicating the economic and social interests that influence it. Part two identifies the three principal methods used by Australian unions to promote access to VET: political lobbying and affiliation; collective bargaining; and the direct provision of training services. Part three examines the impact that changes in Australia's industrial laws from the 1980s onwards have had on Australian unions' capacity to promote access to VET.

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Over the past 25 years, the Australian workforce has become more casualised, with approximately one-quarter of the workforce in casual employment today. One of the highest users of casual employees is the higher education sector, where casual academics (referred to as sessionals in the Australian context) are estimated to account for 50 per cent of the overall teaching load. The purpose of this article is to investigate the processes associated with the management of sessional academic staff. The study focuses on a single university, utilising a survey questionnaire and interviews with the sessional academics and their managers. The results depict a bifurcated system of maximum labour regulation for full-time academics alongside minimum regulation for sessional staff. The findings stress the urgency for improvement in both the employment conditions and management of sessional academic staff, both for their own benefit and the universities that employ them.

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The aim of this booklet is to present a profile of average Japanese workers through selected statistical figures. It contains labor statistics relevant to successive stages of a worker's life from school graduation and entering an enterprise to reaching their retirement age and receiving retirement allowances. Almost all the statistics are based upon official sources. The statistics on employment, wages and working hours constitute the core of this booklet. As it is a matter of great concern presently, the booklet also contains statistics on the increase of female and non-regular staffs, as well as changes in the employment structure. Tables and graphs are utilized for aiding visual understanding, and statistics of major countries are included to enable international comparisons to be made.

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This book provides an account across five decades of the scope of educational progress of vocational education and training (VET) in New South Wales (NSW) from local technical colleges to a successful state-wide system. It explains the social and political factors that influenced and enabled the expansion of technical education in NSW during a vigorous and often tumultuous time in the state's history. In 1949, the Technical Education and the New South Wales University of Technology Act was passed, establishing the Department of Technical Education as a separate Department of State, with its own permanent head and direct access to the Minister for Education. The other major provision of this legislation was the incorporation of the New South Wales University of Technology. The events leading up to the passing of this legislation are documented in 'Sweet road to progress: the history of state technical education in New South Wales to 1949' [available in VOCEDplus at TD/NSW 61.20].

This book takes up where the previous history finished. It charts the development of technical education in NSW from its separation from the Department of Education in 1949 to December 1997, when the NSW TAFE Commission became amalgamated with school education into a new Department of Education and Training. During this period, technical education experienced extraordinary growth and significant change as it strove to keep pace with the demands placed on it by state and national governments, industry and community. This book examines how technical and further education and the Department responded to economic, social and political changes that have occurred since 1949. Reference is made to major state and Commonwealth government reports that shaped both the structure and operations of the Department during the period 1949-1997.

The development of the Department of Technical Education over the period falls into three distinct eras coinciding with legislative change. The book is ordered chronologically according to three eras and within these, according to a number of topics. These include: structural changes; teachers and teacher education; equity; technological changes; economic, social and political changes and impacts; industrial relations; and TAFE courses and delivery. The focus is on broad events and change that shaped the Department as a whole and not on the history of individual colleges.

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This reference work examines a broad range of aspects of America's work history, including the historical account of work and workers, the social inequities between the rich and poor, violence in the labor movement, and issues of globalization and industrial economics. Over 400 entries are organised in two volumes and arranged in alphabetical order. The entries cover key events, collective actions, major figures, landmark legislation, and the concepts of the world of labor and work. Each entry contains a bibliography for additional research. Also included are recent court cases, a chronology of key events and an index. Show less

The increasing use of precarious work practices in Australia and New Zealand has raised the issue of the need to develop a policy and legislative framework that provides protection for workers employed under these arrangements. In this paper, precarious work is that characterised by uncertain duration, lack of access to benefits such as sick leave and paid holidays, low pay (though not always) and an ambiguity as to the legal nature of the employment relationship. Although the focus of this paper is on the New Zealand experience, this is an international issue and Australia through the Howe report of the 'Independent inquiry into insecure work' [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 110.596] has already begun the process of developing a policy agenda. The author aims to map out the prevalence of precarious work, the consequential growing inequality from insecure, low paid work, and the failure to redress this trend by regulatory and policy frameworks. The fundamental importance of the representative role of trade unions in the protection and furtherance of workers' rights is also discussed.

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This study of employment practices and working conditions within the commercial fishing sector in Thailand has been prepared with the support of the ILO GMS TRIANGLE Project: Tripartite Action to Protect the Rights of Migrant Workers within and from the Greater Mekong Subregion. The work was a collaboration between the Asian Research Center for Migration at the Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, and the ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok.

The study involved a survey in four provinces of Thailand. It obtained detailed information on the situations of nearly 600 fishers employed on Thai vessels fishing in both national and international waters. The study, which involved both quantitative and qualitative approaches, provides data and analysis on which government, and employer and worker representatives can draw to improve policies and practices in the industry. The report covers: the research approach; a situation analysis of Thailand's fishing sector; a profile of fishers in the survey; the recruitment process; employment practices and working conditions; deceptive and coercive labour practices; complaint mechanisms and protection for fishers; and conclusions and recommendations.

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This report is the result of research carried out by Wilke, Maack and Partner in cooperation with partners in France, Italy, the UK and Belgium in 2012 for Eurociett and UNI Europa [union representing workers in 150 countries and in every region of the world], the two [European Union] EU social partners in the temporary agency work sector. The aim of the analysis was to obtain quantitative as well as qualitative data and information on the following key questions: What is the role of temporary agency work and the sectoral social partners in facilitating sideward and upward transitions in the labour market for agency workers? What is the profile of temporary agency workers? What are the evolution and progression patterns of the agency workers in the labour market? What are the working conditions of agency workers and how can the social partners improve them? What are the sectoral initiatives set up by the social partners to improve quality of transitions, such as temporary agency work sectoral social partners' jointly managed training funds, social funds or pension funds for temporary agency workers? After the executive summary and the recommendations that were adopted as a result of this study, the main results are presented as follows: Part A collects data and information on the role and dynamics of temporary agency work, regulatory frameworks as well as industrial relations and employment conditions, and contexts of type of work in the whole of the EU, mainly based on available comparative statistics as well as comparative studies that have been carried out by other researchers. Part B of the report consists of a series of case studies on major forms of labour market transitions and shows the role of temporary agency work and social dialogue for supporting labour market transitions and working conditions of temporary agency workers. The final chapter presents some general conclusions from the point of view of the authors, in particular, lessons learned from good practice and further needs for empirical research and exchange of information and knowledge.

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Over recent decades a policy and academic literature on 'learning organizations' and lifelong learning workers has accompanied economic debates on knowledge-based and continuously innovating economies. The policy pursuit of organizational learning has met mixed reception in education, lifelong learning and industrial relations arenas. For some, promoting the development of learning within, and of, organizational systems is a highly promising pursuit that complements longstanding adult education aspirations of lifelong learning and worker development. On the other hand, critics contend that the predominant interest in organizational and workplace learning in the early 21st century is heavily aligned with a managerial agenda in pursuit of technological and economic imperatives. Many researchers raise concerns that that management agenda for organizational learning has effected a deterioration in employment relations and in the quality of work and workers' lives in many developed, as well as developing, countries. These pressing concerns confront both lifelong learning educators and work and industrial relations researchers. This article proposes that a renewed, critical exploration of organizational learning and lifelong learning in workplaces offers potential for greater social application in organizational practices and employment relations. The article draws especial attention to cultural, qualitative interests and their organizational learning for improved work employment and industrial relations.

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Scholarship addressing the employment concerns of school-age workers has identified a number of areas of vulnerability. Prominent among these is that young workers have insufficient knowledge of their rights in employment, yet the extent of this knowledge has not previously been quantified. This study explores areas of strength and deficit in awareness of employment rights and obligations in a sample of 892 young people in Australian high schools. The findings demonstrate that despite part-time work being a majority experience for school students, young Australians know relatively little of their employment rights. The conclusions underscore the need for education strategies that inform young people prior to and in the very early stages of their working lives.

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