Coal Rushes: progress report on Women Miners, Miners' Women and their communities

Abstract

In the past two decades we have seen the transition from a collectivist legal industrial relations regime to a new "individualist" legal regime. A sharp point of differentiation between the two systems came with the legitimization of individualist work practice provided by the Industrial Relations legislation in the Workplace Relations Act 1996 from the conservative Prime Minister John Howard led coalition state. "Individualization" or "anti-unionisation" strategies aim to reduce the influence of unions so that they are not recognized for bargaining purposes, or to maintain an organizations' non-union status. The use of such strategies has been particularly evident in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In this paper we want to show how the sharp point of differentiation between the old collectivist approach and the new individualist approach led by the conservative state and corporations translates into practice at the micro level of the firm when corporations pursue strategies of deunionisation or "individualization" of their workforces – and how workers resist those strategies.