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SDG 8

Social Discipline and State Formation: Weber and Oestreich on the historical sociology of subjectivity
05 May 2006
University of Sydney

van Krieken, Robert

The concept of discipline has come to be associated with the work of Michel Foucault, but Max Weber and Gerhard Oestreich also made extensive use of it, and this paper explores their contribution to our understanding of the historical sociology of subjectivity in terms of an increasing disciplining of subjectivity. For Weber the discipline associated with ascetic Protestantism played a crucial role in the development of Western capitalism, and this central concern with the historical psychology of capitalism and the disciplined character of the modern self makes Weber’s work the intellectual precursor of the more recent discussions. Gerhard Oestreich provides a different kind of analysis by drawing our attention to the role of both the intellectual movement of neo-Stoicism and its associated forms of state intervention in spreading the discipline of the newly reformed armies in Western Europe throughout the rest of European society. The paper concludes with a discussion of the difficulties that remain in the work of both writers, and the implications of some more recent historical research for their theoretical orientations.
The coaching ripple effect: The effects of developmental coaching on wellbeing across organisational networks
18 September 2013
University of Sydney

O'Connor, Sean;Cavanagh, Michael

Background It has been argued that the quality of daily interactions within organisations effects the wellbeing of both individuals and the broader organisation. Coaching for leadership development is one intervention often used to create organisation-wide changes in culture and wellbeing. Leadership style has been associated with employee stress and wellbeing. Coaching has also been shown to improve individual level measures of wellbeing. However, almost all the research into the effectiveness of coaching interventions assumes a linear model of change, and expects that any flow-on effects are also linear. In other words, much of the research assumed that any change in the leader has relatively uniform effects on the wellbeing of others, and that these effects can be adequately accessed via standard linear statistical analyses. We argue that linear approaches do not take the complexity of organisations seriously, and that Complex Adaptive Systems theory (CAS) provides a useful non-linear approach to thinking about organisational change and the wellbeing of individuals embedded in these systems. The relatively new methodology of Social Network Analysis (SNA) provides researchers with analytic tools designed to access the relational components of complex systems. This paper reports on changes observed in the relational networks of an organisation following a leadership coaching intervention. Methods An AB design coaching intervention study was conducted across an organisation (N = 225). Wellbeing measures were taken for all employees and a social network analysis was conducted on the degree and quality of all organisational interactions. Twenty leaders (n = 20) received 8 coaching sessions. Individual self report measures of goal attainment as well as 360 feedbacks on transformational leadership were assessed in the control, pre and post intervention periods. Results A significant increase in the goal attainment, transformational leadership and psychological wellbeing measures were observed for those who received coaching. Average change in the perceived quality of interaction improved for those who received coaching. However there was a decline in the perceived quality of the interaction others believed they were having with those who were coached. It was also found that the closer any member of the network was identified as being connected to those who received coaching, the more likely they were to experience positive increases in wellbeing. Conclusions This research highlights the influence of leadership coaching beyond the individual leader, and has important implications for organisational wellbeing initiatives and how we measure the impact of interventions aimed at organisational change. Our findings suggest a more nuanced approach is needed in designing interventions in complex adaptive systems.
'It's a terrible thing when your children are sick': motherhood and home healthcare work
21 October 2013
University of Sydney

Lupton, Deborah

This article draws upon research involving indepth interviews with 60 mothers of young children about the home healthcare in which they engage when promoting their children’s health and dealing with their illnesses, allergies or developmental problems. The study found that a series of often interconnected discourses were evident in the women’s accounts. These included the discourses of health states as controllable, good health as an outcome of good management and the child’s body as vulnerable. Other discourses were related to the concept of the ‘good mother’. The interviewees also employed the discourses of home health care as emotionally distressing and as hard work and of children’s illness as a mother’s loss of control. As this suggests, such caring was often an intensely embodied and negative emotional experience for the mothers, particularly if they felt as if they had lost control over their children’s bodies.
Recruitment and retention of allied health professionals in the disability sector in rural and remote New South Wales, Australia
03 April 2014
University of Sydney

Lincoln, Michelle;Gallego, Gisselle;Dew, Angela;Bulkeley, Kim;Veitch, Craig;Bundy, Anita;Brentnall, Jennie;Chedid, Rebecca;Griffiths, Scott

Background: People with disability living in rural areas are vulnerable to the loss of access to allied health services due to a critical shortage of allied health professionals (AHPs). This study aimed to investigate recruitment and retention issues of importance to AHPs providing services to people with disability in rural New South Wales, Australia. Method: Focus groups and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 97 purposively sampled service providers in the disability sector. Interviews and focus groups were digitally recorded and transcribed. A modified grounded theory approach using thematic analysis and constant comparison was used to analyse the data. Results: Three major themes relating to recruitment and retention were identified: (a) flexible recruitment, (b) retention strategies that work, and (c) challenges to retention. Conclusions: AHPs in the disability sector identified some of the same issues influencing recruitment and retention as AHPs in the health, education, and private sectors. Several unique issues were also identified that will assist policymakers to improve recruitment and retention of AHPs employed in the disability sector in rural areas.
Children with lesbian parents: A community study
09 February 2015
University of Sydney

Golombok, S;Perry, B;Burston, A;Murray, C;Mooney-Somers, Julie;Stevens, M;Golding, J

Existing research on children with lesbian parents is limited by reliance on volunteer or convenience samples. The present study examined the quality of parent-child relationships and the socio-emotional and gender development of a community sample of 7-year-old children with lesbian parents. Families were recruited through the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a geographic population study of 14,000 mothers and their children. Thirty-nine lesbian-mother families, 74 two-parent heterosexual families, and 60 families headed by single heterosexual mothers were compared on standardized interview and questionnaire measures administered to mothers, co-mothers/fathers, children, and teachers. Findings are in line with those of earlier investigations showing positive mother-child relationships and well-adjusted children.
“You can help people”: Adolescents’ Views on Engaging Young People in Longitudinal Research
26 May 2015
University of Sydney

Cooper Robbins, Spring C;Hawsthorne, M;Paxton, K;Hawke, C;Skinner, S.R;Steinbeck, K

We sought to discover adolescents’ thoughts about participation in longitudinal research and identify recruitment and retention strategies that were meaningful to them. We conducted seven focus groups with 10–15-year-olds in two large rural centers in New South Wales, Australia, and all focus groups were digitally recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Adolescents discussed factors salient to their involvement in focus groups, as well as factors that may influence involvement in a longitudinal study. At the outset of the focus groups, adolescents had a positive view of “research,” but were reluctant to engage in research that involved biologic samples. Effective recruitment of adolescents requires an appreciation of motivators, and time and resources to extend potential participants’ understanding.
Conflicting rights: How the prohibition of human trafficking and sexual exploitation infringes the right to health of female sex workers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
12 June 2015
University of Sydney

Maher, L;Dixon, C;Phlong, P;Mooney-Somers, Julie;Stein, Ellen;Page, K

While repressive laws and policies in relation to sex work have the potential to undermine HIV prevention efforts, empirical research on their interface has been lacking. In 2008, Cambodia introduced anti-trafficking legislation ostensibly designed to suppress human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Based on empirical research with female sex workers, this article examines the impact of the new law on vulnerability to HIV and other adverse health outcomes. Following the introduction of the law, sex workers reported being displaced to streets and guesthouses, impacting their ability to negotiate safe sex and increasing exposure to violence. Disruption of peer networks and associated mobility also reduced access to outreach, condoms, and health care. Our results are consistent with a growing body of research which associates the violation of sex workers’ human rights with adverse public health outcomes. Despite the successes of the last decade, Cambodia’s AIDS epidemic remains volatile and the current legal environment has the potential to undermine prevention efforts by promoting stigma and discrimination, impeding prevention uptake and coverage, and increasing infections. Legal and policy responses which seek to protect the rights of the sexually exploited should not infringe the right to health of sex workers.
Equivariant vector bundles on quantum homogeneous spaces
17 February 2016
University of Sydney

Zhang, Guanglian;Zhang, Ruibin

The notion of quantum group equivariant homogeneous vector bundles on quantum homogeneous spaces is introduced. The category of such quantum vector bundles is shown to be exact, and its Grothendieck group is determined. It is also shown that the algebras of functions on quantum homogeneous spaces are noetherian.
Invariant integration on classical and quantum Lie supergroups
17 February 2016
University of Sydney

Scheunert, M.;Zhang, Ruibin

Invariant integrals on Hopf superalgebras, in particular, the classical and quantum Lie supergroups, are studied. The uniqueness ~up to scalar multiples! of a left integral is proved, and a Z2-graded version of Maschke’s theorem is discussed. A construction of left integrals is developed for classical and quantum Lie supergroups. Applied to several classes of examples the construction yields the left integrals in explicit form.
Noncommutative fields and actions of twisted Poincare algebra
17 February 2016
University of Sydney

Chaichian, M.;Kulish, P. P.;Tureanu, A.;Zhang, Ruibin;Zhang, Xiao

Within the context of the twisted Poincaré algebra, there exists no noncommutative analog of the Minkowski space interpreted as the homogeneous space of the Poincaré group quotiented by the Lorentz group. The usual definition of commutative classical fields as sections of associated vector bundles on the homogeneous space does not generalize to the noncommutative setting, and the twisted Poincaré algebra does not act on noncommutative fields in a canonical way. We make a tentative proposal for the definition of oncommutative classical fields of any spin over the Moyal space, which has the desired representation theoretical properties. We also suggest a way to search for noncommutative Minkowski spaces suitable for studying oncommutative field theory with deformed Poincaré symmetries.
Induction of labour: the development and application of a novel classification system
20 April 2016
University of Sydney

Nippita, Tanya A;Trevena, Judy A;Ford, Jane B;Patterson, Jillian A;Morris, Jonathan M;Roberts, Christine L.

OBJECTIVE To develop and demonstrate the applicability of a classification system for induction of labour (IOL) that fulfils recognised classification system attributes for clinical, surveillance and research purposes. DESIGN Proof of concept. SETTING, POPULATION Applicability demonstrated in a population cohort of 909,702 maternities in New South Wales, Australia, 2002-2011. METHODS A multidisciplinary collaboration developed a classification system through a systematic literature review, development of a clinically logical model, and presentation to stakeholders for feedback and refinement. Classification factors included parity (nulliparous, parous), previous caesarean section (CS), gestational age (≤36, 37-38, 39-40, ≥41 weeks gestation), number (singleton, multiple) and presentation of the fetus (cephalic, non-cephalic). We determined: the size of each classification group, the contribution each group made to overall IOL rates, and within-group IOL rates (calculated as proportions of all maternities, all maternities excluding prelabour CS and of all continuing maternities). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Applicability of IOL classification using routinely collected obstetric data. RESULTS A 10 group classification system was developed. Of all maternities, 25.4% were induced. Nulliparous and parous women without a prior CS at 39-40 weeks gestation with a singleton cephalic-presenting fetus were the largest groups (21.2% and 24.5% respectively) and accounted for the highest proportion of all IOL (20.7% and 21.5% respectively). The highest within group IOL rates were for nullipara (53.8%) and multipara (45.5%) ≥41 weeks gestation. CONCLUSION We propose a classification system for IOL that has the attributes of simplicity and clarity, utilises information that is readily and reliably collected and reported, and enables standard characterisation of populations of women having an IOL.
Marketing to Youth in the Digital Age: The Promotion of Unhealthy Products and Health Promoting Behaviours on Social Media
25 May 2016
University of Sydney

Dunlop, Sally;Freeman, Becky;Jones, Sandra C.

The near-ubiquitous use of social media among adolescents and young adults creates opportunities for both corporate brands and health promotion agencies to target and engage with young audiences in unprecedented ways. Traditional media is known to have both a positive and negative influence on youth health behaviours, but the impact of social media is less well understood. This paper first summarises current evidence around adolescents’ exposure to the pro-motion and marketing of unhealthy products such as energy dense and nutrient poor food and beverages, alcohol, and tobacco on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. We explore emerging evidence about the extent of exposure to marketing of these harmful products through social media platforms and potential impacts of exposure on adolescent health. Secondly, we present examples of health-promoting social media campaigns aimed at youth, with the purpose of describing innovative campaigns and highlighting lessons learned for creating effective social media interventions. Finally, we suggest implications for policy and practice, and identify knowledge gaps and opportunities for future research.
Health professionals as vendors: the commercial erosion of evidence and ethics
14 September 2016
University of Sydney

Lipworth, W;Mayes, C;Kerridge, I

With the discussion paper from the ongoing Review of Pharmacy Remuneration and Regulation still open for public input, there is an opportunity to reflect on how the services currently delivered by community-based pharmacies in Australia can be improved. Some of the questions up for discussion concern the ways in which pharmacists and patients navigate pharmacists’ dual roles as retailers and dispensers. In the post below, bioethicists Wendy Lipworth, Christopher Mayes and Ian Kerridge discuss what is at stake when therapeutic and commercial boundaries are blurred, and deliver a warning to other health professionals who might consider the addition of merchandising to their professional portfolios.
Neuropsychological and Functional Outcomes in Recent-Onset Major Depression, Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorders: A Longitudinal Cohort Study.
16 September 2016
University of Sydney

Lee, R. S. C.;Hermens, D. F.;Naismith, S. L.;Lagopoulos, J.;Jones, A.;Scott, J.;Chitty, K. M.;White, D.;Robillard, R.;Scott, E. M.;Hickie, I. B.,

Functional disability is the lead contributor to burden of mental illness. Cognitive deficits frequently limit functional recovery, although whether changes in cognition and disability are longitudinally associated in recent-onset individuals remains unclear. Using a prospective, cohort design, 311 patients were recruited and assessed at baseline. One hundred and sixty-seven patients met eligibility criteria (M=21.5 years old, s.d.=4.8) and returned for follow-up (M=20.6 months later, s.d.=7.8). Two-hundred and thirty participants were included in the final analysis, comprising clinically stable patients with major depression (n=71), bipolar disorder (BD; n=61), schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (n=35) and 63 healthy controls. Neuropsychological functioning and self-rated functional disability were examined using mixed-design, repeated-measures analysis, across diagnoses and cognitive clusters, covarying for relevant confounds. Clinical, neuropsychological and functional changes did not differ between diagnoses (all P>0.05). Three reliable neuropsychological subgroups emerged through cluster analysis, characterized by psychomotor slowing, improved sustained attention, and improved verbal memory. Controlling for diagnosis and changes in residual symptoms, clusters with improved neuropsychological functioning observed greater reductions in functional disability than the psychomotor slowing cluster, which instead demonstrated a worsening in disability (P<0.01). Improved sustained attention was independently associated with greater likelihood of follow-up employment (P<0.01). Diagnosis of BD uniquely predicted both follow-up employment and independent living. Neuropsychological course appears to be independently predictive of subjective and objective functional outcomes. Importantly, cognitive phenotypes may reflect distinct pathophysiologies shared across major psychiatric conditions, and be ideal targets for personalized early intervention.
The experience of survival following allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation in New South Wales, Australia
23 November 2016
University of Sydney

Gifford, G.;Gilroy, N;Dyer, G;Brice, L;Kabir, M.;Greenwood, M;Larsen, S;Moore, J;Gottlieb, D;Hertzberg, M;Kwan, J;Huang, G;Tan, J;Brown, L;Hogg, M;Ward, C;Kerridge, I

Allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) entails long-term morbidities that impair survivors’ quality of life through broad physical and psychosocial sequelae. Current data and survival measurements may be inadequate for contemporary Australian allo-HSCT recipients. This study sought to comprehensively describe survivorship in an up-to-date, local setting through validated measurements and a novel questionnaire designed to complement and address limitations of current instruments. All adults who received an allo-HSCT between 2000 and 2012 in New South Wales were eligible and included, if alive, those literate and consenting to the study, which encompassed seven survey instruments. Four hundred and forty-three survivors participated, which is 76% of contactable (n=583) and 66% of eligible survivors (n= 669). Chronic GVHD (cGVHD) and co-morbidity rates were similar to published data. Noteworthy results include prevalent sexual dysfunction (66% females, 52% males), loss of income (low income increased from 21 to 36%, P<0.001) and employment (full-time employment fell from 64 to 33%, P<0.001), suboptimal vaccination (31% complete), and health screening (≈50%). Risk factors for poor vaccination and health screening were cGVHD, younger age, less education, rural/regional residence and transplantation <2 years. This study suggests that improvement in survivorship may necessitate structural changes in the current delivery of health services.
Trade Unions, Forced Labour and Human Trafficking
29 November 2016
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele

This article examines the dilemmas facing trade unions seeking to engage on questions of forced labour and human trafficking. The International Labour Organization and elements of the international trade union movement have succeeded in getting forced labour on the policy agenda globally and within many national settings. However, trade unions have limited capacity to effect real change in relation to these issues because of limitations on their influence, determined largely by membership density and the limited number of sectors in which they are present, but also internal assessments of what constitutes ‘core business’. As a consequence, while trade unions may advocate for legislative or policy change, partner with non-governmental organisations to deal with particular cases, or even engage directly with vulnerable populations, the integration of those populations into the day to day concerns of trade unions necessarily remains elusive—particularly in the global south, where forced labour is most prevalent.
Indonesian labour since Suharto: Perspectives from the region
29 November 2016
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Mizuno, Kosuke

Since the mid 1980s, Indonesian labour has gone through a turbulent period of restructuring and reformation, as the industrial relations landscape was transformed, firstly by the government’s export-oriented industrialisation strategy and then again when the political edifice of President Suharto’s New Order came crashing down in 1998. Scholarly interest in Indonesia’s industrial working class peaked in the 1990s, when factory workers struggled for the right to organise in the factories and on the streets, at a time when public protest was a dangerous strategy. In this period, Indonesians wrote a number of PhD theses on the subject of labour. The book published from the most influential of these was written by political scientist Vedi Hadiz at Murdoch University in Australia and is now the seminal work on organised labour during the New Order period (1997). Other Indonesian scholars who completed English-language PhD and Masters theses on labour-related issues in these years, included anthropologist Ratna Saptari (1995) in the Netherlands, and scholar-activists Sri Kusnyiati (1998) and Nori Andriyani (1996) in Australia and Canada respectively. Sutanta (also known as Sutanto Suwarno), a Department of Manpower official, also completed his PhD in the United Kingdom (1997). These students re-established the tradition of Indonesian scholars and scholar-bureaucrats from an earlier era, most notably Tedjasukmana (1958) and Hasibuan (1968).
Women's Labor Activism in Indonesia
29 November 2016
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele

In her discussion of working‐class women’s labor activism in Thailand, Mary Beth Mills argues that an understanding of the “diverse ideological effects, structural constraints, and contested identities within women’s labor struggles requires close attention to participants’ own gendered and place‐based politics” (2005, 140). In the Indonesian context, geography and life experience are indeed important, but class remains a major determinant of women’s approaches to gender politics within the labor sphere. Labor became a strong focus for middle‐class feminists in Indonesia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when women’s groups began to organize campaigns around issues concerning female industrial workers and international labor migrants (Ford 2002). More recently, however, there has been a dramatic increase in women workers’ activism on their own behalf. This new wave of activism presents a dilemma for feminists because it is not always framed in feminist terms. In contrast to middle‐class feminist activists in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), who regard female factory and migrant laborers as women first and then as workers, many union women believe the international feminist agenda is secondary, or even irrelevant, to their struggles for better conditions at work.
Indonesian Women as Export Commodity: Notes from Tanjung Pinang
29 November 2016
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele

In Indonesia, the plight of TKW (Tenaga Kerja Wanita - the common term for women migrant workers) has been a subject of public controversy for decades. Academic accounts of the conditions of Indonesian migrant domestic workers tend to resonate with local public perceptions. Authors such as Bethan (1993) and Robinson (2000a, 2000b) and Krisnawaty (1997) focus predominantly on the threats and privations facing women working abroad as domestic help - in Saudi Arabia in particular - and the shortcomings of official labour migration agencies. Yet, while conditions in receiving countries and the experiences of women in the barracks of registered labour export companies in Jakarta are the subject of many books and articles, the conditions experienced by women recruited by illegal agents are relatively little researched. While in Tanjung Pinang recently I conducted interviews with an illegal migration agent, his wife, and five women currently awaiting positions in Malaysia. The results of those interviews are the subject of this research note.
Beyond the Femina fantasy: female industrial and overseas domestic labour in Indonesian discourses of women's work
30 November 2016
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele

In the late 1990s, scholarly attention turned to glossy publications such as Femina, the premier Indonesian women's magazine, for insights into what it means to be a woman in Indonesia. When Brenner analysed the visual and verbal images of the 'many incarnations' of the modern Indonesian woman, she found that, in addition to being a 'happy consumer-housewife, devoted follower of Islam '" model citizen of the nation-state and alluring sex symbol', the modern Indonesian woman is a wanita kaner, working as a business executive, secretary, lawyer or civil servant (Brenner 1999, 17-24). Sen, too, has noted the increasing dominance of images of professional, working women in 'official and commercial texts emanating from metropolitan Jakarta' (Sen 1998, 35). Unlike Brenner, however, who argues that the Sum of representations of women in these middle-class texts 'offer[s] a bewildering array of lifestyle possibilities' (Brenner 1999, 17), Sen privileges images of the working woman - asserting not only that 'working woman' has replaced 'housewife' as the 'new paradigmatic female subject in political, cultural and economic discourses in Indonesia', but that the new 'iconic figure' of the 'working woman' is a professional who legitimises Indonesia's position as a modern nation, not a working-class woman labouring on the factory floor (Sen 1998, 35).
Employment Relations and the State in Southeast Asia
03 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Gillan, Michael

This article engages critically with the comparative employment relations literature, assessing its capacity to explain and analyse the relationship between state objectives – accumulation, pacification, legitimation – and employment relations. Having engaged with approaches that have influenced the discipline in recent decades, it draws on insights from capitalist Southeast Asia to identify determining factors not accounted for in comparative employment relations models developed from and applied to the Global North. These include the relatively high degree of fluidity in forms of governance characteristic of contexts where there is a dynamic interplay between democratic and authoritarian rule, which challenges the assumption that employment relations are underpinned by a relatively strong, stable and autonomous state. Equally significant is the impact of interstate and international interests and influences, only some of which are economic, on the balance between different state objectives as they pertain to employment relations.
Regulatory Approaches to Managing Skilled Migration: Indonesian Nurses in Japan
03 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Kawashima, Kumiko

This article examines the Japan–Indonesia Economic Partnership Agreement, an agreement that has allowed Japan to supplement its local healthcare workforce while continuing to sidestep the thorny issue of labour and immigration policy reform and Indonesia to increase its skilled workers’ access to the Japanese labour market at a time when it was making a concerted effort to reorient migrant labour flows away from informal sector occupations. Despite the programme’s many problems, it has contributed to the use of trade agreements as a mechanism for regulating labour migration, and so to the normalisation of migrant labour as a tradable commodity rather than a discrete area of policy-making, with all the attendant risks that normalisation brings.
The Making of Industrial Relations in Timor-Leste
03 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele

As a new nation, Timor-Leste offers a unique case where formal industrial relations mechanisms have been developed as part of a broader project of state formation. In other words, the transformation of employment relations in the formal sector has taken place as part of regime establishment rather than regime change, as has been the case in other post-authoritarian contexts in Southeast Asia. As this first account of industrial relations in Timor-Leste demonstrates, the state has been concerned first and foremost with encouraging sustainable forms of accumulation, and the employment opportunities that accompany them, rather than with regulating labour relations. Although it has responded to pressure from international organisations to establish what could have been best-practice industrial relations institutions in the country’s tiny formal sector, these efforts have foundered as a consequence of a failure to secure employer buy-in and weak enforcement.
The State, Democratic Transition and Employment Relations in Indonesia
03 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Sirait, George Martin

Indonesia’s transition since 1998 from authoritarian developmentalism to democracy has had a fundamental effect on employment relations. Although the basic structure of the economy has not changed, the twin processes of democratisation and decentralisation have seen the return of a degree of political space not available in Indonesia since the 1950s. This transformation was underpinned by a shift in the balance between the primary logics of the state that has seen an enhanced emphasis on legitimation. It has reshaped expectations of workplace-level employment relations practice in the country’s small formal sector and of trade unions’ engagement with policy-making and electoral politics. This article traces the processes through which this transformation occurred and analyses both its successes and the ongoing challenges to more robust implementation of the country’s industrial relations framework.
The Global Union Federations in International Industrial Relations: A Critical Review
03 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Gillan, Michael

In recent decades, trade unions have been challenged to attempt to develop new forms of representation, action and institutional engagement in response to the increasingly transnational character of production and service delivery. This has necessarily required a shift in focus beyond national boundaries, and thus beyond the traditional scale of industrial relations systems. Among the most important actors in these attempts to globalize industrial relations have been the global union federations (GUFs), which represent national sectoral federations in key industries. Over several decades, the GUFs have sought to engage with multinational corporations through various strategies including policy campaigns and the negotiation of Global Framework Agreements and have provided support for workers and their unions in different national settings, including emerging labour movements in the Global South. This article reviews the growing literature on transnational industrial relations, focusing on the historical development of the GUFs, their core repertoires of action and their impact on industrial relations practice both internationally and within national boundaries. In doing so, it identifies and assesses not only the opportunities for GUF interventions in international industrial relations, but also the many obstacles – including resource constraints and dependence on unions at other scales – that limit their reach and ability to achieve these strategic goals.
Translating Membership into Power at the Ballot Box? Trade Union Candidates and Worker Voting Patterns in Indonesia’s National Elections
03 January 2017
University of Sydney

Caraway, Teri L.;Ford, Michele;Nugroho, Hari

This article analyses the effectiveness of trade unions’ electoral engagement in the union-dense electoral localities of Bekasi and Tangerang in Indonesia’s 2009 legislative elections. Our analysis reveals that legacies of authoritarianism, electoral rules, and union fragmentation pushed unions to pursue an ineffective electoral strategy of running union cadres on various party tickets. In Bekasi, local leaders within the Federation of Indonesian Metalworkers Unions (FSPMI) chose not to mobilize resources to support union candidates because the union’s national leadership had failed to convince them of the soundness of its strategy. In Tangerang, local leaders embraced the National Workers Union’s (SPN) national electoral strategy, but had inadequate membership data to conduct electoral mapping and did not provide candidates with financial and leadership support. Neither union, meanwhile, gave much consideration to the problem of translating membership to votes: survey data reveal that most members could not name union candidates, and many of those who could did not vote for them. The article argues that, despite its flaws, trade unions’ strategy of engagement in the electoral arena constitutes an important step forward in the consolidation of Indonesia’s democracy.
Migrant Worker Organizing in Indonesia
03 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele

This article examines attempts by Indonesian migrant labor NGOs, migrant worker organizations and trade unions to promote the labor rights of Indonesian migrant workers employed overseas. In recent years trade unions in Indonesia have increasingly been forced to acknowledge the existence of overseas labor migrants. But NGOs have dominated migrant labor advocacy initiatives, and grassroots migrant labor organizations such as the Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union (IMWU) have developed independently of existing trade unions. Unions in Indonesia, like unions in other countries of origin, have been only marginally involved in migrant worker issues because of their physical boundedness within the nation-state and their focus on the formal sector. In other words, the fact that unions operate primarily at the national and sub-national scales and the difficulties they have had incorporating workers employed in less structured workplaces, and particularly in the informal sector, limits their capacity to assist or organize citizens employed outside the boundaries of the nation-state. This paper argues that unions must move beyond their traditional structures and spheres of influence in order to address the needs of overseas migrant workers, who represent an increasingly important union constituency in countries such as Indonesia.
Migrant Labor NGOs and Trade Unions: A Partnership in Progress?
03 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele

Over the last two decades, the needs and interests of temporary international labor migrants in Southeast Asia have overwhelmingly been the concern of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) rather than trade unions. However, in recent years unions have increasingly been forced to acknowledge that migrant workers are a potentially important trade union constituency. This introduction provides the theoretical framework for a collection of articles which grew out of a project involving academics, trade unionists and migrant labor NGO activists on the extent of union-NGO cooperation on migrant worker issues. It argues that while unions are now much more engaged with both with temporary migrant workers and the NGOs who advocate on their behalf, unions’ approaches towards transnationalism and citizenship (and the concomitant issue of legality) – along with entrenched inter-sectoral divisions and prejudices – continue to limit their preparedness and ability to engage fully with issues concerning temporary labor migration.
Labour NGOs: An Alternative Form of Labour Organizing in Indonesia, 1991-1998
04 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele

Although Indonesia's labour non-government organizations (NGOs) are in many ways unique, they are in fact part of a global surge in non-traditional labour activism, in which international and indigenous labour NGOs have played an important role. This contribution examines the contribution of labour NGOs to the reconstruction of the Indonesian labour movement in the 1990s and its implications for our understanding of the contemporary labour movement more generally. It argues that the Indonesian experience suggests theorists and unionists should broaden their understanding of the labour movement to make room for non-traditional forms of labour movement organizations, such as labour NGOs, that have the potential to (and do) contribute to that movement.
A Victor's History: A Comparative Analysis of the Labour Historiography of Indonesia's New Order
04 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele

Some observers have identified a common pattern in developing countries whereby unions are transformed from a political force valued for their contribution to the struggle for independence to a state-sponsored ‘tool of development’. A less well-explored question concerns the harnessing of labour historiography to justify such transitions. As this article shows, Suharto’s New Order (1966–98) undertook a conscious and purposeful rewriting of Indonesian labour history in support of a single vehicle of labour representation organized around a narrative of the dangers of political unionism and designed to control and harness the industrial workforce in the name of economic development.
‘Where Are Your Victims?’
04 January 2017
University of Sydney

Lyons, Lenore;Ford, Michele

The United States has played a key role in international efforts to address trafficking in Indonesia, as elsewhere. In October 2001, the US State Department established an Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, which prepares the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, widely known as the TIP Report. In the reports, countries are divided into three tiers according to their efforts to comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. Tier One consists of those countries who fully comply with the minimum standards outlined in the US Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA); Tier Two of those who do not fully comply but are making efforts to ensure compliance; and Tier Three of those who do not comply and are not making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance (US Department of State 2000). Countries in Tier Three are subject to sanctions, including the termination of non-humanitarian aid and US opposition to assistance from international financial institutions (Ould 2004: 61). Critics argue that the TIP reports ignore forms of forced labour other than forced sexual labour, gloss over state complicity in trafficking and are vague about numbers of victims, convictions and sentencing rates (Caraway 2006: 298). Concerns have also been expressed about the impact of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) policy regarding the funding of programmes promoting safe sexual practices within brothels, which stipulate that in order to be eligible for US funding non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the trafficking field must declare their opposition to prostitution (Ditmore 2005; Weitzer 2007). Organizations that do not take a position on prostitution, as well as those that favour decriminalization or legalization are thus ineligible for funding from the US government.
Developing a Movement? Aid-Based Mediated Diffusion as a Strategy to Promote Labour Activism in post-Tsunami Aceh
05 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Dibley, Thushara

In this article we examine the extent to which mediated diffusion through trade union development aid succeeded in helping to establish a labour movement in Aceh after the 2004 tsunami. The international labour movement organisations involved in the post-tsunami reconstruction effort in Aceh focused their efforts primarily on humanitarian aid, physical infrastructure and vocational education. However, they also supported trade union-building programs, which succeeded in strengthening individual trade unions and instilling a sense of shared identity amongst Acehnese labour activists but ultimately failed to ensure the sustainability of the movement. We argue that while the Aceh case highlights the importance of local context to the outcomes of such interventions, the constraints imposed on international labour donors and their local counterparts by their focus on reconstruction and the time pressures of the post-tsunami aid cycle raise questions about the efficacy of the aid model as a means of promoting the growth of a social movement.
Experiments in Cross-Scalar Labour Organizing: Reflections on Trade Union-Building Work in Aceh after the 2004 Tsunami
05 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Dibley, Thushara

As part of the post-tsunami reconstruction effort Aceh, international labour movement organizations “jumped scale” in an attempt to revitalize a moribund local labour movement. This article provides a close analysis of the four internationally sponsored trade union-building projects undertaken as part of that process. This unique intervention sheds light on the crucial role of local context and the extent to which the principles of international solidarity and the pragmatics of trade union diplomacy are mediated through money, institutions, individuals and day-to-day activities. The Aceh case underscores the importance of contingency and the agency of individuals in shaping an international intervention of this kind. In doing so it demonstrates how circuits of labour activism can be affected by constraints and opportunities unrelated to trade union politics or the relations of production.
The Global Union Federations and Temporary Labour Migration in Malaysia
05 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele

Since the mid-2000s, the Global Union Federations have played a pivotal role in the reshaping of Malaysian trade unions’ attitudes towards temporary migrant workers, providing the conceptual tools and material resources – and, in many cases, the motivation – required to reach out to this most non-traditional of non-traditional constituencies. This article documents the different approaches taken by a number of Global Union Federations as they seek to apply lessons learnt from the experience of their European affiliates in the Malaysian context. It argues that while Global Union Federation agendas are largely determined by donor and head office priorities, those agendas are mediated, and sometimes transformed, as they are rolled out through the Global Union Federations’ regional offices and to local affiliates in ‘target countries’ like Malaysia. This finding not only has consequences for temporary migrant workers in particular destinations, but also for our understanding of the structures of the international labour movement and the practices of trade union aid.
Temporary Labour Migration and Care Work: The Japanese Experience
05 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Kawashima, Kumiko

Around the world, advanced industrial societies are facing a demographic time bomb that has enormous implications for the workforce in general, but for workforce planning and industrial relations in the health sector and related industries in particular. Japan, which has traditionally resisted structured forms of labour migration, has responded by establishing labour migration schemes for nurses and other care workers from selected South and Southeast Asian countries. This article examines the responses of different industrial relations actors to the first of these schemes. It begins by describing the opening up of hospitals and residential care facilities to temporary labour migrants from the Philippines and Indonesia, before turning to a discussion of the roles played by trade unions and employers and an evaluation of the outcomes of the programme to date. The article demonstrates the potential pitfalls of trade-driven labour migration schemes and their implications for the sector and the migrant workers concerned.
Outsourcing Border Security: NGO Involvement in the Monitoring, Processing and Assistance of Indonesian Nationals Returning Illegally by Sea
05 January 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Lyons, Lenore

Since the signing of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Straits of Malacca have been identified as a “hot spot” for whole range of maritime security threats, including human trafficking and people smuggling. As a consequence, Indonesia’s national and local authorities have been under immense pressure from the international community to develop and implement programmes that address these concerns. Multilateral agencies and other donor organizations have also pumped millions of dollars into counter-trafficking and anti-smuggling programmes in the Riau Islands. Much of the groundwork for both government and international initiatives is done by NGOs, most of which work to identify and assist repatriated migrant workers or victims of trafficking. In one case, however, a Batam-based NGO has gone far beyond this well-trodden path, developing a system to apprehend undocumented labour migrants who use the services of people smugglers to return to Indonesia without passing through immigration. This article examines the case of Gerakan Anti-Trafficking (Anti-Trafficking Movement, GAT) and its implications for our understanding of emerging modes of non-state involvement in border regulation.
Factors affecting retention of allied health professionals working with people with disability in rural New South Wales, Australia: discrete choice experiment questionnaire development
17 February 2017
University of Sydney

Gallego, Gisselle;Dew, Angela;Bulkeley, Kim;Veitch, Craig;Lincoln, Michelle;Bundy, Anita;Brentnall, Jennie

Objective: This paper describes the development of a discrete choice experiment (DCE) questionnaire to identify the factors (attributes) that allied health professionals (AHPs) working with people with disability identify as important to encouraging them to remain practising in rural areas. Methods: Focus groups and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 97 purposively selected service providers working with people with disability in rural New South Wales, Australia. Focus groups and interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and analysed using a modified grounded theory approach involving thematic analysis and constant comparison. Results: Six attributes that may influence AHPs working with people with disability in rural areas to continue to do so were inductively identified: travel arrangements, work flexibility, professional support, professional development, remuneration, and autonomy of practice. The qualitative research information was combined with a policy review to define these retention factors and ensure that they are amenable to policy changes. Conclusion: The use of various qualitative research methods allowed the development of a policy-relevant DCE questionnaire that was grounded in the experience of the target population (AHPs).
Should I stay or should I go? Exploring the job preferences of allied health professionals working with people with disability in rural Australia
17 February 2017
University of Sydney

Gallego, Gisselle;Dew, Angela;Lincoln, Michelle;Bundy, Anita;Chedid, Rebecca Jean;Bulkeley, Kim;Brentnall, Jennie;Veitch, Craig

Introduction: The uneven distribution of allied health professionals (AHPs) in rural and remote Australia and other countries is well documented. In Australia, like elsewhere, service delivery to rural and remote communities is complicated because relatively small numbers of clients are dispersed over large geographic areas. This uneven distribution of AHPs impacts significantly on the provision of services particularly in areas of special need such as mental health, aged care and disability services. Objective: This study aimed to determine the relative importance that AHPs (physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists and psychologists – “therapists”) living in a rural area of Australia and working with people with disability, place on different job characteristics and how these may affect their retention. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted using an online questionnaire distributed to AHPs working with people with disability in a rural area of Australia over a 3-month period. Information was sought about various aspects of the AHPs’ current job, and their workforce preferences were explored using a best–worst scaling discrete choice experiment (BWSDCE). Conditional logistic and latent class regression models were used to determine AHPs’ relative preferences for six different job attributes. Results: One hundred ninety-nine AHPs completed the survey; response rate was 51 %. Of those, 165 completed the BWSDCE task. For this group of AHPs, “high autonomy of practice” is the most valued attribute level, followed by “travel BWSDCE arrangements: one or less nights away per month”, “travel arrangements: two or three nights away per month” and “adequate access to professional development”. On the other hand, the least valued attribute levels were “travel arrangements: four or more nights per month”, “limited autonomy of practice” and “minimal access to professional development”. Except for “some job flexibility”, all other attributes had a statistical influence on AHPs’ job preference. Preferences differed according to age, marital status and having dependent children. Conclusions: This study allowed the identification of factors that contribute to AHPs’ employment decisions about staying and working in a rural area. This information can improve job designs in rural areas to increase retention.
Rural Carers of People with Disabilities: Making Choices to Move or to Stay
06 March 2017
University of Sydney

Dew, Angela;Happ, Vicki;Bulkeley, Kim;Bundy, Anita;Lincoln, Michelle;Gallego, Gisselle;Brentnall, Jennie;Veitch, Craig

When a child is born with, or an individual acquires, a disability in rural Australia, one of the decisions faced by the family is whether to remain living in a rural area or move to a larger metropolitan centre to access support services such as therapy. Understanding the factors that rural carers weigh up in making the decision to move or stay can inform the successful implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in rural areas. Seventy-eight rural carers were recruited to participate in individual interviews or focus groups to discuss access to therapy services. Data were analysed using modified grounded theory involving thematic analysis and constant comparison. Participants made decisions about whether to stay living in their rural community or to move to a larger centre to receive therapy services according to three interlinked factors: personal factors related to their other family caring responsibilities; social factors including their informal support networks of family, friends, and community; and economic factors including employment and the time and cost of travelling to access specialist services in larger centres. These factors need to be considered in the roll-out of the NDIS to ensure that rural service users enjoy the benefit of a real choice to live in a rural area without reducing their access to support services.
In Search of a Living Wage in Southeast Asia
12 December 2017
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Gillan, Michael

Purpose – Debates over the definition, processes and outcomes of minimum and “living” wages are heated and often politically contentious in garment-producing countries. Internationally, there have been various initiatives to promote and support the implementation of a living wage for workers in labour-intensive manufacturing, ranging from corporate-driven social responsibility and multi-stakeholder initiatives to the long-standing living wage campaign of the global unions. One prominent regional initiative is the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA). The purpose of this paper is to assess its reach and effect in Southeast Asia. Design/methodology/approach – A living wage campaign is assessed with reference to Indonesia and Cambodia, two important garment manufacturing countries in Southeast Asia. The paper draws on data collected in interviews with garment manufacturers, brand representatives, trade unionists and labour NGO activists, including members of the AFWA Steering Committee in Indonesia and Cambodia, complemented by a systematic review of documents and reports produced by the AFWA. Findings – As the paper shows, despite a series of initiatives, the Asia Floor Wage has failed to gain traction in Cambodia or Indonesia. This is so, the paper argues, because national economic, political and institutional contexts are the primary drivers of the strategies and priorities of constituent organisations, governments and industry stakeholders. In the absence of robust local and regional coalitions of trade unions, efforts towards a common and coordinated regional approach to living wages are thus unlikely to gain traction. Originality/value – To a large extent, the literature on the concepts and practices associated with the living wage has focussed on developed rather than developing countries. This paper extends the literature by providing a systematic examination of a transnational wage campaign in developing Asian countries.
Institutions and Collective Action in Divided Labour Movements: Evidence from Indonesia
12 December 2017
University of Sydney

Caraway, Teri;Ford, Michele

Under what conditions do trade unions in divided labour movements cooperate? Does cooperation in one domain increase the likelihood of cooperation in the other? Do institutions facilitate or discourage cooperation? We explore these questions through an examination of collective action across federation and confederation lines in post-Suharto Indonesia. Using a comparison of union cooperation in the policy and electoral domains, we demonstrate that tripartite wage-setting institutions have played a central role in facilitating collective action in the policy domain, encouraging unions to look beyond shop-level issues to policy issues identified by their respective national organizations as affecting workers. The relative absence of collective action across organizational divides in the electoral domain, meanwhile, can be explained by the institutional context, which creates higher barriers to unions working together.
Effects of Timetable Change on Job Accessibility
13 September 2018
University of Sydney

Wu, Hao;Levinson, David

Accessibility is often not a performance measure for transit services. This study is conducted following the introduction of new timetables which intended to improve passenger throughput for Sydney’s transit services, but resulted in major delays ex- perienced by passengers thereafter. Accessibility at 30-minute travel threshold before and after the timetable change are calculated between 8 to 9 am, to measure accessi- bility benefits, if any, from the new timetable. The results show a lack of systematic improvement by the new table, and downgrade of accessibility on average. The overall person-weighted accessibility dropped by 3%, from 45,070 to 43,730, and 63.3% of the population’s access to jobs would be adversely affected after its implementation. This study advocates for the inclusion of accessibility metrics into transit performance mea- sures to connect with people who use transit.
Beyond newsrooms: Younger journalists talk about job loss and re-employment in Australian journalism
10 January 2019
University of Sydney

O'Donnell, Penny

This article examines the re-employment destinations of 10 younger journalists who lost newsroom jobs in the period 2012 to 2014, to understand the work options available in the current Australian labour market. With field theory as a framework, it considers how and why seven of these younger journalists now work beyond newsrooms, either freelancing or in corporate journalism (but not public relations). The remaining three younger journalists, who were in a position to push ahead with their careers, are still engaged in mainstream news reporting. The transition from full-time newsroom jobs to other forms of employment was tougher for some than others. The article argues these younger journalists pragmatically adjusted their ideas of journalistic work to suit their altered circumstances. These results are interpreted through the lens of field theory, and contextualised in the research on the transformation of journalism.
A tripodal tris-selenourea anion transporter matches the activity of its thio- analogue but shows distinct selectivity
07 February 2019
University of Sydney

Spooner, Michael J.;Gale, Philip A.

We report the synthesis of a tripodal tris-selenourea transporter scaffold. The Cl− and NO− 3 transport activity of the compound has been compared extensively with the analogous oxo- and thiourea compounds. We found that the selenourea demonstrates remarkably similar transport efficacy and mechanistic properties to the equivalent thiourea, but demonstrates flipped selectivity for Cl− over NO−3.
Bearing the Burden of Corporate Restructuring: Job Loss and Precarious Employment in Canadian Journalism
26 March 2019
University of Sydney

Cohen, Nicole S.;Hunter, Andrea;O'Donnell, Penny

This article reports on job loss among Canadian journalists between 2012 and 2016. Building on Australian research on the aftermath of job loss in journalism, this article examines the experiences of 197 journalists who were laid off or who took a buyout, voluntarily or not, due to corporate restructuring in Canadian media (both French and English). To date, no scholarly research in Canada has examined what happens to journalists after they are laid off, including the personal and professional experiences journalists undergo when they lose their job and seek a new one, or the implications of these experiences for Canadian journalism in general. Overall, in a result that mirrors laid-off Australian journalists’ experiences of re-employment, we find a dramatic shift among journalists’ employment status and a decline in incomes after job loss. The majority of our survey participants moved from full-time, secure, and well remunerated work to more precarious forms of employment in and out of journalism, including freelance, contract and part-time. This shift in employment status demonstrates underlying precariousness in Canadian journalism. We argue that job loss in journalism has implications for broader social life and for journalism as an institution vital for participation in democratic life.
Voluntourism and the Contract Collective
29 August 2019
University of Sydney

Banki, Susan;Schonell, Richard

Critiques of the voluntourism industry focus on power imbalances, colonial legacies, and white privilege. Drawing on the literatures of development and voluntourism to find points of comparison, we argue that the voluntourism industry reflects myriad de-velopment problems, such as structural challenges, the fungibility of aid, corruption, representation, worker narratives, and temporality. We assert that many of the prob-lems inherent in voluntourism could be remedied by the evolution of a contract norm between volunteers and their local partners, where reciprocity and transparency might practically serve as a corrective to voluntourism's most entrenched problems.
The ‘New’ Migration for Work Phenomenon: The Pursuit of Emancipation and Recognition in the Context of Work
23 October 2019
University of Sydney

Groutsis, Dimitria;Vassilopoulou, Joana;Kyriakidou, Olivia;Ozbilgin, Mustafa

This article examines the ‘new’ migration for work phenomenon gripping Southern Europe since the Global Financial Crisis struck in 2008, by focusing on the case of skilled Greeks migrating to Germany for work purposes. In applying Honneth’s concept of emancipation to the domain of work, the article frames emancipation as a phenomenon which emerges from an individual’s search for meaningful work and as a form of resistance to deteriorating institutions and social injustice. Informed by this is an assessment of the new migration for work phenomenon from Greece to Germany by employing survey data on the perceptions of skilled emigrants. Following analysis of the findings, it is concluded that migration is a form of emancipation that allows individuals to regain recognition and self-respect while also to protest the erosion of social and human rights in their home country.
Investing in Care Key to Boosting Economic Growth
01 November 2019
University of Sydney

Hill, Elizabeth;Baird, Marian;Ford, Michele

The need to increase women’s labour market participation and economic security is on the ‘to do’ list of most governments and major global institutions. Global consulting firm McKinsey calculates that global GDP would increase by 26 per cent— US$28 trillion—by 2025 if women participated in paid work to the same extent as men. But if this goal is achieved, who will look after the children, the elderly, the disabled and ill? Although both women and men can care for others, global estimates show that women assume responsibility for around three-quarters of all unpaid domestic and community labour. Tensions between women’s participation in paid work and unpaid care work are especially acute in Asia and the Pacific, where the distribution of unpaid work between men and women is particularly skewed. In this region, women perform more than four times as much unpaid labour as men. Managing this unpaid workload makes it difficult for women to increase participation in paid employment at a level commensurate with their increasing levels of education and training.
Politicizing the Minimum Wage: Wage Councils, Worker Mobilization, and Local Elections in Indonesia
01 November 2019
University of Sydney

Caraway, Teri;Ford, Michele;Nguyen, Oanh

Indonesia’s weak labor movement transformed local wage councils from institutions of wage restraint into institutions that delivered generous wage increases. This article argues that the arrival of direct elections created an opportunity for unions to leverage elections to alter the balance of power on the wage councils. Activating that leverage required increased contentiousness and coordination among unions. As unions mobilized around wages, conflict with capital intensified and produced disruptive protests that led incumbents to side with workers. Unions also developed innovative tactics to sustain momentum in nonelection years. As unions turned the wage councils in their favor, employers fought back by shifting the scale of the conflict to the national level; the result was the recentralization of wage setting and more modest increases. In a global context of ever weakening organized labor, the Indonesian case shows how weak unions can gain power by mobilizing politically at the local level.
Full-range behaviour of double web angle connections
15 January 2020
University of Sydney

Yan, Shen;Jiang, Luli;Rasmussen, Kim

This paper presents recent experimental and analytical investigations on the full-range flexural behaviour of double web angle connections. Experiments were carried out on bolted double web angle connections with two different configurations featuring three and five bolt rows, respectively. For each connection configuration, five nominally identical specimens were tested to investigate the variability of connection behaviour, including joint stiffness, ultimate resistance and ductility, thereby making a total of ten tests. All tests were conducted well into the post-ultimate range until complete failure of the connection, examining the full-range connection response. The load transferring mechanism of the connection was dynamically changing, partly because the presence of bolt hole clearance caused certain bolts to be initially inactive, only to later become active in transferring load from the beam, and partly because when the beam bottom flange came into contact with the column flange under large connection rotation, the centre of rotation changed causing the compressive load transferred at the bottom bolt rows to unload and reverse. To capture the above complicated changes of load transferring mechanisms and thus capture the full-range behaviour of a bolted web angle connection, an advanced mechanical model was proposed. The model is based on the Component Method, and adopts a decision tree to track the evolution of the load-transferring mechanism of the connection, including the bearing state of each bolt, either under tensile or compressive load, the potential presence of contact between the beam bottom flange and the column flange, and the plastic deformation of the critical connection components. The proposed model was applied to the tested connections with excellent agreement observed between the model predictions and the experimental results. Not only producing full-range force-displacement curves that are very close to the experimental curves, the proposed model also provides useful information about the internal state of the connection, which was not obtainable from the tests.
Generalised Component Model for Structural Steel Joints
17 January 2020
University of Sydney

Zhu, Chen;Rasmussen, Kim;Yan, Shen

This paper presents a generalised component model for structural steel joints that extends the Component Method to the post-ultimate and post-fracture ranges. In this approach, a tri-linear spring model was developed for each individual component to include their post-ultimate behaviour, and a new concept of the instantaneous centre of rotation was introduced to track the changing load condition of each series of springs in a multi-spring system. The proposed generalised component model can predict the full-rangeM − θ curves of multi-spring models containing any number of deformable springs, and does not pose numerical difficulties in the post-ultimate range where some springs unload. The method is potentially applicable to all types of steel joints. The paper presents the application of the method to recent experimental tests on bolted moment end plate connections, showing good agreement over the full range of behaviour including fracture. The paper also demonstrates the application of the method to produce the backbone curve for a hysteretic model for the bolted moment end-plate connection.
Special working arrangements to allow for care responsibilities in Australia: availability, usage and barriers
31 January 2020
University of Sydney

Temple, Jeromey;Dow, Briony;Baird, Marian

Background Population ageing is projected to reduce labour force growth and aggregate labour force participation, whilst increasing demand for informal carers. Increasing the labour force participation of Australians who face barriers to employment (including carers) is part of the solution to labour market pressures occurring due to demographic change and may improve the financial wellbeing of carers. Aims To examine the availability, usage and barriers to accessing Special Working Arrangements (SWA) to provide care while employed in Australia. Data and methods The 2015 ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers was used to measure the prevalence of the availability, usage and barriers to SWA to care stratified by carer status and gender. Results About 94% of workers reported access to at least one type of SWA (n=25,094). Of this group, about 22% have used SWA to care in the last 6 months. The proportions using SWA to care were highest among primary carers (64%) followed by other carers (43%) and non-carers (19%). Of those who have used SWA, about 15% wanted to use additional SWA to care in the previous 6 months, but faced barriers in doing so, with higher proportions of primary carers (24.6%) and other carers (21.8%) reporting barriers. The main barriers faced by employed carers included insufficient paid leave and/or work commitments. Conclusions A range of paid and unpaid arrangements are necessary for carers to combine paid work with their caregiving responsibilities. Labour market legislation and workplace policies should be strengthened to reduce barriers to take up of SWA.
The cost of virtual wins: An examination of gambling-related risks in youth who spend money on social casino games
14 April 2020
University of Sydney

King, Daniel L.;Russell, Alex;Gainsbury, Sally M.;Delfabbro, Paul H.;Hing, Nerilee

Background and aims Social casino games (SCGs) are not technically considered a form of gambling but they do enable players to spend money in a game that is gambling themed or structurally approximate to gambling. It has been theorized that SCGs could be a gateway to gambling activities or otherwise normalize the experience of gambling for young people, particularly when money becomes involved. The aim of this study was to investigate whether adolescents’ financial expenditure in SCGs was associated with broader gambling activity, including level of participation, expenditure, and problem gambling symptoms. Methods An online survey was administered to 555 adolescents, including 130 SCG players (78 non-paying and 52 paying users). Results Paying SCG users tended to be employed males who play more frequently and engage in more SCG activities, who report more symptoms of problem gambling and higher psychological distress than non-paying SCG users. Paying SCG users reported more frequent engagement and spending in monetary gambling activities, and two-thirds of SCG payers recalled that their SCG use had preceded involvement in financial gambling. Discussion and conclusions Spending in simulated gambling activities by adolescents may be a risk factor for problem gambling. Although SCGs may currently defy classification as a form of gambling, these activities will likely continue to be scrutinized by regulators for the use of dubious or exploitative payment features offered in a gambling-themed format that is available to persons of all ages.
Risk and Financial Management of COVID-19 in Business, Economics and Finance
18 June 2020
University of Sydney

Chang, Chia-Lin;McAleer, Michael;Wong, Wing-Keung

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease led to the most significant change in the world order over the past century, destabilizing the global economy and financial stock markets, the world’s economy, social development, business, risk, financial management and financial markets, among others. COVID-19 has generated great uncertainty, and dramatically affected tourism, travel, hospitality, supply chains, consumption, production, operations, valuations, security, financial stress and the prices of all products, including fossil fuel and renewable energy sources. This Editorial introduces a Special Issue of the Journal of Risk and Financial Management (JRFM) on the “Risk and Financial Management of COVID-19 in Business, Economics and Finance”. This Special Issue will attract practical, state-of-the-art applications of mathematics, probability and statistical techniques on the topic, including empirical applications. This paper investigates important issues that have been discussed in tourism, global health security and risk management in business as well as the social and medical sciences.
A Charter for Sustainable Tourism after COVID-19
18 June 2020
University of Sydney

Chang, Chia-Lin;McAleer, Michael;Ramos, Vicente

The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease is highly infectious and contagious. The long-term consequences for individuals are as yet unknown, while the long-term effects on the international community will be dramatic. COVID-19 has changed the world forever in every imaginable respect and has impacted heavily on the international travel, tourism demand, and hospitality industry, which is one of the world's largest employers and is highly sensitive to significant shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic. It is essential to investigate how the industry will recover after COVID-19 and how the industry can be made sustainable in a dramatically changed world. This paper presents a charter for tourism, travel, and hospitality after COVID-19 as a contribution to the industry.
Multi-Activity Access: How Activity Choice Affects Opportunity
11 July 2020
University of Sydney

Cui, Mengying;Levinson, David M

It is commonly seen that accessibility is measured considering only one opportunity or activity type or purpose of interest, e.g., jobs. The value of a location, and thus the overall access, however, depends on the ability to reach many different types of opportunities. This paper clarifies the concept of multi-activity accessibility, which combines multiple types of opportunities into a single aggregated access measure, and aims to find more comprehensive answers for the questions: what is being accessed, by what extent, and how it varies by employment status and by gender. The Minneapolis - St. Paul metropolitan region is selected for the measurement of multi-activity accessibility, using both primal and dual measures of cumulative access, for auto and transit. It is hypothesized that workers and non-workers, and males and females have different accessibility profiles. This research demonstrates its practicality at the scale of a metropolitan area, and highlights the differences in access for workers and non-workers, and men and women, because of differences in their activity participation.
Are onshore pathway students prepared for effective university participation? A case study of an international postgraduate cohort
16 July 2020
University of Sydney

Dyson, Bronwen Patricia

As English language (EL) proficiency becomes a key issue for Australian universities, EL entry levels and the pathways preparing international students for university are also rising in importance. Crucially, according to recent Australian government policy, universities are responsible for ensuring that students entering university have sufficient EL competence to participate effectively in their courses. This policy has its origins in concerns as to whether the large number of entrants from onshore (Australian) pathways have possessed adequate English skills. Despite these concerns, there has been little examination of this issue. The present study aimed to examine whether one cohort of onshore international postgraduate students was prepared for effective university participation. Three measures of participation were employed: student perceptions of preparation, English written proficiency and university grades. The study comprised two phases. In the first phase, the students (N = 173) completed a questionnaire on pathway preparation and wrote an essay. The results for the essay were further divided into those who entered and did not enter university. In the second phase, focus interviews were conducted (N = 8) and academic grades were collected from those who completed first semester subjects (N = 106) and their peers. The study revealed that the students perceived their academic skills as better than their language skills, did not receive significantly different grades to their peers but exhibited high levels of “at risk” writing, especially in their use of source material and grammar. The paper concludes that increased university monitoring of pathways on a range of key, language-related measures, particularly writing, is vital.
The Flexible Performer in Applied Theatre: In-hospital Interaction with Captain Starlight
02 September 2020
University of Sydney

Ashford, Lawrence

This paper explores how Australian non-profit organisation the Starlight Children’s Foundation employs professional performers to play the role of Captain Starlight in order to distract, entertain, and interact with children and young people in hospital. Drawing from the author’s experience working for the organisation, it will provide an overview of Starlight’s programs, before locating the Captain Starlight program within the field of Applied Theatre, and then describing how theories of clowning, improvisation, and theatrical performance are conceptualised and practised within that program. It then presents an account of a moment of performance, before arguing that the approach adopted by Captain Starlight bears much in common with the process of ‘flexible performance’ identified by Tim Fitzpatrick in the commedia dell’arte. Ultimately, this paper finds that by generating performance in this manner, Captain Starlight creates an interactive space for children and young people to exercise their agency within the hospital setting.
Ultra Long-Haul: An emerging business model accelerated by COVID-19
14 September 2020
University of Sydney

Bauer, Linus Benjamin;Bloch, Daniel;Merkert, Rico

The COVID-19 outbreak has sent shockwaves throughout the aviation industry, sending a myriad of liquidity-strapped airlines into administration or part government ownership. In turn, this paper argues that the novel phenomenon of Ultra Long Haul (ULH) operations already maintains the necessary characteristics to generate a competitive advantage that will not only succeed, but outperform other business models, in a post COVID-19 era. Our modelling and scenario analysis results suggest that point-to-point ULH services, with access to a strong domestic feeder system, will not only require minimal adjustments to cope with COVID-19, but will simultaneously produce higher seat-load factors and yields, heightened network flexibility, and unique health benefits tied to its ability to bypass densely populated hub airports.
Capitalism in Australia: New histories for a reimagined future
14 September 2020
University of Sydney

Huf, Ben;Rees, Yves;Beggs, Michael;Brown, Nicholas;Flanagan, Frances;Palmer, Shannyn;Ville, Simon

Capitalism is back. Three decades ago, when all alternatives to liberal democracy and free markets appeared discredited, talk of capitalism seemed passé. Now, after a decade of political and economic turmoil, capitalism and its temporal critique of progress and decline again seems an indispensable category to understanding a world in flux. Among the social sciences, historians have led both the embrace and critique of this ‘re-emergent’ concept. This roundtable discussion between leading and emerging Australian scholars working across histories of economy, work, policy, geography and political economy, extends this agenda. Representing the outcome of a workshop convened at La Trobe University in November 2018 and responding to questions posed by conveners Huf and Rees, five participants debate the nature, utility and future of the new constellation of ‘economic’ historical scholarship. While conducted well before the outbreak of COVID-19, the ensuring discussion nevertheless speaks saliently to the crises of our times.
Risk Management: Rethinking Fashion Supply Chain Management for Multinational Corporations in Light of the COVID-19 Outbreak
14 September 2020
University of Sydney

McMaster, May;Nettleton, Charlie;Tom, Christeen;Xu, Belanda;Cao, Cheng;Qiao, Ping

Through an international business risk management lens, the widespread and catalytic implications of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic on the supply chains (SCs) of fashion multinational corporations (MNC) are analyzed to contribute to existing research on supply chain management (SCM). While a movement towards agile, networked supply chain models had been in consideration for many firms prior to the outbreak, the pandemic highlights issues inherent in supply chains that employ concentrated production. We examined the current state of fashion supply chains, risks that have arisen historically and recently, and existing risk mitigation methods. We found that while lean supply chain management is primarily favored for its cost and waste reduction advantages, the structure is limited by the lack of supply chain transparency that results as well as the increasing demand volatility observed even before the COVID-19 outbreak. Although this problem might exist in the agile supply chain, agile supply chains combat this by focusing on enhancing communication and buyer-supplier relationships to improve information exchange. However, this structure also entails an associated increase in inventory and inventory costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused supply and demand disruptions which have resonating effects on supply chain activities and management, indicating a need to build flexibility to mitigate epidemic and demand risks. To address this, several strategies that firms can adopt to control for such risks are outlined and key areas for further research are identified which consider parties both upstream and downstream of the fashion supply chain.
Disability-Related Questions for Administrative Datasets
14 September 2020
University of Sydney

Madden, Rosamond H.;Lukersmith, Sue;Zhou, Qingsheng;Glasgow, Melita;Johnston, Scott

High rates of unemployment among people with disability are long-standing and persistent problems worldwide. For public policy, estimates of prevalence and population profiles are required for designing support schemes such as Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme; for monitoring implementation of the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and for monitoring service access, participation, and equity for people with disability in mainstream systems including employment. In the public sector, creating a succinct identifier for disability in administrative systems is a key challenge for public policy design and monitoring. This requires concise methods of identifying people with disability within systems, producing data comparable with population data to gauge accessibility and equity. We aimed to create disability-related questions of value to the purposes of an Australian state and contribute to literature on parsimonious and respectful disability identification for wider application. The research, completed in 2017, involved mapping and identification of key disability concepts for inclusion in new questions, focus groups to refine wording of new questions, and online surveys of employees evaluating two potential new question sets on the topic of disability and environment. Recommendations for new disability-related questions and possible new data collection processes are being considered and used by the leading state authority.
Topology of International Supply Chain Networks: A Case Study Using Factset Revere Datasets
14 September 2020
University of Sydney

Piraveenan, Mahendra;Jing, Hongze;Matous, Petr;Todo, Yasuyuki

International supply chain networks play a prominent role in shaping the economic outlook of the world. It has been a recent trend to analyse the topology of supply chain networks in order to gain a wholistic understanding about the interdependencies of firms in this regard. In this work, we undertake an extensive structural and topological analysis of the supply chain networks constructed from the Factset Revere dataset. The dataset is provided by FactSet Research Systems Inc. that captures global supply chain relationships between companies. The dataset consists of 154, 862 companies from 216 countries, with 1,571, 949 supply relationships among them. In addition to considering the global network, we also analysed country-specific networks of ten countries, which are the most significant nations represented in the dataset. The analysis revealed that all supply chain networks studied were relatively sparse scale-free networks, with scale-free exponents ranging from 1.0 to 2.0. In terms of centrality analysis, quite predictably, large multi-national corporates dominated. Comparing the centrality values of firms in terms of the global vs the country-specific networks, two classes of firms were found where the difference in centrality was significant. The first group was small firms with locally-centered business operations, such as Volunteers of America, New York State Teachers Retirement System, CarePlus Health Plan etc, where the country-based centrality scores and the rankings based on them were significantly more prominent than the global equivalent. The second group was firms with specific countries of origin which register themselves in other countries, such as China Shengda Packaging Group Inc (registered in US), Chinacast Education Corps (registered in the US), and China Biologic Products Inc (registered in the US). These firms all had significantly higher global centrality scores compared to country-based centrality scores. Overall, however, it was found that there was strong correlation between global centrality-based ranking and country-specific centrality ranking of firms. This indicated that in general, firms which are important to the global supply chain network are also important to the supply chain networks of individual countries. Studying the community structure of the supply chain networks, we identified twelve dominant communities, many of which had significant correlations with particular industries or countries. Some of these communities were made of firms primarily from a pair of countries, or had other interesting features. Therefore, the topological analysis of the supply chain networks created from this large dataset gives interesting insights about how the international supply chain networks are structured, and how they operate.
A multi-cut L-shaped method for resilient and responsive supply chain network design
24 September 2020
University of Sydney

Sabouhi, Fatemeh;Jabalameli, Mohammad Saeed;Jabbarzadeh, Armin;Fahimnia, Behnam

We present a stochastic optimisation model that can be used to design a resilient supply chain operating under random disruptions. The model aims to determine sourcing and network design decisions that minimise the expected total cost while ensuring that the minimum customer service level is achieved. The proposed model incorporates several resilience strategies including multiple sourcing, multiple transport routes, considering backup suppliers, adding extra production capacities, as well as lateral transshipment and direct shipment. A multi-cut L-shaped solution approach is developed to solve the proposed model. Data from a real case problem in the paint industry is utilised to test the model and solution approach. Important managerial insights are obtained from the case study. Our analyses focus on (1) exploring the relationship between supply chain cost and customer service level, (2) examining the impacts of different types of disruptions on the total cost, (3) evaluating the utility of resilience strategies, (4) investigating the benefits of the proposed solution approach to solve problems of different sizes and (5) benchmarking the performance of the proposed stochastic programming approach.
Preparing students for the future through developing evaluative judgement
17 November 2020
University of Sydney

Naidoo, Ornissa;Tai, Joanna;Penman, Merrolee

In today's environment, health students need to be prepared for an ever changing workplace and workforce. They need to understand what demonstrates good quality work and how to assess their standard of work. Evaluative judgement can contribute to student and graduate self-regulation and autonomy in their learning. This toolbox article describes how to implement strategies for developing evaluative judgement in allied health placements. These strategies were developed as part of an occupational therapy program in rural Western Australia, where experiential education is provided through service-learning with both direct and indirect supervision. Practical advice is provided on the use of peer-assisted learning, rubrics, self-assessment and feedback. Challenges and opportunities in implementing strategies to develop evaluative judgement, such as how to achieve effective feedback, are also discussed. The suggested toolbox may be adapted to various clinical placement contexts. Developing evaluative judgement can help to prepare our students to be lifelong learners. This article empowers educators to promote this capability in their students to create work ready graduates, who are able to operate independently and in rapidly evolving, technologically enabled environments.
Platforms and the pandemic: A case study of fashion rental platforms during COVID-19
17 November 2020
University of Sydney

Brydges, Taylor;Heinze, Lisa;Retamal, Monique;Henniger, Claudia E.

From Airbnb to Uber, the sharing or platform economy has reshaped many aspects of our economy and society. In recent years, fashion rental platforms have gained in popularity, fueling the introduction of the platform economy in fashion. When the COVID?19 pandemic hit, the impact on fashion rental platforms was abrupt, with demand disappearing seemingly overnight as events were cancelled and many people began working from home. Drawing on a case study of fashion rental platforms, we explore the immediate consequences of the pandemic on this segment of the platform economy, examining both the challenges these platforms face in the short?term and the strategies platforms have adopted to try and weather the storm. We highlight how the impact of the COVID?19 pandemic on fashion rental platforms thus far intersects with issues pertaining to value creation, precarious work, gender, and sustainable consumption. In doing so, we reflect on how fashion rental platforms inform understanding of the platform economy more broadly and conclude by suggesting themes for future research.
Beyond the factory paradigm: Digital nomadism and the digital future(s) of knowledge work post-COVID-19
21 December 2020
University of Sydney

Wang, B.;Schlagwein, D.;Cecez-Kecmanovic, D.;Cahalane, M.C.

What are the potential futures of knowledge work, given its transformation into almost exclusively digital work during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis? Our ongoing research program on digital nomadism informs a Hegelian dialectical analysis and an envisioning of the future(s) of knowledge work. We contrast the Factory paradigm of work (thesis), exemplified by the “ideal type” of the 9-to-5 corporate worker, with the Hypermobility paradigm of work (antithesis), exemplified by the ideal type of the digital nomad. Reflecting on this contrast, we envision the possible digital futures of knowledge work as a continuous spectrum, ranging from a future based on the Digital Taylorism paradigm of work to a future based on the Worker Autonomy paradigm of work. These futures are discussed in terms of different approaches to organizing work, working with technology, delineating work/life boundaries, and provisioning the social safety net. IS researchers are uniquely positioned to perform research and inform decision-making in all these areas, and thus make a difference in determining whether the future we end up with more closely resembles Digital Taylorism or the Worker Autonomy vision.
The impact of disability on employment and financial security following the outbreak of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.
09 February 2021
University of Sydney

Emerson, Eric;Stancliffe, Roger;Hatton, Chris;Llewellyn, Gwynnyth;King, Tania;Totsika, Vaso;Aitken, Zoe;Kavanagh, Anne

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may have a greater impact on people with disabilities than non-disabled people. Our aim was to compare the short-term impact of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and first lockdown on the employment an
Activity-Centred Analysis and Design (ACAD): Core purposes, distinctive qualities and current developments
09 February 2021
University of Sydney

Goodyear, Peter;Carvalho, Lucila;Yeoman, Pippa

This paper provides a summary account of Activity-Centred Analysis and Design (ACAD). ACAD offers a practical approach to analysing complex learning situations, in a way that can generate knowledge that is reusable in subsequent (re)design work. ACAD has
Productive and connected while working from home: what client-facing remote workers can learn from telenurses about 'belonging through technology'
06 April 2021
University of Sydney

Hafermalz, E.;Riemer, K.

Client-facing work is challenging at the best of times, but the sudden shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic has created additional difficulties. Concerns about how employee productivity and wellbeing are negatively impacted by the unfamiliar remote work context abound. We draw on a study of skilled remote workers that was conducted before the pandemic to theorise how client-facing work can be conducted effectively. In particular we examine how client-facing employees can foster a sense of belonging when they are not co-located. We use an abductive research approach, combining empirical material from interviews with tele-nurses with theoretical material from Goffman’s categories of “communication out of character”. We thereby theorise what we call “belonging through technology”, as the outcome of four types of team communication that contribute to the performance of effective client-facing work in a remote context. We distinguish and conceptualise functions of such team communication as coping, learning, plotting, and positioning, which together create belonging. We argue that “belonging” relates to both wellbeing and productivity, because belonging to one’s team (wellbeing) and belonging to one’s work role (productivity) are inherently connected in the performance of client-facing work. We offer insights to help practitioners in such remote work contexts.
Impact of COVID-19 on the social, economic, environmental and energy domains: Lessons learnt from a global pandemic
06 April 2021
University of Sydney

Mofijur, M.;Fattah, I.M.R.;Alam, M.A.;Islam, A.B.M.S.;Ong, H.C.;Rahman, S.M.A.;Najafi, G.;Ahmed, S.F.;Uddin, M.A.;Mahlia, T.M.I.

COVID-19 has heightened human suffering, undermined the economy, turned the lives of billions of people around the globe upside down, and significantly affected the health, economic, environmental and social domains. This study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the ecological domain, the energy sector, society and the economy and investigate the global preventive measures taken to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. This analysis unpacks the key responses to COVID-19, the efficacy of current initiatives, and summarises the lessons learnt as an update on the information available to authorities, business and industry. This review found that a 72-hour delay in the collection and disposal of waste from infected households and quarantine facilities is crucial to controlling the spread of the virus. Broad sector by sector plans for socio-economic growth as well as a robust entrepreneurship-friendly economy is needed for the business to be sustainable at the peak of the pandemic. The socio-economic crisis has reshaped investment in energy and affected the energy sector significantly with most investment activity facing disruption due to mobility restrictions. Delays in energy projects are expected to create uncertainty in the years ahead. This report will benefit governments, leaders, energy firms and customers in addressing a pandemic-like situation in the future.
COVID-19 in Southeast Asia: Implications for workers and unions
02 June 2021
University of Sydney

Ford, Michele;Ward, Kristy

The labour market effects in Southeast Asia of the COVID-19 pandemic have attracted considerable analysis from both scholars and practitioners. However, much less attention has been paid to the pandemic’s impact on legal protections for workers’ and unions’ rights, or to what might account for divergent outcomes in this respect in economies that share many characteristics, including a strong export orientation in labour-intensive industries and weak industrial relations institutions. Having described the public health measures taken to control the spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam, this article analyses governments’ employment-related responses and their impact on workers and unions in the first year of the pandemic. Based on this analysis, we conclude that the disruption caused to these countries’ economies, and societies, served to reproduce existing patterns of state–labour relations rather than overturning them.
Workplace reform: a new social contract for Australia
02 June 2021
University of Sydney

Lansbury, Russell D

The COVID-19 crisis impels us to think about the future of Australia in many dimensions and from different perspectives including our social, economic and governance structures. A new social contract at work in Australia should rest on three pillars: a full employment policy coupled with a strong safety net for those not able to find work; a comprehensive system of post-secondary and vocational training, and easy transition between them; industrial relations reforms to provide a stronger voice for workers in decisions affecting them in the workplace. These pillars should be based not only on the historical experience of Australia but also draw on successful examples from elsewhere. The Nordic countries, for example, have based their social and economic systems on a social partnership approach that relies on voluntary cooperation between interest groups rather than legislation.
Women, work and industrial relations in Australia in 2020
02 June 2021
University of Sydney

Foley, Meraiah;Williamson, Sue

The COVID-19 pandemic drove significant changes affecting women, work and industrial relations in Australia in 2020. This annual review explores the economic and social impact of the pandemic on women workers, and examines the gendered impact of key policy responses, including: the introduction of an historic temporary wage subsidy programme; the early release of superannuation funds; multiple economic stimulus measures, targeted mostly at male-dominated industries; and the provision of paid pandemic leave. This review also analyses major developments in early childhood care and education and aged care, and the longer-term implications of the massive natural experiment in working from home that occurred in 2020. Developments in paid parental leave and sexual harassment are also briefly discussed. We find that, although women workers were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, policy responses to date have largely failed to acknowledge or repair the gendered impacts of the crisis.
Changing geographies of fashion during Covid‐19: The Australian case
02 June 2021
University of Sydney

Brydges, Taylor;Heinze, Lisa;Retamal, Monique

COVID-19 has impacted a range of industries, of which the fashion industry is no exception. Here, we examine the effects of COVID‐19 on the geographies of that industry in Australia. We use a path‐dependency framework to understand the evolution of the Australian fashion industry and to evaluate the impact of COVID‐19 as an external shock to this evolution. The Australian fashion industry has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Drawing upon a qualitative methodology and associated set of methods consisting of 24 semi‐structured interviews with key industry actors, we explore three key themes. First, we examine the impact of COVID‐19 on firm dynamics, investigating how fashion brands have navigated a period of significant uncertainty through a combination of highly nimble internal business practices and industry collaborations. Second, in light of unstable globalised supply chains, we consider the important role of local garment production in supporting industrial resilience. Third, we explore how changing consumption behaviours are altering the retail geographies of the Australian fashion industry in both physical and virtual spaces. Based on our analysis of preliminary results, we reflect on the suitability of an evolutionary approach in this context and outline a number of themes of future research.
How Construction Employment Can Create Social Value and Assist Recovery from COVID-19
02 June 2021
University of Sydney

Denny-Smith, George;Sunindijo, Riza Yosia;Loosemore, Martin;Williams, Megan;Piggott, Leanne

COVID-19 has created or amplified economic and social crises internationally. Australia entered its first recession in 30 years and saw a significant rise in unemployment. In response, Australian governments have increased their commitments to infrastructure construction to stimulate the national economy and combined this with new social procurement policies that aim to create social value for targeted populations like Indigenous peoples and unemployed youth. However, emerging social procurement research in construction shows a disconnect between policymakers and the practitioners who must implement them. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide theoretical and practical insights on creating social value in the context of construction employment created by new social procurement policies. Reporting a survey of 107 construction workers in Australia, it is shown that social procurement policies and construction employers can create social value when they provide work benefits like adequate pay and training and development and cultural benefits like inclusive workplaces. Recommendations are made to demonstrate how the results presented in this article can be used by contractors to create social value. This research is significant for advising how increased infrastructure spending commitments in Australia can create social and economic outcomes for workers, ensuring a sustainable recovery from COVID-19 crises.
Labour and megaprojects: Rethinking productivity and industrial relations policy
02 June 2021
University of Sydney

Ellem, B.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought industrial relations policy to the centre of attention in many countries. In 2020, the Australian government convened tripartite bodies to address policy in several areas, one being for agreement-making to cover labour on ‘megaprojects’. This initiative revisited criticisms of unions for driving costs up and productivity down on these worksites, the most expensive of which had been Chevron’s Gorgon site, a liquefied natural gas project off the north-west Australian coast. Drawing on four usually siloed literatures – on industrial relations policy, megaprojects, the economic geography of resources and labour process – this article explains concerns about costs, delays and productivity in terms of project work itself. This approach leads to a different understanding of the merits of changing policy to address megaproject’s problems and productivity more broadly.
Australian industrial relations in 2020: COVID-19, crisis and opportunity
10 June 2021
University of Sydney

Clibborn, S.

This introduction to the Journal of Industrial Relations' 2020 Annual Review of Industrial Relations provides an overview of the six Annual Review articles, an international review and two practitioner reviews. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a crisis for the labour market, intensifying serious existing issues such as stagnant wage growth, the gender pay gap and employer non-compliance with minimum wage laws. The pandemic also presented an opportunity for the Australian government to direct its economic stimulus measures in a targeted manner that addressed these existing problems concurrently with the immediate pandemic-related issues. However, 2020 will be marked by this missed opportunity.
Retention of the aboriginal health, ageing, and disability workforce: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study
25 June 2021
University of Sydney

Gilroy, J.;Bulkeley, K.;Talbot, F.;Gwynn, J.;Gwynne, K.;Henningham, M.;Alcorso, C.;Rambaldini, B.;Lincoln, M.

Background: Despite a plethora of research into Aboriginal employment and recruitment, the extent and nature of the retention of frontline Aboriginal people in health, ageing, and disability workforces are currently unknown. In this application, frontline service delivery is defined as Aboriginal people who are paid employees in the health, ageing, and disability service sectors in roles that involve direct client, participant, or patient contact. There is a need to identify the factors that inhibit (push) and promote (pull) staff retention or departure of this workforce from the sectors. This study will provide additional insight about this topic. Objective: The objective of this project is to uncover the factors that influence the retention of frontline Aboriginal workers in the health, ageing, and disability workforces in New South Wales (NSW) who do not have university qualifications. The aim of the proposed project aims to discover the push and pull factors for the retention of the frontline Aboriginal workforce in the health, ageing, and disability sectors in NSW in relation to their role, employment, and community and design evidence-based strategies for retaining the Aboriginal frontline workforce in the health, ageing, and disability sectors in NSW. Methods: The proposed research will use a mixed methods approach, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data via surveys and interviews to capture and represent the voices and perspectives of Aboriginal people in a way that the participants chose. Results: Indigenous research methodologies are a growing field in Aboriginal health research in Australia. A key strength of this study is that it is led by Aboriginal scholars and Aboriginal controlled organizations that apply an Indigenous methodological framework throughout the research process. Conclusions: This study uses a mixed methods design. The survey and interview questions and model were developed in partnership with Aboriginal health, ageing, and disability service workers rather than relying only on research publications on the workforce, government policies, and human resources strategies. This design places a strong emphasis on generalizable findings together with an inductive approach that explores employers and workers’ lived experience of the Aboriginal health workforce in NSW. Excluding workers who have graduated from university places a strong focus on the workforce who have obtained either school or Technical and Further Education or registered training organizations qualifications. Data collection was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and results will include the unique experiences of Aboriginal workers and employers delivering services in an extremely challenging organizational, community, and personal context.
Covid-19 And The Policy-Induced Vulnerabilities Of Temporary Migrant Workers In Australia
30 June 2021
University of Sydney

Clibborn, Stephen;Wright, Chris F.

The COVID-19 crisis has starkly exposed the existing economic vulnerability of temporary migrants in many countries. In Australia, many temporary migrants, who were already at risk of marginalisation due to policies restricting their bargaining power and agency (Wright and Clibborn 2020), have lost their jobs and have minimal financial support due to their exclusion from public welfare. We argue that the situation confronting temporary migrant workers is a direct consequence of dramatic and deliberate changes in immigration policy since the 1990s. These policy changes were engineered by the Australian state with the professed aim of increasing labour market efficiency, and led to the abandonment of previous policy arrangements that had successfully enabled social and economic inclusion of migrant workers. The next section examines the shift in Australian immigration selection and control to an exclusive focus on improving the short-term economic contribution of visa policy. The article then analyses how these policies have eroded temporary migrants’ rights and channelled temporary migrants into sectors that have poor quality employment practices. It concludes by outlining proposals to avoid marginalising migrants in the future through a greater focus on socially inclusionary measures.
A guest-worker state? The declining power and agency of migrant labour in Australia
30 June 2021
University of Sydney

Wright, Chris F.;Clibborn, Stephen

This article presents an historical and comparative analysis of the bargaining power and agency conferred upon migrant workers in Australia under distinct policy regimes. Through an assessment of four criteria – residency status, mobility, skill thresholds and institutional protections – we find that migrant workers arriving in Australia in the period from 1973 to 1996 had high levels of bargaining power and agency. Since 1996, migrant workers’ power and agency has been incrementally curtailed, to the extent that Australia’s labour immigration policy resembles a guest-worker regime where migrants’ rights are restricted, their capacity to bargain for decent working conditions with their employers is truncated and their agency to pursue opportunities available to citizens and permanent residents is diminished. In contrast to recent assessments that Australia’s temporary visa system is working effectively, our analysis indicates that it is failing to protect temporary migrants at work.
Migrant labour and low quality work: a persistent relationship
30 June 2021
University of Sydney

Wright, Chris F.;Clibborn, Stephen

The marginalisation of migrants at work, especially those in industries and occupations characterised by low wages and low-skilled jobs, is a critical issue for scholarship, policy and practice. While the bulk of migration-related research and theory comes from other disciplines, the insights of employment relations perspectives are particularly valuable in explaining why vulnerability to marginalisation and mistreatment is so persistent for these groups of migrants. We explore this issue by reviewing the reasons why migrant workers, especially newly arrived and temporary migrants, are more vulnerable than other groups of workers, examining worker-focused, employer-focused and state-focused scholarship on this issue. After providing an overview of the articles published in the Journal of Industrial Relations special issue on ‘Migration and Work’, which relate to the theme of the persistent relationship between migrant labour and low-quality work, this introductory article uses insights drawn from our review to propose an agenda for future research.
Why recruit temporary sponsored skilled migrants? A human capital theory analysis of employer motivations in Australia
30 June 2021
University of Sydney

Wright, Chris F.;Constantin, Andreea

This article uses human capital theory to analyse employer motivations for recruiting skilled migrants on temporary sponsored visas, a group receiving limited attention within human resource management (HRM) scholarship despite being an increasingly important part of the workforce in many organisations and countries. We address this gap through a survey analysis of 1602 employer respondents who sponsored temporary skilled visa holders in Australia. The findings indicate that cost-effectiveness as a motivator for recruitment decisions can be achieved not only through HRM strategies to maximise worker productivity, as human capital theories emphasise, but also by identifying groups of workers perceived as harder working than other groups. The findings also draw attention to the role of government policy in this identification process, specifically visa regulations constraining the mobility of temporary sponsored skilled migrants, which allows employers to utilise these workers’ human capital effectively.
‘New’ Histories of (Australian) Capitalism
05 July 2021
University of Sydney

Huf, Ben;Sluga, Glenda

In the decade since the Great Recession of 2007–08, ‘capitalism’ has re-emerged as a pervasive framework for understanding a world in momentous flux. Across the globe, a torrent of public-minded scholarship has debated the past, present, future and end of capitalism in an effort to grapple with the endemic challenges of poverty, automation, inqualities of wealth and ecological crisis. Historians have positioned themselves at the fore of these debates. In the United States, ‘new histories of capitalism’ are now the premise of a field of study with undergraduate courses, conferences, research centres and intitatives. In Britain, Germany and other European countries, scholars are adopting a ‘new materialism’, ‘material turn’ and ‘new labour history’ for their courses and publications. They are applying lessons from social and cultural history to business, labour and economic history’s traditional actors and topics. By cross-pollinating methodologies from the social sciences, these histories are ‘re-embedding’ economic relations and actors in structures of law, institutions, social norms, knowledge, and power. These trends have been put at the service of larger questions addressing three hundred years of economic transformations that have delivered immense prosperity but at unrivalled social and environmental cost.
The Capitalist in Colonial History: Investment, Accumulation and Credit-Money in New South Wales
05 July 2021
University of Sydney

Huf, Ben

Capitalists and labourers have long been regarded among the great antagonists of Australian historiography. Yet where the latter has been subjected to constant analysis by successive generations of historians, the formation of ‘the capitalist’ has received scant attention. This article reassesses this figure as a discrete colonial type, not as the ubiquitous owner of the means of production, but as a conflicted and contested subject of imperial transformation. By layering a series of perspectives on the capitalist as a category of government, a model of calculative skill and parsimonious morality, as a contested popular discourse, and whose relations were structured by the ‘inherent hierarchy of money’, this reassessment also offers fresh perspectives on the processes of settler capitalism. It highlights the social, political and technological linkages that promoted valuation, investment and wealth accumulation as intrinsic to Australian settlement and the credit-money relations that made settler expansion dynamic but fragile.
Do personality traits affect productivity? Evidence from the lab
14 September 2021
University of Sydney

Cubel, Maria;Nuevo‐Chiquero, Ana;Sanchez-Pages, Santiago;Vidal-Fernandez, Marian

While survey data supports a strong relationship between personality and labour market outcomes, the exact mechanisms behind this association remain unexplored. We take advantage of a controlled laboratory set‐up to explore whether this relationship operates through productivity. Using a real‐effort task, we analyse the impact of the Big Five personality traits on performance. We find that more neurotic subjects perform worse, and that more conscientious individuals perform better. These findings suggest that at least part of the effect of personality on labour market outcomes operates through productivity. In addition, we find evidence that gender and university major affect this relationship.
Lives saved during economic downturns: Evidence from Australia
16 September 2021
University of Sydney

Atalay, Kadir;Edwards, Rebecca;Schurer, Stefanie;Ubilava, David

Worldwide, countries have been restricting work and social activities to counter the emerging public health crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic. These measures have caused dramatic increases in unemployment. Some commentators argue that the "draconian measures" will do more harm than good due to the economic contraction, despite a large literature that finds mortality rates decline during recessions. We estimate the relationship between unemployment, a proxy for economic climate, and mortality in Australia, a country with universal health care. Using administrative time-series data on mortality by state, age, sex, and cause of death for 1979-2017, we find no relationship between unemployment and mortality on average. However, we observe beneficial health effects in economic downturns for young men, associated with a reduction in transport accidents. Our estimates imply 431 fewer deaths in 2020 if unemployment rates double as forecast. For the early 1980s, we find a procyclical pattern in infant mortality rates. However, this pattern disappears starting from the mid-1980s, coincident with the 1984 implementation of universal health care. Our results suggest that universal health care may insulate individuals from the health effects of macroeconomic fluctuations.
Workplace gender equality in the post-pandemic era: Where to next?
16 September 2021
University of Sydney

Foley, Meraiah;Cooper, Rae

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and accelerated many gendered labour market inequalities in Australia and around the world. In this introduction to our special issue, ‘Workplace Gender Equality: Where are we now and where to next?’, we examine the impact of the pandemic on women’s employment, labour force participation, earnings, unpaid care work and experience of gendered violence. We identify five key areas where action is urgently required to create a more equitable post-pandemic recovery: addressing gender-based labour market segregations and discrimination; building access to mutually beneficial flexibility; ensuring a more gender-equitable distribution of unpaid care; confronting gender-based violence at work and beyond; and mobilising union action through gender equality bargaining.
Childhood homelessness and adult employment: the role of education, incarceration, and welfare receipt
22 September 2021
University of Sydney

Cobb-Clark, Deborah;Zhu, Anna

This paper examines the long-run employment consequences of experiencing homelessness in childhood rather than later in life. We use novel panel data that link survey and administrative data for a sample of disadvantaged adults who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Our estimation approach pays particular attention to the potential pathways linking childhood homelessness to adult employment. We find that those experiencing homelessness for the first time as children are less likely to be employed. For women, this relationship is largely explained by the lower educational attainment and higher welfare receipt (both in general and in the form of mental illness-related disability payments) of those experiencing childhood homelessness. Higher rates of high school incompletion and incarceration explain some of the link between childhood homelessness and men’s employment; however, childhood homelessness continues to have a substantial direct effect on male employment rates.
Mental health and productivity at work: Does what you do matter?
22 September 2021
University of Sydney

Bubonya, Melisa;Cobb-Clark, Deborah;Wooden, Mark

Much of the economic cost of mental illness stems from workers’ reduced productivity. Using nationally representative panel data we analyze the links between mental health and two alternative workplace productivity measures – absenteeism and presenteeism (i.e., lower productivity while attending work) – explicitly allowing these relationships to be moderated by the nature of the job itself. We find that absence rates are approximately five percent higher among workers who report being in poor mental health. Moreover, job conditions are related to both presenteeism and absenteeism even after accounting for workers’ self-reported mental health status. Job conditions are relatively more important in understanding diminished productivity at work if workers are in good rather than poor mental health. The effects of job complexity and stress on absenteeism do not depend on workers’ mental health, while job security and control moderate the effect of mental illness on absence days.
Locus of control and internal migration
22 September 2021
University of Sydney

Caliendo, Marco;Cobb-Clark, Deborah;Hennecke, Juliane;Uhlendorff, Arne

We model migration across domestic labor markets (internal migration) as the outcome of a job search process in which job seekers form subjective beliefs about the return search effort that are related to their locus of control. Job seekers with an internal locus of control are predicted to search across larger geographic areas and migrate more frequently as a result. We empirically test the relationship between locus of control and the propensity to migrate using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We find that not only do individuals with an internal locus of control express more willingness to migrate, they do in fact also migrate more often.
Age, Industry, and Unemployment Risk During a Pandemic Lockdown
19 October 2021
University of Sydney

Graham, James;Ozbilgin, Murat

This paper models the macroeconomic and distributional consequences of lockdown shocks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The model features heterogeneous life-cycle households, labor market search and matching frictions, and multiple industries of employment. We calibrate the model to data from New Zealand, where the health effects of the pandemic were especially mild. In this context, we model lockdowns as supply shocks, ignoring the demand shocks associated with health concerns about the virus. We then study the impact of a large-scale wage subsidy scheme implemented during the lockdown. The policy prevents job losses equivalent to 6.5% of steady state employment. Moreover, we find significant heterogeneity in its impact. The subsidy saves 17.2% of jobs for workers under the age of 30, but just 2.6% of jobs for those over 50. Nevertheless, our welfare analysis of fiscal alternatives shows that the young prefer increases in unemployment transfers as this enables greater consumption smoothing across employment states.
Inequality in personality over the life cycle
05 November 2021
University of Sydney

Gensowski, Miriam;Gørtz, Mette;Schurer, Stefanie

We document gender and socioeconomic inequalities in personality over the life cycle (age 18–75), using the Big Five 2 (BFI-2) inventory linked to administrative data on a large Danish population. We estimate life-cycle profiles non-parametrically and adjust for cohort and sample-selection effects. We find that: (1) Women of all ages score more highly than men on all personality traits, including three that are positively associated with wages; (2) High-education groups score more favorably on Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism than low-education groups, while there is no socioeconomic inequality by Conscientiousness; (3) Over the life cycle, gender and socioeconomic gaps remain constant, with two exceptions: the gender and SES gaps in Openness to Experience widen, while gender differences in Neuroticism, a trait associated with worse outcomes, diminish with age. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of gender wage gaps, household production models, and optimal taxation.
The stability of personality traits in adolescence and young adulthood
05 November 2021
University of Sydney

Elkins, Rosemary K;Kassenboehmer, Sonja C;Schurer, Stefanie

Models of economic decision-making usually assume that personality is stable over time. We assess the validity of this assumption over an eight-year time frame in adolescence and young adulthood using nationally representative panel data from Australia. Our study shows that unconditional mean-level changes in personality traits are small—with the exception of conscientiousness which increases by 0.38 SD—because most individuals do not change their scores in a statistically reliable way during adolescence and young adulthood, or changes occur in equal proportions in opposite directions. Controlling for systematic panel attrition and multiple hypothesis testing, we demonstrate that personality traits do not systematically respond to the majority of common one-off family-, income-, and health-related shocks. However, a small number of life events—marriage, family members detained in jail, leaving the workforce and long-term health problems—are associated with subsequent changes in personality. In particular, youth who experience long-term health problems including bodily pain increase their external locus of control by 0.5–0.9 SD, an economically meaningful change when expressed in terms of hourly wage penalty.
Does education strengthen the life skills of adolescents?
05 November 2021
University of Sydney

Schurer, Stefanie

Life skills, sometimes referred to as noncognitive skills or personality traits (e.g. conscientiousness or locus of control—the belief to influence events and their outcomes), affect labor market productivity. Policy makers and academics are thus exploring whether such skills should be taught at the high school or college level. A small portfolio of recent studies shows encouraging evidence that education could strengthen life skills in adolescence. However, as no uniform approach exists on which life skills are most important and how to best measure them, many important questions must be answered before life skill development can become an integral part of school curricula.
"Covid Just Amplified the Cracks of the System": Working as a Frontline Health Worker during the COVID-19 Pandemic
26 November 2021
University of Sydney

Willis, Karen;Ezer, Paulina;Lewis, Sophie;Bismark, Marie;Smallwood, Natasha

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified existing workplace stresses and created new challenges for people working on the healthcare frontline, including rapid workplace changes and increasing uncertainty at work, along with fear of contracting the virus. The purpose of this study is to examine the workplace challenges described by Australian frontline health workers during the pandemic. Drawing on a national online anonymous survey of 9518 healthcare workers, we analysed free-text responses to the question: "What did you find to be the main challenges that you faced during the pandemic?" A qualitative content analysis was undertaken. We identified five key themes relating to participant experiences of workplace challenges. These were: Work-life imbalance; Following orders or caring for patients; Unpredictability, disruption, and inconsistency at work; The right to be safe at work; and (Un)preparedness in the workplace. We argue that working during the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated existing occupational health and safety issues that have serious implications for job satisfaction, health workforce retention, and ultimately, patient care.
COVID-19 and the ageing workforce: global perspectives on needs and solutions across 15 countries
26 November 2021
University of Sydney

Pit, Sabrina;Fisk, Malcolm;Freihaut, Winona;Akintunde, Fashola;Aloko, Bamidele;Berge, Britta;Burmeister, Anne;Ciacâru, Adriana;Deller, Jürgen;Dulmage, Rae;Han, Tae Hwa;Hao, Qiang;Honeyman, Peter;Huber, Peter C.;Linner, Thomas;Lundberg, Stefan;Nwamara, Mofoluwaso;Punpuing, Kamolpun;Schramm, Jennifer;Yamada, Hajime;Yap, Jason C. H.

COVID-19 has a direct impact on the employment of older people. This adds to the challenge of ageism. The World Health Organization has started a worldwide campaign to combat ageism and has called for more research and evidence-based strategies that have the potential to be scaled up. This study specifically aims to identify solutions to combat the adverse effects of COVID-19 on the global ageing workforce.MethodsWe present 15 case studies from different countries and report on what those countries are doing or not doing to address the impact of COVID-19 on ageing workers.ResultsWe provide examples of how COVID-19 influences older people’s ability to work and stay healthy, and offer case studies of what governments, organizations or individuals can do to help ensure older people can obtain, maintain and, potentially, expand their current work. Case studies come from Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, South Korea, Thailand, United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). Across the countries, the impact of COVID-19 on older workers is shown as widening inequalities. A particular challenge has arisen because of a large proportion of older people, often with limited education and working in the informal sector within rural areas, e.g. in Nigeria, Thailand and China. Remedies to the particular disadvantage experienced by older workers in the context of COVID are presented. These range from funding support to encouraging business continuity, innovative product and service developments, community action, new business models and localized, national and international actions. The case studies can be seen as frequently fitting within strategies that have been proven to work in reducing ageism within the workplace. They include policy and laws that have increased benefits to workers during lockdowns (most countries); educational activities such as coaching seniorpreneurship (e,g, Australia); intergenerational contact interventions such as younger Thai people who moved back to rural areas and sharing their digital knowledge with older people and where older people reciprocate by teaching the younger people farming knowledge.ConclusionGlobal sharing of this knowledge among international, national and local governments and organizations, businesses, policy makers and health and human resources experts will further understanding of the issues that are faced by older workers. This will facilitate the replication or scalability of solutions as called for in the WHO call to combat ageism in 2021. We suggest that policy makers, business owners, researchers and international organisations build on the case studies by investing in evidence-based strategies to create inclusive workplaces. Such action will thus help to challenge ageism, reduce inequity, improve business continuity and add to the quality of life of older workers.
Electricity-consumption data reveals the economic impact and industry recovery during the pandemic
26 November 2021
University of Sydney

Wang, Xinlei;Si, Caomingzhe;Gu, Jinjin;Liu, Guolong;Liu, Wenxuan;Qiu, Jing;Zhao, Junhua

Coping with the outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many countries have implemented public-health measures and movement restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus. However, the strict mobility control also brought about production stagnation and market disruption, resulting in a severe worldwide economic crisis. Quantifying the economic stagnation and predicting post-pandemic recovery are imperative issues. Besides, it is significant to examine how the impact of COVID-19 on economic activities varied with industries. As a reflection of enterprises’ production output, high-frequency electricity-consumption data is an intuitive and effective tool for evaluating the economic impact of COVID-19 on different industries. In this paper, we quantify and compare economic impacts on the electricity consumption of different industries in eastern China. In order to address this problem, we conduct causal analysis using a difference-in-difference (DID) estimation model to analyze the effects of multi-phase public-health measures. Our model employs the electricity-consumption data ranging from 2019 to 2020 of 96 counties in the Eastern China region, which covers three main economic sectors and their 53 sub-sectors. The results indicate that electricity demand of all industries (other than information transfer industry) rebounded after the initial shock, and is back to pre-pandemic trends after easing the control measures at the end of May 2020. Emergency response, the combination of all countermeasures to COVID-19 in a certain period, affected all industries, and the higher level of emergency response with stricter movement control resulted in a greater decrease in electricity consumption and production. The pandemic outbreak has a negative-lag effect on industries, and there is greater resilience in industries that are less dependent on human mobility for economic production and activities.
Coping with COVID-19: The sociomaterial dimensions of living with pre-existing mental illness during the early stages of the coronavirus crisis
26 November 2021
University of Sydney

Lupton, Deborah;Lewis, Sophie

In this article, we use the case study method to detail the experiences of five participants who reported living with pre-existing mental illness during COVID-19. We adopted a sociomaterial analytical approach, seeking to identify how human and nonhuman agents came together to generate states of wellbeing or distress during this challenging period. As the case studies show, feelings of anxiety, fear and risk were generated from the following sociomaterial conditions: loss of face-to-face contact with friends and family members; concerns about hygiene and infecting others; financial stress; loss of regular paid employment or volunteering work; public spaces; and the behaviour of unknown others in public spaces. The agents and practices that emerged as most important for opening capacities for coping and maintaining wellness during lockdown included: the space of the home; contact with a small number of intimate others; online therapeutic care; practising self-care skills learnt from previous difficult times; helping and supporting others; engaging in leisure activities; and the companionship of pets. Contributing to an affirmative approach to more-than-human assemblages of health, distress and recovery, these findings demonstrate what bodies can do in times of crisis and the agents and practices that can generate capacities for coping.
Contagious margin calls: How COVID-19 threatened global stock market liquidity
26 November 2021
University of Sydney

Foley, Sean;Kwan, Amy;Philip, Richard;Ødegaard, Bernt Arne

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic caused some of the largest — and fastest — market dislocations in modern history. During the outbreak, liquidity quickly evaporated in a coordinated fashion across global markets. We show that a sudden increase in margin requirements during the pandemic is correlated with the withdrawal of global liquidity providers. These effects are concentrated in securities most exposed to high-frequency market makers, consistent with the binding nature of increased capital constraints.

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