Browsing by Author "Brosnan, Peter"

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Open Access
Economics: some introductory topics
(Industrial Relations Centre, 1983) Brosnan, Peter
The days when industrial relations was considered a branch of economics thankfully have passed. But nevertheless, there is a strong relationship between the industrial relations and economic systems. The economy, and the Government's attempts at managing it, impose constraints upon the industrial relations system. At the same time, the industrial relations system, in determining wage rates and conditions of work, affects the economy. This is the first of two papers which are designed to help industrial relations practitioners and students gain an insight into some aspects of economics. This paper presents some basic concepts: the working of markets, supply and demand, the pricing of industrial products, foreign trade, money, and Gross Domestic Product. These concepts are basic to a study of the labour market and to the issues of employment and inflation. The latter two topics are discussed in the subsequent Seminar Working Paper No. 9 Unemployment and inflation. The labour market will be discussed in a later volume. The issues in this paper are presented as simply as possible. Some may say that complicated issues have been oversimplified, our aim however is to introduce concepts. It is hoped that this introduction will provide further discussion of the issues. Take your time over each section and master the main ideas before you move on to the next section. Each section has a number of review questions at its conclusion; answers are provided at the end of the paper so you can check your understanding.
Open Access
The future of wage fixing: proceedings of a seminar, 9 March 1983, Wellington
(Industrial Relations Centre, 1983) Brosnan, Peter
Keynote address - Approaching the hedgehog : an orbit of difficulties / F. J. L. Young -- A private sector employer view / M. R. Bradford -- Comment on "a private sector employer view" / P. L. Conway -- A private sector union view / K. G. Douglas -- Comment on "a private sector union view" / R. G. Tweedie -- A state sector union view /K. Bunker -- Comment on "a state sector union view" / C. P. Daly -- A state sector employer view / D. Swallow -- Comment on "a state sector employer view" / C. M. Clark -- A mediator's view / G. M. Teen -- Comment on "a mediator's view" / R. J. Harbridge
Open Access
The historical structuring of the New Zealand labour market
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1989) Brosnan, Peter; Wilson, Moira
Labour market segmentation theory offers an historical and country-specific approach to understanding the structure of labour markets and the position of different groups within them. In this approach segmentation is seen as the outcome of an historically contingent process which is influenced by a number of dynamic and interacting forces.
Open Access
Labour institutions, government policy and economic change in Australia and New Zealand
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1991) Brosnan, Peter; Burgess, John; Rea, David
Industrial relations regulation and labour market outcomes in New Zealand and Australia, have traditionally been similar. The close historic, social and political ties between the two countries led to many similarities in the structure of industrial relations. Both countries have had a State administered system of conciliation and arbitration as the basis of their industrial relations systems. The State has thus played a major role in influencing labour market outcomes in both countries. It has influenced the labour market, both by providing a legislative framework which regulated the outcomes of bargaining, as well as undertaking significant macro-economic interventions in the economy. The importance of government policy towards the labour market ensured that political strategy was always an important gambit for labour market actors. This created a process of dynamic -interaction between the labour market and political systems. Given a labour market of a particular structure, the relative efficacy of trade union and employer strategies within the political system became central to the determination of legislative provisions, and hence labour market outcomes.
Open Access
Labour market segmentation and the state: the New Zealand experience
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1991) Brosnan, Peter; Rea, David; Wilson, Moira
This paper analyses the role of the State in the historical process of labour market segmentation. The paper reviews the existing segmentation literature, and also develops a framework to understand the State's role in segmentation. The New :zealand labour market is then used as an example of the State's role in the process of labour market segmentation.
Open Access
Maori occupational segregation
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1986) Brosnan, Peter
There are many schemata of occupational classification. One of the more satisfactory is the Smith scheme which classified white collar occupations into six groups. This schema was adapted by Hill and Brosnan to include blue collar occupations and used to compare the occupational distribution of New Zealand's major ethnic groups as at the 1981 Census. This paper uses that revised schema to examine and compare changes in the Maori and non-Maori occupational distributions over 1956-1981. Males and females are treated separately. The paper also presents median incomes for each group of the Smith data and draws the implications for policy of the uneven distribution of Maoris and non-Maoris between the occupational groups.
Open Access
National incomes policy: proceedings of a seminar
(Industrial Relations Centre, 1982) Walsh, Pat
Incomes policy : the international experience / Barry Hughes -- Incomes policy in New Zealand / Gary Hawke -- Incomes policy in New Zealand : a commentary / John Martin -- Incomes policy : the present situation / Jas McKenzie -- The present situation : a commentary / Peter Brosnan -- Future options : a private sector view / Graham List -- Future options / Peter Harris -- Future options : a commentary / Alf Kirk -- Future options : a commentary / Bill Poole.
Open Access
Plus ca change…: the Employment Contracts Act and non-standard employment in New Zealand, 1991-1995
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1996) Brosnan, Peter; Walsh, Pat
The aim of this paper is to analyse changes in non-standard employment in New Zealand between 1991 and 1995 using data from workplace surveys conducted in May 1991 and May 1995. Analysis of the data allows some assessment of competing claims about the impact of the Employment Contracts Act (ECA) 1991 on the size and composition of the non-standard labour force. The ECA came into effect in May 1991, the same month in which this survey was first applied.
Open Access
Public sector pay fixing in Ireland and New Zealand: towards a theory
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1986) Brosnan, Peter; McCarthy, Charles
The idea for this paper arose from two observations. First, despite the large number published in the of articles on public sector industrial relations last two decades, the scope has been rather narrow. Most are American, concerned with city-level industrial relations and concentrate almost exclusively on police fire fighters and teachers (Lewin et al., 1977). There is a surprising lack of studies at the national government level. There are also few international comparative analyses. The second observation was that, despite many cultural and economic similarities, Ireland and New Zealand represent two polar cases as far as industrial relations systems were concerned. In the private sector, Ireland has a strongly voluntarist system, while New Zealand has a State administered system based on conciliation and arbitration procedures. By contrast, in the public sector, Ireland has a conciliation and arbitration system while the New Zealand system is based on external comparability (i.e. relativity with the private sector). The divergence of the private sector systems is relatively easy to explain and well docunented. (e.g. Roth, 1973; McCarthy, 1977b and Woods, 1963). Originally New Zealand, like Ireland, had had a voluntarist system but the consequences of the disastrous Maritime Strike of 1890, which included the near destruction of the fledgling trade union movement, caused the Liberal Government to enact the conciliation and arbitration Legislation in 1894. Ireland for its part derived its system from the U.K. and, by the time of independence in 1922, the voluntarist tradition was well established.
Open Access
Race, gender and wage flexibility in New Zealand: 1984/85 - 1987/88
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1989) Brosnan, Peter; Harbridge, Raymond
A stated aim of New Zealand employers and the Government, at the present time, is to produce a diversity of pay settlements in the New Zealand labour market. Previous work by the second author has demonstrated that such a diversity is being achieved, and indeed that this diversity is relatively independent of attempts to "free up the labour market" (Harbridge and McCaw 1989a). Given the wide range of pay settlements, it is possible that those who are currently in the more favoured segments of the labour market will enjoy large pay increases while those who are least advantaged will receive smaller increases. In this paper we set out to examine whether this has been occurring. We use estimates of comparative wage movement in registered awards over the period 1984/85 to 1987 /88, between different industries and occupations to produce estimates of the relative movements in the earnings by gender and ethnicity.
Open Access
Religion and income in New Zealand: an examination of published data for major religious professions from the 1981 census (revised 1987)
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1986) Brosnan, Peter
It is ironic that, despite Weber's influence on the subsequent development of sociology and economics, the relation between income and religion has received little attention from researchers - neither those interested in the sociology of religion (Hill, 1980; Jackson, 1974; Johnston, 1983; Nottingham, 1971; O'Dea and O'Dea, 1983; Scharf, 1970) nor those interested in the distribution of income between social groups. (Atkinson and Harrison, 1978; Champernowne, 1973; Chiswick, 1974, Lydall, 1979; Moroney, 1978). This is surprising since religion represents an important component of cultural affiliation. What Lenski (1963) calls the religious factor, i.e. religious socialisation, not only sets goals and aspirations but determines attitudes and values including those which may affect income such as, honesty, thriftiness and attitudes towards education work, authority and capital. Differences reported in occupation or income between different ethnic groups may be attributable partly to differences in religion. This can occur through the "supply side", where religious affiliation affects the quantity and quality of education and attitudes towards financial success or through the "demand side" where employers and others may discriminate against members of certain religions.
Open Access
Rogernomics and the labour market
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1991) Brosnan, Peter; Rea, David
The Labour Government which held office from 1984 to 1990 is credited with transforming the New Zealand economy. The Labour Government's programme was almost immediately nicknamed Rogernomics (a variation on Reaganomics) after Roger Douglas, the first minister responsible for it. Although Douglas was replaced as Minister of Finance in December 1988, the programme continued to be implemented until the Government was defeated at the polls in October 1990. Consequently we will use the term Rogernomics in this paper as a shorthand for the plethora of economic and social policies implemented by the Fourth Labour Government between July 1984 and October 1990. (Bollard and Buckle, 1987; Collins, 1987; Easton, 1989)
Open Access
Surveyed and registered unemployed
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1986) Brosnan, Peter
The Department of Statistics' Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) provides an important addition to the set of unemployment statistics. In addition to the Department of Labour's data on registered unemployed, the Department of Social Welfare's data on unemployment benefit and the five-yearly census enumeration, we now have quarterly estimates from the survey. What is more, these conform to the ILO recommendations on unemployment statistics. One might have expected that the survey data would replace the Department of Labour's registration data as the quoted unemployment statistics.
Open Access
Trade union secretaries' surnames: countries of origin
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1986) Brosnan, Peter
A political satirist recently wrote of the FoL Conference: "You are immediately conscious ... of the wide racial range of delegates represented. The predominant groupings appear to be Maori, Pakeha and Irish" (Welch, 1986, p 13). This comment, if it is to be taken seriously, could hardly refer to persons of Irish birth. It could however be interpreted to mean persons of Irish ancestry. The role of Irish persons or persons of Irish descent in New Zealand unions has not been documented but in examining the names of the secretaries of registered unions of workers and employers for another purpose (Brosnan, Walsh and Rowe, 1985) we could not help but notice the plethora of Celtic names among the secretaries of workers unions and the relative dearth among the secretaries of employer unions.
Open Access
Unemployment and inflation
(Industrial Relations Centre, 1983) Brosnan, Peter
This is the second of two papers which set out to explain basic economic issues to industrial relations practitioners. Unlike the previous paper, Economics: some introductory topics, which covered a range of issues, this paper discusses two topics only: employment and inflation. These issues, which belong to what is sometimes called macroeconomics, are very pertinent topics at the present time. The presentation here avoids the abstract algebra frequently found in macroeconomic textbooks; instead the concepts are presented in numerical examples. The other major difference from the macroeconomic textbooks is that this paper gives wage rates, and levels of output a central place in the analysis. The examples presented here do illustrate the major features of the economy but they have been made as simple as possible - all unnecessary detail is cut away. We start with some very simple examples then slowly add government spending, taxes, exports and imports, etc. By starting with the simple example and adding each additional.detail, step by step, we get to see the effect each of these has on the economy.
Open Access
Voluntary unionism: proceedings of a seminar, 5 October 1983, Wellington
(Industrial Relations Centre, 1983) Brosnan, Peter
Conference papers on voluntary trade union membership in New Zealand - papers include an international comparison, the history of trade unionism in New Zealand, as well as presenting the government attitude, management attitudes and trade union attitudes. References. Conference held in Wellington 1983 Oct 5. Contents: Voluntary and involuntary unionism / Charles McCarthy -- Union membership policy in New Zealand, 1894-1982 / Pat Walsh -- Reasons for voluntary unionism in 1983 / J. B. Bolger -- Implications of voluntary unionism, the employers' perspective / J. W. Rowe -- Implications of voluntary unionism, the union perspective / K. G. Douglas.
Open Access
When is 3 plus 1 equal to 3.25?: suggested methods of examining wage settlements, to determine their annual rate of adjustment
(Victoria University of Wellington. Industrial Relations Centre, 1988) Brosnan, Peter; Harbridge, Raymond
A key issue in the current debate over labour market "flexibility" is the extent to which there is a dispersion of wage settlements. Determining the degree of dispersion is no easy task. Harbridge (1988) found that 13 percent of the documents negotiated in the 1986-87 wage round had terms other than 12 months with a range from 3.5 to 17.5 months. When these shorter or longer term documents are reported by the press, or by union or employer advocates, they are frequently quoted as annual rates. Convening increases which run for periods other than 12 months into annual rates is not as simple as it sometimes appears. For example, 6 percent for 6 months is not the same as 12 percent for 12 months. Also, how should we treat a document such as the clothing workers, quoted at the head of this note, which has 2 increases and a 15 month term? Another complication arises if the increase provided by a new document is not backdated to the expiry of the old one.