Call for Papers

 

24th AIRAANZ Conference

February 3rd – 5th 2010
Trades Hall Building
4 Goulburn Street, Sydney NSW Australia

The Executive and Convenors of the 24th Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) Conference invite papers for the forthcoming conference to be held at the historic Sydney Trades Hall building during 3rd-5th February 2010. 

We welcome papers on any topic relevant to industrial relations and the world of work (broadly defined), but in particular the indicative streams below. We especially welcome papers from postgraduate students and early career researchers.

The conference theme of Work in Progress: Crises, Choices and Continuity invites, in the tradition of earlier AIRAANZ conferences, a diverse range of papers which explore contemporary industrial relations theory and practice, and historical trends and patterns. The theme draws on the contention that periodic crises in market economies – such as the present “Global Financial Crisis” – are not necessarily countered by a neo-liberal response. That is, policy and decision makers at the workplace, firm and national levels all have choices in how they react to labour market, product market and capital market crises. Further, this theme fits well with the year 2010 being the centenary of the first elected Australian Labor Party governments in Australia (the Verran government in South Australia, the Commonwealth Fisher government, and the McGowen government in NSW – the 1899 Dawson administration in Queensland was not formed due to results of a popular election), and hence allows for papers exploring the periodic “crisis” in the relationship between the industrial (unions) and political (Labor/Labour party) wings of “political labour” in Australia and New Zealand.

Papers are invited around this broad theme and associated debates. Of course, international perspectives are always welcome, as are more historical and comparative papers, be they country specific cross-temporal analysis or contemporary cross-national analysis (e.g. comparing Australia with New Zealand).

• Choices and (dis)continuity in labour market regulation and state institutions.
• Choices and crises in corporate governance and human resource strategies.
• Crises and (dis)continuity of “political labour” in Australia and New Zealand.
• Divergence, continuity, patterns and trends in industrial relations.
• Diversity in work and industrial relations.
• Fairness, rights, labour standards and worker entitlements.
• Inequality, discrimination and marginalised groups of workers.
• Interaction between the workplace, the family and the community.
• Looking forward by looking backwards – lessons from the past.
• New models of work organisation and their implications.
• Relationships between labour markets, product markets and capital markets.
• Social policy, industrial relations and paid work.
• The evolving role of unions, collective representation and good faith bargaining.

1. Each paper should have a cover sheet with the following information: title of paper; name of author(s); affiliation; full contact details, including email address. (This title page will not be included in the page limit). The next page is to contain the title only.
2. When submitting papers to the refereed stream, please do not include names of author(s) on the first page or in header or footer. Once accepted, papers should have a header as set out below.
3. The title should clearly and succinctly reflect the paper’s content.
4. The abstract, which should be of no more than 150 words, should fully summarise the paper’s arguments and key findings. It should not be an introduction.
5. We seek papers which are analytical and innovative. Papers which are primarily empirical in nature should clearly outline the research methods employed and the key themes to emerge. The more theoretically-oriented papers should address the literatures or arguments to which they seek to make a contribution. Even if the paper is from early work-in-progress, we urge authors to outline some conclusions, however speculative. In all cases, authors should be seeking to contribute to debates within industrial relations and its related disciplines.
6. Please keep your paper within the page limit. The organisers reserve the right to reject papers which are over length.
7. Refer to table below for paper format.