What is happening to industrial relations?

Individual contracts in the form of Australian and Queensland Workplace Agreements remove the social justice foundation provided by arbitration and seek to return us to the 'higgling of the market' as the determinant of wages and working conditions. However wages and working conditions are more than just a cost to an employer--the level of wages and working conditions also has a social impact, and it was recognition of this that lead to the setting of a 'living wage' in Australia. As a union we have opposed the purely bean-counter approach to health care, consistently arguing that 'care' cannot be costed. This is also our approach to wages and working conditions--the setting of which has an impact on society as a whole and not just the bottom line of an individual company!