THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY BUSINESS SCHOOL
WORK & ORGANISATIONAL STUDIES
Unit Code: WORK1003
Unit Name: Foundations of Work and Employment
Semester 1, 2024
Tutorial Guide
Unit Coordinator and lecturer: Associate Professor Chris F Wright
Consultation times: Monday 11.00am-12.00pm or by appointment – please contact me by email with a
short description of what you would like to discuss.
Email: chris.f.wright@sydney.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 9114 1951
Office: Room 4155, Abercrombie Building H70
Required text:
Bray, M., Waring, P., Cooper, R. and MacNeil, J. (2018) Employment Relations: Theory and Practice (4e),
McGraw-Hill: Sydney, Australia. (You can purchase the text at the co-op bookshop in person or use the online
copy available through the library. Please make sure to use the fourth edition and not any earlier version of the
book).
For you to complete:
My tutorial time is
My tutorial room is
My tutor’s name is
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This guide outlines the plan for each tutorial including your required readings and the discussion questions
for the week.
Teaching and learning in this unit is conducted through online modules, lectures, tutorials and your own reading
and preparation. All students are expected to attend and participate in their weekly tutorial.
Tutorial discussion will be structured around questions and topics as listed in this handout. The tutorials are
designed to encourage active participation. Each student will earn a tutorial participation mark, which is worth 10%
of your total mark.
See the Unit of Study outline and Canvas for full details regarding tutorial participation and tutorial
facilitation marks.
What is expected of students in preparation for tutorial classes?
In preparation for every tutorial, each student is expected to do the following before class:
1. Complete the online module – these can be found in the Modules section in the WORK1003 Canvas page
at https://canvas.sydney.edu.au
2. Attend the on-campus lecture on Monday at 3.00pm
3. Read the required readings for that week – these are all available via the Reading List section on Canvas
4. Prepare draft answers to the discussion questions listed for that week
5. Read the relevant ER in the news articles for that week (and/or find one yourself), focussing on what
the issue covered means for employment relations in Australia in 2024
6. Come to class prepared to:
• discuss the answers you prepared
• debate various sides of issues
• ask questions to clarify things you didn’t quite understand in the readings
• share what you found interesting about the readings
• discuss what you agreed or disagreed with (or both) about the readings
• discuss what you thought of the news articles and how they linked to the topic discussed for this week.
If you are really interested in a topic, you should also have a look at the optional readings (you can also find
these in the Reading List section on Canvas). These will add greater depth to your understanding of the issues we
are discussing. They may also help with your preparation for assessments, such as the essay and exams. NB –
if any of the following links to news articles don’t work, please cut and paste the URL into your browser.
In six tutorials class member groups will lead a port ion of the tutorial , which will be structured around the
tutorial presentation topics listed for Weeks 6-8 and 10-12. This is not a substitute for your own preparation for
the tutorial discussions.
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Weekly Overview
WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIT AND THE WORLD OF WORK (Week commencing 19 February) ........ 4
WEEK 2: THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS (Week commencing 26 February) –
TUTORIALS BEGIN ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
WEEK 3: IDEOLOGIES IN WORK AND EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS (Week commencing 4 March) ..................... 5
WEEK 4: INTERROGATING WORK AND EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IDEOLOGIES
(Week commencing 11 March) .................................................................................................................................... 6
WEEK 5: CRITICAL ANALYSIS IN ESSAY WRITING (Week commencing 18 March) .............................................. 6
WEEK 6: THE STATE (Week commencing 25 March)................................................................................................ 8
MID-SEMESTER BREAK (Week commencing 1 April) – NO CLASSES ................................................................... 9
WEEK 7: EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYER ASSOCIATIONS (Week commencing 8 April March) ............................ 9
WEEK 8: WORKERS, EMPLOYEES AND TRADE UNIONS (Week commencing 15 April) .................................... 10
WEEK 9: READING WEEK / MAJOR ESSAY PREPARATION (26 APRIL) – NO CLASSES ................................. 11
WEEK 10: RECRUITMENT, SELECTION & DEVELOPMENT (Week commencing 29 April) ................................. 12
WEEK 11: PAY AND PERFORMANCE (Week commencing 6 May) ...................................................................... 13
WEEK 12: CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES IN WORK AND EMPLOYMENT (Week commencing 13 May) ...... 14
WEEK 13: CONCLUSION, OVERVIEW AND EXAM PREPARATION (Week commencing 20 May) ...................... 15
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WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIT AND THE WORLD OF WORK
(Week commencing 19 February)
There are no tutorials in Week 1. Tutorials commence in Week 2.
Required Readings:
• Textbook, Chapter 1 - ‘What is Employment Relations?’
• Budd, J.W. (2011) The Thought of Work, ILR Press: Ithaca, Introduction
• Stanford, J (2022) Healthy humans drive the economy, The Conversation, 12 January,
https://theconversation.com/healthy-humans-drive-the-economy-were-now-witnessing-one-of-the-worst-
public-policy-failures-in-australias-history-174606
WEEK 2: THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
(Week commencing 26 February) – TUTORIALS BEGIN
Required Readings:
• Dunlop, J.T. (1958) Industrial Relations Systems. New York: Holt & Co, Chapter 1 (pp. 7-18 only)
• Wright, C.F. & Kaine, S. (2021). Employment relations in Australia. In: Bamber, G.J., Cooke, F.L.,
Doellgast, V. & Wright, C.F. (eds), International and Comparative Employment Relations: Global Crises
and Institutional Responses (7th edition). London: Sage, Chapter 5.
Optional Readings:
• Birch, E. and Preston, A. (2022) ‘The Australian labour market in 2021’. Journal of Industrial Relations,
64(3): 327--346.
• Broderick, E. (2023) Independent Review into Workplace Culture at EY Oceania,
https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_au/pdfs/ey-ebco_ey-report-270723.pdf
• Brown, W. (2017) ‘What Should We Be Looking for in Industrial Relations in China?’ in W. Brown & C. Kai
(2017) ‘The Emerging Industrial Relations of China’, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 1
• Cooke, F.L. (2021). Employment relations in China. In: Bamber, G.J., Cooke, F.L., Doellgast, V. & Wright,
C.F. (eds), International and Comparative Employment Relations: Global Crises and Institutional
Responses (7th edition). London: Sage, Chapter 12.
• Kochan, T.A. and Riordan, C.A. (2016). ‘Employment relations and growing income inequality: Causes
and potential options for its reversal’. Journal of Industrial Relations, 58(3): 419-44
• Wilkins, R. and Wooden, M. (2014) ‘Two decades of change: the Australian labour market, 1993–
2013’. Australian Economic Review, 47(4): 417-431.
ER in the news:
• Borland, J. (2020) Why young people are earning less. The Conversation, 30 July,
https://theconversation.com/why-young-people-are-earning-less-143549
• Coyle, D. (2020) Why Did It Take a Pandemic to Show How much Unpaid Work Women Do? New York
Times, 26 June https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/opinion/sunday/inequality-gender-women-unpaid-
work.html
• Fraser, N. et al (2020) Humans are not resources. Coronavirus shows why we must democratise work.
The Guardian, 16 May, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/15/humans-resources-
coronavirus-democratise-work-health-lives-market
• Sparrow, J. (2020) Workplace insecurity pervades the whole economy, just when every job is under threat.
The Guardian, 25 July. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/25/workplace-insecurity-
pervades-the-whole-economy-just-when-every-job-is-under-threat
Discussion Questions:
1. What is ‘employment relations’? Why do societies regulate employment?
2. What does it mean to say that ‘labour is not a commodity’? What can happen when workers are treated
the same as inanimate goods or resources?
3. What are the key elements of Australia’s employment relations system? What have been some of the
major changes that have occurred to that system over time?
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WEEK 3: IDEOLOGIES IN WORK AND EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
(Week commencing 4 March)
Required Readings:
• Textbook, Chapter 3 – ‘The Study of Employment Relations: Values’
• Adler, D and Schneider, J (2020) Amazon workers are fighting for their rights. This holiday season, think of
them, The Guardian, 1 December, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/01/amazon-
workers-fighting-for-their-rights
Optional Readings:
• Textbook, Chapter 2 – ‘The Study of Employment Relations: Analytical Tools’
• Budd, J. and Bhave, D. (2008). ‘Values, Ideologies, and Frames of Reference in Industrial
Relations’. In Blyton, P., Bacon. N., Fiorito, J. and Heery, E. (eds), The SAGE Handbook of
Industrial Relations. London: SAGE, pp. 92–112.
• McCrystal, S (2019) Why is it so hard to take lawful strike action in Australia? Journal of Industrial
Relations, 61(1): 129-144.
• Blair, M. M. (2011). An Economic Perspective on the Notion of ‘Human Capital.’ In The Oxford Handbook
of Human Capital. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199532162.003.0002
• Boyer, G. R., & Smith, R. S. (n.d.). The Development of the Neoclassical Tradition in Labor Economics.
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 25.
• Fry, S., & Mees, B. (2017). Two discursive frameworks concerning ideology in Australian industrial
relations. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 28(4), 483–499.
• Gandini, A. (2019). Labour process theory and the gig economy. Human Relations, 72(6), 1039–1056.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718790002
• Hyman, R., & Gumbrell-McCormick, R. (2017). Resisting labour market insecurity: Old and new actors,
rivals or allies? Journal of Industrial Relations, 59(4), 538–561. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022185617714423
ER in the news:
• Adkins, L. and Konings M. (2020) Inheritances, not work, has become the main route to middle-class home
ownership, The Guardian, 9 November,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/09/inheritance-work-middle-class-home-ownership-
cost-of-housing-wages
• Peetz, D. (2020) The truth about much ‘casual’ work: it’s really about permanent insecurity, The
Conversation, 11 December, https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-much-casual-work-its-really-
about-permanent-insecurity-151687
• Pollard, C. (2022) Karl Marx: his philosophy explained, The Conversation, 5 July,
https://theconversation.com/karl-marx-his-philosophy-explained-164068
• Sainato, M. (2022) Amazon could run out of workers in US in two years, internal memo suggests, The
Guardian, 22 June, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/22/amazon-workers-shortage-
leaked-memo-warehouse
• Vassiley, A. (2022) Why insecure work is finally being recognised as a health hazard for some Australians,
The Conversation, 22 February, https://theconversation.com/why-insecure-work-is-finally-being-
recognised-as-a-health-hazard-for-some-australians-177153
Discussion Questions:
1. How do the unitarist and radical theories conceptualise the role of conflict and class at work? How do they
conceptualise the appropriate role for management, unions and the state in employment relationships?
2. How would someone applying the radical frame of reference interpret the challenges faced by Amazon
workers described by Adler and Schneider (2020)? What changes would they understand as necessary
to improve work at Amazon? How would these answers change if a unitarist frame of reference were
applied?
3. Are the assumptions about class and conflict in the radical and unitarist approaches outdated in 21st
century Australia?
4. Do you think the radical or unitarist approach provides a more powerful explanation of the challenges
facing contemporary workers in Australia? Why?
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WEEK 4: INTERROGATING WORK AND EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
IDEOLOGIES (Week commencing 11 March)
Required Readings:
• Lee, T., Good, L., Lipton, B., and Cooper, R. (2022) Women, work and industrial relations in Australia in
2021, Journal of Industrial Relations, 64(3):347-361.
• Wright, C.F. (2023) Addressing problems for labour not problems of labour: the need for a paradigm shift in
work and industrial relations policy, Labour and Industry, 33(1): 11-21.
• Andrene, (2021) I’m a Care Worker and I’m on Strike – Here’s Why, 14 January, Novara Media,
https://novaramedia.com/2021/01/14/im-a-care-worker-and-im-on-strike-heres-why/
• Maunder, R and Strudwick, G (2021) High Rates of Covid-19 burnout could lead to shortage of health-care
workers, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/high-rates-of-covid-19-burnout-could-lead-to-
shortage-of-health-care-workers-166476
Optional Readings:
• Ackers, P. (2002). Reframing employment relations: the case for neo‐pluralism. Industrial Relations
Journal, 33(1), 2-19.
• Baird, M. (2011). ‘Women and Work in Australia: A Theoretical and Historical Overview’. In Murray,
P.A., Kramar, R. and McGraw, P. (eds), Women at Work: Research, Policy and Practice. Melbourne: Tilde
University Press, pp. 1-22.
• Baird, M. (2011) ‘The state, work and family in Australia’. International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 22(18): 3742-3754.
• Lee, T.L. and Tapia, M., 2021. Confronting race and other social identity erasures: the case for critical
industrial relations theory. ILR Review, 74(3): 637-662.
• Rubery, J. and Hebson, G., 2018. Applying a gender lens to employment relations: Revitalisation,
resistance and risks. Journal of Industrial Relations, 60(3): 414-436.
• Heery, E. (2016). ‘British Industrial Relations Pluralism in the Era of Neoliberalism’. Journal of Industrial
Relations, 58(1): 3-24.
ER in the news:
• Convery, S. and Henriques-Gomes, L. (2021) ‘Women do 21 hours more unpaid work than men a week,
national survey finds’, The Guardian, 7 December, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
news/2021/dec/07/women-do-21-hours-more-unpaid-work-than-men-study-suggests
• Grattan, M. (2022) ‘Part-time work holds women back from executive positions and accentuates gender
pay gap: new data’, The Conversation, 27 June, https://theconversation.com/part-time-work-holds-women-
back-from-executive-positions-and-accentuates-gender-pay-gap-new->