Equity and fairness in wages
Joe Isaac
On Monday 4 April 2011, leading practitioners, scholars, students and others interested in industrial relations and human resource management will get together at Monash University Caulfield campus for the second Joe Isaac industrial relations event.
Professor William Brown of Cambridge University will give the main address on 'How shall we protect the wages of the weak?’ In his address he will look at how trade union influence has been collapsing in countries across the world, caused by the intensification of competition, especially of international competition.
He will also address the implications of this for the maintenance of decent labour standards which, for most of the past century, have depended upon private sector collective bargaining. He will discuss how the consequences might be mitigated, and the role to be played by statutory minimum wages.
Professor Brown’s address will be followed by discussion of the implications for Australia. The discussants will include Bill Kelty, former ACTU secretary and Anna Lee Cribb, Commissioner, Fair Work Australia and Vice President, Industrial Relations Society.
The seminar is being jointly hosted by Monash Business and Economics together with the Centre for Human Resource Management at the University of Melbourne. The symposium is held annually in honour of Joe Isaac, who has long been one of Australia’s most distinguished scholars and practitioners in the field of industrial relations.
Professor Isaac was appointed at Monash University as a professor of economics in 1964 and served as Deputy Chancellor, Monash University for 10 years. He is currently Professorial Fellow, Department of Management and Marketing, University of Melbourne.
The speaker for this seminar, Professor William Brown, is a distinguished professor of Industrial Relations at Cambridge University and Master of Darwin College who also makes major contributions to the practical world of work.
Professor Brown was previously Director of the world-renowned Industrial Relations Research Unit at Warwick University. His research is internationally influential in such fields as: collective bargaining, pay determination, incomes policy, payment systems, arbitration, minimum wages, and the impact of legislative change.
For more information call Professor Greg Bamber at 0418 875 474 or visit: http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/events/isaac/index.html or http://www.chrm.unimelb.edu.au