2007/09/01 by Miles Goodwin, Glenda Maconachie · 19 citations
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Agency (philosophy) #Business #Compliance (psychology) #Deterrence theory #Digital Economy and Work Transformation #Economics #Employment and Welfare Studies #Entitlement (fair division) #Evasion (ethics) #Flexibility (engineering) #Industrial relations #Labor Movements and Unions #Labour economics #Law #Management #Microeconomics #Political science
paper · doi:10.1177/0022185607080320
published in Journal of Industrial Relations 49(4), 523-544 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2007/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Despite awards and industrial agreements providing legally binding conditions of employment, many Australian employees do not always secure their employment entitlements. The inspection and prosecution strategies adopted by or forced upon the agency tasked with monitoring and enforcing the regulations are a key factor affecting whether or not employees will recover monies owed from non-compliant employers. This article examines the outcomes of different inspection and prosecution regimes between 1952 and 1995 in the Australian federal industrial relations system, and makes three points. The first is that employer evasion of employee entitlements has been significant, and sustained. Second, the shift from routine inspections to a complaints-based inspection strategy has reduced the probability of detection and subsequently encourages employer evasion. Third, the use of prosecution as a tool of `last resort' has provided little deterrence to employer non-compliance. The extent of evasion in a centralized industrial relations system raises questions about evasion in decentralized systems.