COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE CONTEXT OF COMPULSORY ARBITRATION — THE CASE OF THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN FIREMEN*
| Author | N. F. Dufty |
| Date | 01 March 1978 |
| Published date | 01 March 1978 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1978.tb00264.x |
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE CONTEXT OF
WESTERN AUSTRALIAN FIREMEN*
COMPULSORY ARBITRATION
-
THE CASE
OF
THE
N.
F.
DUFTYt
NILAND
has argued the case for more collective bargaining in Australia, putting forward
the view that it is
.
,
.generally asuperior process of dispute resolution
for
suchreasons as the
role
played by the third
party neutral and the built-in encouragement
to
genuine attitudechange. Particularly important is
the enhanced prospect for genuine resolution, to which trade-off mentality and priority ordering
are integral.’
It is not the purpose
of
this paper to support
or
refute Niland’s arguments, as this can
hardly be done by a single case study. The aim is to examine collective bargaining in the
context of the arbitration system in a particular State and in the setting
of
an industrial
relations system with its own idiosyncracies. Hopefully this may illuminate some
of
the
problems of collective bargaining in the shadow
of
compulsory arbitration.
The paper will be divided into three sections. The first covers the setting in which the
bargaining occurred and a very brief description
of
the last two negotiations. The second
covers what is perceived to be the relevant literature, and the third attempts an analysis
of
the events described.
I
Fire protection services in the state
of
Western Australia are under the control of the
Western Australian Fire Brigades Board. The Board includes representatives of insur-
ance companies and both state and local governments. Insurance companies provide
three-quarters
of
the Board’s finances, state and local governments contribute equally
to
the balance. Prior to
1973
the insurance companies provided
64
per cent of the
finance and local governments
16
per cent, leaving the state government to contribute
the balance.
There are two hundred officers and over four hundred full-time firemen in the
Brigade organised into two separate unions sharing a full-time secretary who also
happens to be president of the Trades and Labor Council, the peak organisation of
blue-collar unions in Western Australia.* The firemen and officers have a pre-
dominantly blue-collar background,
a
strong
esprit
de
corps,
and a deep commitment to
their unions and to the organisational mission of the fire service-public pr~tection.~
Until fairly recently the determination
of
wages for firemen and officers was in the hands
of
the state industrial tribunal, an arbitration court until
1963
and an industrial com-
mission after that date.4 In
1966
the parties ceased to take wage cases to the Commission
and agreed to base the pay of the first-class fireman with five years of service on the wage
paid to the skilled metal worker. Some pay issues were still taken to arbitration, for
example, the application
of
the government’s service pay scheme to firemen.5 Negoti-
ations take place primarily between union officials and the senior industrial relations
staff of the Board. However, industrial relations specialists from the State Public Service
are also present, in part as advisers
to
the Board’s staff and in part to keep a watchful eye
on any precedent-setting concessions which could spread to the public sector as a whole.
*This paper would not have been possible without the collaboration of
Mr
C.
Britton, Adminis-
trative
and
Establishments Officer and
Mrs
D.
1.
Dufty, Industrial Research Officer, of the W.A.
Fire Brigades Board.
t
Dean
of
Social Sciences, Western Australian Institute of Technology.
52
COLLECTIVE?
BARGAINING: CASE
OF
FIREMEN
53
Two major wage agreements have been negotiated since 1966. Both have been within
the compulsory arbitration framework in the sense that logs
of
claims have been filed
with the Commission and the employer has formally responded. The main thrust of the
1971 case was an extension
of
the pay scale to give the firemen with longer service more
pay and to equate the skilled metal worker’s pay to the firemen with four years of
service, not five. The annual cost of the claim for the firemen was $195,000 per annum
and the Board’s offer would have cost $25,860. This was followed by a counter claim
costing $48,130 and a second offer amounting to $31,320. At this point both parties
agreed to submit the pay issue to private arbitration by one
of
the Commissioners and
his decision raised the wage bill for the firemen by $42,950 per annum.
A
similar pattern
was followed with respect to the officers with an original claim costing $102,300 per
annum, an offer costing $44,100 and a final determination by private arbitration costing
$73,000.
The unions’ tactics were aimed at management rather than the ultimate consumers,
the general public. Limited action was taken, the refusal of some duties, such as gear
cleaningon the Sunday night shift. There was the threat
of
a
passive strike, the refusal
of
all duties except actually fighting fires, and a suggestion that the unions would make a
direct approach to the responsible Minister.
The 1975 negotiations started off in an economic climate very different from that in
1971. Complaints of rising costs
of
the fire services from local government had received
wide publicity and the insurance companies were showing thepro rata payments to the
Fire Brigades Board as separate items on the premium notices sent to policy holders.
The
log
of
claims served included some pay demands but only for firemen in their first
four years
of
service. Other claims included payment for all absences due to sickness,
paternity leave and increased allowances
of
various types. Some
of
the claims were
accepted by the Board as they represented the restoration
of
the real value of allowances
eroded by inflation.
Those
rejected were those which would have set precedents for the
rest
of
the public sector. The Board conceded the pay claims for the lower paid firemen
but took the initiative with proposals concerning the future transmission of wage rises
flowing on from National Wage Cases and the Metal Trades Award. These would save
nothing
if
all future rises were in percentage terms but would make substantial savings
if
flat increases were involved. Proposals were also made to change the basis
of
the
officers’ pay which would reduce their overtime payments but not their base pay. The
total cost
of
the claims conceded was $128,500 per annum, offset to some extent by a
saving of $22,000 on officers’ overtime. Given the assumptions made by the industrial
relations staff about future wage rises transmitted from the larger industrial relations
system there would be a further saving
of
$185,000
per annum, giving a net annual
saving to the Board of $78,500. Other assumptions could yield almost anything from a
cost
of
$100,000 to a saving of at least the same magnitude.
During the negotiations the unions made
no
threat of direct industrial action apart
from a proposed stop work meeting which was never held. However, they did point out
to the Board the disadvantages
of
having a discontented work force. The Board, in turn,
‘threatened’ to take the dispute to compulsory arbitration, the nature of the threat being
the time-consuming nature
of
the proceedings and the implication that the unions would
gain little from the Commission. Agreement was finally reached along the lines indi-
cated above although the negotiations on the machinery and procedures to be used in
wage calculations were protracted.
I1
It
will be obvious from the material in the first section of this paper that collective
bargaining
is
the predominant mode for the determination
of
wages and wage sup-
plements for firemen in Western Australia even though compulsory arbitration hovers
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