Journal of Work & Ideas

Article 2025/09 · Keith Harvey

Cooperatives in Australia

Cooperatives are a form of economic activity fundamentally different to both capitalism and socialism. Keith Harvey reviews an important work discussing the history and extent of Australian cooperatives.

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Article 2025/08 · Steve Knott AM

Ron McCallum Debate 2025 — Steve Knott AM

An address prepared for the 15th Annual Ron McCallum Debate, held in Sydney on the theme: Now or Never? How Can We Make Workplace Relations Fairer and More Productive?

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Article 2025/07 · Anna Boucher

Ron McCallum Debate 2025: Now or Never — A Fair and Productive Workplace?

Anna Boucher explores how reducing sex and race discrimination and providing working-from-home entitlements can improve workplace productivity while costing little.

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Article 2025/06 · Liam O’Brien

Ron McCallum Debate 2025 — Liam O’Brien

Liam O’Brien addresses the 15th Annual Ron McCallum Debate on how Australian workplace relations can become fairer and more productive.

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Article 2025/05 · Justice Mordy Bromberg

Ron McCallum Debate 2025 — Justice Mordy Bromberg

Justice Mordy Bromberg contributes to the 15th Annual Ron McCallum Debate on fairer, more productive workplace relations in Australia.

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Article 2025/04 · Ron McCallum AO

Ron McCallum Debate 2025 — Ron McCallum AO

Emeritus Professor Ron McCallum AO addresses the challenge of creating a fairer and more productive system of workplace relations.

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Article 2025/03 · Margaret McKenzie & Keith Harvey

Productivity, Pay Rates and Power (Part 2)

The second instalment of a two-part investigation into productivity, collective bargaining, wages and power in the Australian industrial relations system.

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Article 2025/02 · Margaret McKenzie & Keith Harvey

Productivity, Pay Rates and Power (Part 1)

What is productivity, why does it matter and is there a guaranteed link between improving productivity and real wages in Australian industrial relations?

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Article 2025/01 · Keith Harvey

No Power Greater — Interview with Dr Liam Byrne

Historian and author Dr Liam Byrne explores the purpose of unions, their contemporary relevance and the history of union action in Australia.

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Article 2024/11 · Joellen Riley-Munton

Non-competes and Other Restraints — Is It Time for Reform of Australian Law?

Are post-employment restrictive covenants suppressing competition and innovation? An explainer on non-compete clauses, government review and potential law reforms.

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Article 2024/10 · James Fleming

Ban Advanced Future AI Before It Is Too Late?

Otto Barten of the Existential Risk Observatory discusses the dangers of rapid, largely unchecked advances in artificial intelligence and what governments should do.

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Article 2024/09 · Keith Harvey

AI in the Workplace: Trick or Treat? — JWI Interviews ChatGPT

The Journal of Work and Ideas interviews artificial intelligence itself about AI, employment, industrial relations and its impact on the workplace.

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Article 2024/08 · Keith Harvey

Science Fiction Is the Realism of Our Time — Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson

Award-winning science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson discusses alternative economic systems, worker cooperatives, climate change politics and possible futures.

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Article 2024/07 · David Peetz

New Rights for Workplace Union Delegates and the Impact on Delegate Education and Training

Professor David Peetz considers the effect of the Closing Loopholes reforms on delegates’ rights, union training, organiser mentoring and employee voice.

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Article 2024/06 · Keith Harvey

Election Analysis — A New Deal for Workers in the UK?

Keith Harvey examines UK Labour’s industrial relations commitments, including sectoral bargaining, a living wage and stronger enforcement of workplace rights.

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Article 2024/05 · Keith Harvey

Book Review — The Shortest History of Economics

Keith Harvey reviews Andrew Leigh’s accessible history of economic development, while identifying important limitations in its treatment of work and economic history.

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Article 2024/04 · James Fleming

A Fitting Farewell — Ken Loach’s The Old Oak and His Legacy of Social Critique

A review of Ken Loach’s final film, exploring immigration, working-class xenophobia, solidarity in post-Brexit Britain and a lifetime of incisive social critique.

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Article 2024/03 · Nicola Street

Respect@Work: Isolated or Integrated Frameworks Between Positive Duty and Termination?

An examination of Australia’s Respect@Work reforms, employers’ positive duty, Fair Work Commission decisions and the challenge of preventing workplace sexual harassment.

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Article 2024/02 · Liam O’Brien

Workers’ Voice — A Matter of Life and Death

Why collective worker voice is indispensable to fair wages, safe workplaces, dignity and diversity, with lessons from labour hire and engineered-stone silicosis.

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Article 2024/01 · Ron McCallum AO

Moving the Dial: Employing People with Disabilities

Ron McCallum reflects on persistently low workforce participation for people with disabilities, the NDIS, legal protections and recommendations for bridging the employment gap.

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Article 2023/01 · Joellen Riley Munton & Keith Harvey

Compensating Work Injuries for Precarious Workers: An Historical Perspective

A historical examination of workers’ compensation laws and why the arguments that protected precarious workers in earlier eras still apply to food-delivery riders today.

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