Australian Institute of Employment Rights
Journal of Work & Ideas
Independent research about work, society and the public interest.
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Analysis, interviews and ideas from the Journal.
RRR and Postcolonial Rage
A rage-fuelled Telugu-language epic reimagines anti-colonial resistance through spectacular fantasy violence, folkloric heroism and blockbuster excess. James Fleming explores how Britain benefited from exploiting India.
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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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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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Journal archive
19 research articles, interviews and reviews
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.
Read article PDFRon 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.
Read article PDFRon 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.
Read article PDFRon 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Independent & public-interest led
Ideas that make work fairer.
The Journal of Work and Ideas publishes research and commentary that advances understanding of decent work, employment rights, industrial relations, equality and the future of work.
Published under the Journal’s Code of Ethics.
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Contact the editorISSN 2982-3056 · Australian Institute of Employment Rights