Participation, Fragmentation and Union Response: The 1998–2000 ACT Public Sector Bargaining Round and the Workplace Relations Act

The current Australian Capital Territory (ACT) public sector workplace bargaining round lasted more than two years with most agreements involving a trade-off between low wage outcomes and protection of job security within performance improvement measures. The main focus of this paper is on government and agency experiments with bargaining structures and processes. The first was a limited and largely unsuccessful attempt in 1998 and 1999 at participative agreement making without the involvement of the key unions. The second, a selective decentralisation of bargaining to parts of a single business, was more successful: of 50 agreements, over 40 have been achieved. The procedural success of the decentralisation strategy is a significant outcome. However, the fragmentation strategy contained internal contradictions and required strong centralised policy control of bargaining agendas and outcomes, leading to delays and breeding distrust. Unions conducted effective defensive campaigns against non-union agreements and involuntary redundancies, but face their own dilemmas in finalising this round and preparing for the next.     

Impact Assessment of EU Non‐Legislative Rulemaking: The Missing Link in ‘New Comitology’

Impact assessment (IA) has gone from an innocuous technical tool typically used in the pre‐legislative phase to an instrument at the heart of the European institutional machinery. However—in deviation from its roots as a tool governing delegated rulemaking in the US—most experience with IA in the EU has been gathered in a legislative context. Against the background of the recent evolution of the EU's old ‘comitology’ system into a two‐track system of delegated acts and implementing measures, this contribution discusses in three parts the ‘whys,’ ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ of extending IA to ‘non‐legislative rulemaking.’ It explores various aspects of the rulemaking process that IA—if properly applied—could strengthen: consultation, control and quality.     

The impact of police charges in incidents of wife abuse

The present study addressed the impact of an urban police force laying criminal charges in cases of wife abuse. Follow-up data from battered women and from police officers were collected to identify the long-term consequences of this police policy that began in 1981, including any negative or unintended side effects. Results indicated that the policy resulted in a dramatic increase in police-laid charges (2500%), and a shift from the Family to the Criminal Division of Provincial Court. Based on interview data, victims did not decrease their requests for police service (a feared side effect) and reported a significantly higher level of satisfaction with police service in this area. A significant reduction in police calls and victim-reported violence was associated with police intervention, especially when charges were laid. Paradoxically, police officers' attitudes about the policy were more negative than the actual positive changes that they helped to produce. Considerations for future research and professional training are outlined.     

Pharmaceutical meaning-making beyond marketing: racialized subjects of generic thiazide

In contrast to discussions of BiDil, this paper explores racial meaning-making processes around an old generic hypertension drug. By unpacking a vignette about race and thiazide outside marketing or medicine, it shows that racialization of drugs exceeds those spheres and moves in unpredictable ways.     

Absurd Asymmetry – a Comment on R v Cottrell and Fletcher1 and BM,KK and DP (Petitioners) v Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission2

This note examines two cases in which English and Scottish courts have insisted that the English and Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commissions adopt the same definition and approach as them to alleged ‘miscarriages of justice’ in order to reduce the number of potential referrals and increase finality, and to reduce the challenge posed by these Commissions to the courts' authority in the legal sphere. The authors consider whether the courts' approach is either necessary or appropriate.