When Peter Reith replaced Labor's Industrial Relations Act with the Workplace Relations Act in 1996, he changed the act's principal objective from the "prevention and settlement of industrial disputes" to "providing a framework for co-operative workplace relations". I'm not sure the Howard government always lived up to that ideal, but it was certainly the right idea.
John Howard was fond of saying we should emphasise the things that unite us, not the things that divide us. Again, I'm not sure he always lived up to that, but it was the right idea - particularly for relations between bosses and workers.
The principal objective of the Fair Work Act is to provide a "balanced framework for co-operative and productive workplace relations that promotes national economic prosperity and social inclusion". That's even better.
At a time when so many of our industries are under so much pressure to change from so many sources - the high dollar, the prudent consumer, the digital revolution, the deregulation of world airlines - we need all the co-operation we can get between employers and unions.
Most economists have rejected the claims of some that our seemingly poor productivity performance over the past decade can be blamed on the Fair Work Act that came into full effect only at the start of 2010.
But that's not the same as saying the act is without fault. And it's certainly not to deny the need for our industrial relations to be as conducive as possible to improved productivity.
If we were to believe all we see and hear, we'd conclude relations were pretty bad at present. I'm not convinced that's true. More likely, a handful of highly publicised, bitter disputes has provoked a lot of tough talking on both sides of the fence, and left us with the impression things are worse than they really are. Even so, too much of the debate about Fair Work has focused on whether it's got the balance right between the adversaries, and not enough on how much it's helping to turn adversaries into partners.
There are plenty of people who've always hated the unions, and plenty who've always hated the bosses. All of us can be lured into playing that game but, in all our interests, we need to resist the temptation. It's self-indulgent at a time when we need to pull together.
For industrial relations to become more co-operative, and hence more productive, we need give and take on both sides.
What managers need to accept is that workers are entitled to reasonable treatment. Managers want to do well out of their association with a business; so do workers. And, to adapt a quote, the economy was made for man, not man for the economy.
There are plenty of ways to improve the productivity of labour - and certainly, to cut the cost of labour - that involve making life more uncertain, insecure, unpleasant and even unhealthy for workers. If that's what "flexibility" means, it's hardly surprising workers resist it. Good managers resist the temptation to go down that shortcut to supposed prosperity.
Many proposals to "outsource" production or resort to contract labour aren't about two-way flexibility but about cutting costs by escaping existing in-house arrangements over pay and conditions. Good managers need to do better than that.
Australia's workers are relatively highly paid, with good conditions. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. It's certainly nothing to try to make workers feel guilty about. As any economist will tell you, our high pay rates are justified by our relatively highly educated and skilled workforce, by the high-quality capital equipment it works with, and by the sharing of this nation's considerable wealth.
The goal of management should not be finding ways to escape these high costs, but finding ways to defend our high wage rates with high productivity. In this endeavour they're entitled to full co-operation from their workers.
What workers need to accept is that the world economy is changing rapidly and as it changes we must change. Businesses must respond to the changing commercial pressures on them, or they will fail.
In a capitalist economy, businesses need to earn an adequate return on the shareholders' funds invested in them. In the final analysis, managers are paid to ensure their business remains profitable. They will do whatever it takes.
Such profits are not illegitimate, and they're not available to be plundered by workers demanding excessive wage rises or refusing to change in response to the changing pressures on the business.
Workers and their unions simply cannot pretend the pressures for change bearing down on the business are a problem for management, but not for them. The more they resist a creative response, the more managers will go around them in the search for cheaper labour.
Change - painful change - can't be avoided by attempting to strongarm management into including guarantees of job security in enterprise agreements. Guess what? There are no guarantees in an ever-changing market economy.
Much of the change being imposed on various industries will inevitably involve redundancies. The most workers can expect is decent redundancy pay, the avoidance of excesses designed to impress the sharemarket, and a preference for redundancies to be voluntary.
Professor Paul Gollan, of Macquarie University, argues the key to greater co-operation in the workplace is giving workers greater "voice" - formal arrangements within businesses by which employees are consulted, given their say and encouraged to propose improvements and "add value". Studies confirm such processes are associated with greater productivity.
Senior managers' "prerogative" - about which I say more in my little video on the website - is to ensure their staff is fully informed about the challenges facing the business.
