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The “petty pilfering of minutes” or what has happened to the length of the working day in Australia?

Kathryn Heiler (Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training (ACIRRT), Sydney, Australia)

International Journal of Manpower

ISSN: 0143-7720

Article publication date: 1 June 1998

1019

Abstract

The acceleration of decentralised bargaining, the weakening of the award system and the erosion of the regulatory framework protecting hours of work is part of a new managerial offensive aimed at dismantling standardised working time and driving down costs. Under the guise of progressive “flexibility”, hard‐won protective standards and conditions around working time are being eroded and increasingly replaced with individualised arrangements all designed to intensify work. These new arrangements can be described as the “managerialisation” of working time, and are having profound implications for the duration and distribution of working hours, the scheduling of working hours and the pace of work. Significantly, the eight‐hour day seems a quaint phenomenon of the longer workday and in particular, the 12‐hour workday and the impact of decentralised bargaining.

Keywords

Citation

Heiler, K. (1998), "The “petty pilfering of minutes” or what has happened to the length of the working day in Australia?", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 266-280. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437729810220383

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 1998, MCB UP Limited

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