Electrolux in Australia: Deregulation, industry restructuring and the dynamics of bargaining

By Rob Lambert, Michael Gillan and Scott Fitzgerald

Electrolux bought Australia's remaining whitegoods manufacturer in November 2000.

The company has reputation of good corporate citizenship in Europe but this study illustrates the limits of that notion when corporations operate globally in various regulatory environments.

The study shows how "deregulation" intensifies global competition in a way that accelerates mergers and acquisitions, creating a high degree of concentration with further rationalisations and workplace restructuring. The Workplace Relations Act 1996 facilitated the process, causing disruption to unionism and undermining cultures of solidarity. The authors contend that there is a need for a "new social organisation of labour" as the case study in Orange illustrates the on the ground means the company employs to exclude unions and collective bargaining.

(Journal of Industrial Relations; vol. 47, no. 3, September 2005; pp261-75)