Australia

Organization responsible for the statistics

The statistics are collected, compiled and published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Objectives and users

Not available.

Coverage

Strikes and lockouts

The statistics cover:

sympathetic strikes
political or protest strikes
general strikes
work stoppages initiated by employers
rotating or revolving strikes
unauthorised stopwork meetings

The right to strike is not written in to Australian constitutional, common or industrial law, although the Constitution provides for the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes extending beyond the limits of any one State. As a result, all strikes and lockouts are unofficial and the distinction between official and unofficial or constitutional and unconstitutional does not arise in the Australian context.

Approved stopworks, i.e. time allowed and recognized by employers for stopwork meetings, are not included in the statistics; unapproved stopwork meetings, however, are treated as industrial disputes and as such are included.

Working-to-rule, go-slows, overtime bans and sit-ins are not included. In addition, industrial disputes in which employees resign are deemed to have been resolved; statistics on those disputes will cease from the date of the resignations.

Minimum threshold A total of ten or more days not worked at the establishments where the stoppages occur.

Economic activities

No particular branches of economic activity or sectors are excluded.

Workers

Workers directly involved and workers indirectly involved. The statistics concern employees, i.e. wage and salary earners only, including part-time employees, temporary, casual, and seasonal employees, as well as employees laid off. Workers absent on sick or annual leave, or absent for any other reason, the self-employed, employers and unpaid family workers are not covered.

Geographic areas

Whole country.

Types of data collected

number of strikes and lockouts
number of workers involved
duration
time not worked
cause of dispute
method of settlement

Concepts and definitions

Industrial dispute

A withdrawal from work by a group of employees, or a refusal by an employer or a number of employers to permit some or all of their employees to work, each withdrawal or refusal being made in order to enforce a demand, to resist a demand or to express a grievance.

Standdown

Enables an employer to suspend (i.e. take off pay) employees for whom no work is available for reasons beyond the power of the employer (can occur as a consequence of, for example, strikes, machinery breakdowns or interruptions to the supply of material essential to production). In practice, standdowns are included only where employees are stood down as a result of industrial disputes by other employees at the same establishment.

These are working definitions used for statistical purposes.

Methods of measurement

Strikes and lockouts

The basic unit of measurement used to record a strike or lockout is the cause of dispute at a single establishment, but the industry of dispute, and the State or Territory where the strike or lockout takes place are also used as qualifying factors to determine the number of strikes and lockouts. A dispute involving several establishments is counted as a single dispute if it is organized or directed by one person or organization in each State or Territory in which it occurs; otherwise it is counted as a separate dispute at each establishment (in each State or Territory) and in each industry in which it occurred.

A strike or lockout interrupted, which later resumes, still due to the same cause of dispute, is counted as a continuation of the same strike or lockout if the period of interruption is less than two complete calendar months.

Work stoppages resulting from the same case of dispute, occurring simultaneously in different establishments are counted as one dispute if the employees are all in the same industry and in the same State or Territory and the dispute is organized or directed by one person or organization.

There was a change of methodology in December 1987 affecting the calculation of the number of disputes. Prior to that date, if the causes of several disputes were the same, the disputes were counted as one dispute in each of the states or territories in which they occurred, irrespective of whether they were directed or organized by one person or organization, or whether the dispute occurred in more than one industry. Data for past periods have been revised in current publications.

A further change was expected to take effect in January 1993, also concerning the method of counting industrial disputes where the dispute covers more than one establishment and more than one industry or more than one state. The dispute is now counted once in each industry and state, but only once in the Australian total. This includes the case in which a dispute is counted once in each of the industry groups in which it occurs, e.g. subdivisions or groups within the manufacturing division, but it is only counted once at the broader industry (division) level. It is expected that the series will be revised back to January 1991.

Workers involved

The total number of employees involved for any period of time is obtained by adding together the number of employees involved in each dispute in the period. Where there are varying numbers of employees involved during the progress of a dispute, the figures of employees involved relate to the largest number of individual employees involved on any one day. Where relevant, part-time workers are counted as individuals on the same basis as full-time workers.

Duration

The duration is the average number of working days not worked per employee involved in the dispute. It is calculated by dividing the reported total number of working days not worked in the dispute by the cumulative total of employees involved (both directly and indirectly).

Time not worked

Total time not worked, measured in workdays, is estimated for some strikes and lockouts on the basis of the number of employees involved at the establishments where the dispute took place and the duration of the strike or lockout. Time not worked is measured for workers directly involved and workers indirectly involved without distinction. The shorter working hours of part-time workers are not taken into account, nor is overtime.