Wages under AWAs and collective agreements

Abstract

We examine wages under Australian Workplace Agreements and collective agreements using unpublished data from the ABS EEH survey, and test competing hypotheses on the relationships. We find that AWAs are commonly associated with poorer outcomes for typical employees than registered collective agreements. While AWAs sometimes attract wage premiums, associated with union avoidance strategies, these mainly affect outcomes in a small number of industries and in some very large organisations. Where union avoidance is not a common issue, for example in small organisations, the negative impact of AWAs on earnings becomes very stark. The impact of AWAs is worst for those people without unique skills, who do not have strong bargaining power in the labour market.