Book Review LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS OF INDUSTRIAL JUSTICE: The Presidents of the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW 1902 – 1998 Edited by Greg Patmore, Federation Press 2003-09-11 This is a volume which will be of interest to industrial lawyers, historians and industrial relations practitioners and constitutes an exemplar of scholarly work in the area. The current President of the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW, Justice F L Wright, took the step of commissioning this volume to commemorate the centenary of the existence of the variously titled court or commission of conciliation and arbitration in the State of New South Wales. Founded in 1902, the Court of Arbitration has had a variety of successors performing somewhat different roles, but all concerned with the resolution of industrial disputes within the state jurisdiction. Whilst much academic attention has been paid to our federal system of conciliation and arbitration, relatively scant interest has been taken in the state systems. This is curious given that, for example, in New South Wales approximately 50% of the workforce in this state has been covered by state awards or industrial agreements. This volume is a positive step in redressing the balance. The book takes the form of biographical studies of the various Presidents of the NSW tribunal, combining both an account of their background and career and an account of their practical work in the area of industrial arbitration. Thus it deals with the tenures of office of Justices H E Cohen, C G Heydon, W Edmunds, G S Beeby, A B Piddington, J A Browne, S C Taylor, A C Beattie and W K Fisher. The pieces are written by different scholars in the area of labour history and labour law and hence vary in their style and approach. But all of them are extraordinarily learned, encapsulating a wide variety of material to be found in law reports, industrial gazettes, historical studies, biographies, articles in academic journals and the like. The breadth of research is impressive. For some, the recounting of the minutiae of the history of industrial relations (the setting of basic wages, standards of leave, wage rates, hours of work) might prove heavy going. However, these technical details are alleviated by biographical details of interesting lives, the colourful inter-mixture of the law, politics, industrial disputes and community activities. There are some pervasive themes to be discerned from the diverse chapters: the interaction between federal and state industrial systems, issues about the role of trade unions and whether “preference” should be given to union members, the approach that should be taken to industrial action in the face of an opportunity for an orderly disposition of the controversy before an independent tribunal, the security of tenure of the judicial officers constituting the tribunal and the balance between the role of an industrial tribunal as opposed to the legislature in setting standards in important matters such as hours of work, annual holidays and redundancy payments. The volume reminds us of the nexus between the political cycle and the form and powers of the tribunal that have been enacted over the years. At virtually every change of government a new legislative regime has been formulated. Continuity has not been a particular virtue of the industrial relations system in New South Wales. Whereas Labor governments have generally favoured strong powers vested in the independent tribunal, other parties have favoured devolution of power to management or the workplace and a consequential diminution of the role of any third party neutral in dealing with employment disputes. The book is enlivened by perspectives on the individual heads of the tribunal. Let me give some examples. A B Piddington is interesting, having campaigned against the bills giving rise to federation, because he thought that the model promoted provincial states’ rights. He was controversially appointed to the High Court by Prime Minister W M Hughes, the then Prime Minister, but never took up office because there had been some interrogatories conducted by a third party to ascertain Piddington’s views about federal versus state powers. Piddington was later appointed by Premier J T Lang, as head of the NSW industrial tribunal, but resigned in protest when Lang was dismissed from office by Sir Phillip Game. Stanley Taylor was appointed President in 1942 but always had difficulty in forming a bench in which he could be part of a majority, and was otherwise tainted by suggestions, whether justified or not, that embroiled him in the Petrov Royal Commission and suggested that he had associations with the Soviet Union. On a more positive note, it is clear that Sir Alexander Beattie who held the presidency between 1966 and 1981 was an able lawyer who, in a balanced way, was able to deal with governments of different political complexions and who was ably supported in his role by other judges who could have succeeded in any legal specialty, including W S Sheldon, F V Watson and J J Cahill. The final entry in the book refers to Justice Bill Fisher who had been a judge of the Supreme Court for over two years before taking up the presidency and who was a powerful leader of the industrial relations process in New South Wales. In particular, it was Fisher who led the way in formulating appropriate principles and standards in relation to redundancy payments to workers in the context of the recession of the 1980’s. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission essentially picked up what was known as the “Fisher formula” for redundancy payments and so it was that the New South Wales tribunal in this, as in a number of other notable examples, played a leading role. The editor, Greg Patmore teaches in the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney, and has done a splendid job, both in writing an elegant, succinct, useful initial chapter tracing the history of industrial conciliation and arbitration in New South Wales and in co-ordinating the other authors in producing their chapters directed to individual presidents of the tribunal. This is a volume which will be of interest to industrial lawyers, historians and industrial relations practitioners and constitutes an exemplar of scholarly work in the area. *Review by Jeff Shaw QC, Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. worksite home