The Accord
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In Australian industrial relations the Accord was a policy of industrial peace, class collaboration and corporatism, during the 1980s. It was first proposed by the Communist Party of Australia in the late 1970s, as a response to a perceived productivity crisis,[citation needed] and actively taken up and implemented as government policy after 1983 by an Australian Labor Party government under Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Treasurer (later Prime Minister) Paul Keating.
The Accord was an agreement between trade unions and the Labor government. Employers were not party to the Accord. Unions agreed to restrict wage demands and the government pledged action to minimise inflation and price rises. The Government was also to act on the social wage. At its broadest this concept included increased spending on education as well as welfare.
This was seen as a method to increase productivity without reducing the living standards of Australians. At the beginning of the Accord, only one union, the New South Wales Nurses Federation , voted against the Accord. The Accord continued for the whole period of the Labor Government through seven stages including, after 1993, Enterprise Bargaining.
Criticisms of the Accord generally come from the revolutionary left within Australia, who claim that it kept real wages stagnant for over ten years, destroyed union membership and strength, and caused real suffering for members of the Australian working class.
