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Report on Queensland Workplace Industrial Relations survey

Purpose

This report provides a summary of the main findings of the Queensland Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (QWIRS), which was conducted by phone in over 660 workplaces in Queensland in late 2005.

The purpose of the report was to identify the working arrangements of Queensland employees in key areas. In addition, it provides technical information on the technical aspects of the survey such as sampling and weighting.

Issues covered

the workforce and workplace profile
methods of setting pay and conditions in the workplace
wages and entitlements of the workforce
information on union membership and industrial relations within the workplace
workforce additions and reductions
profits, labour costs and productivity
various policies in place
various attitudes held by managers

Outcomes

The report notes the following key findings from the survey:

over-awards are still the most common form of agreement-making in the Queensland workforce (31 per cent), collective agreements are also very common (28 per cent)
State collective agreements are twice as common among the workforce as Federal collective agreements
unions are present in 17% of private sector workplaces - this is consistent with ABS findings on levels of trade union membership
97 per cent of Queensland workplaces reported no industrial action during the last year. There was very little dissatisfaction among workplace managers when it came to their relationship with unions
dismissals of employees did not seem to feature much in Queensland workplaces. Some 69 per cent of workplaces reported making no dismissals in the last year, and among those that did, the average dismissal rate was 4 per cent. Smaller and medium workplaces were more likely to dismiss employees than large workplaces
finding new staff was a major problem in Queensland workplaces. Some 61 per cent reported difficulties in recruitment in the last year. The most common difficulty was finding suitable, skilled or qualified staff
most workplace managers in Queensland regarded their relationships with their employees as very good (63 per cent) or good (35 per cent).

Date created

20/12/2005

View full report on Queensland Workplace Industrial Relations survey (PDF, 688 KB)

Last updated July 21, 2009