Enterprise Bargaining and Women Workers: The Seven Perils of Flexibility

Abstract

Flexibility is increasingly recognised as a problematic and contested concept. This article draws on six case-studies of certified agreements in order to examine the working-time flexibility that has been introduced into many workplaces as a result of enterprise bargaining. It argues that this working-time flexibility involves significant perils for women workers. The case-study findings have direct relevance today, when working-time flexibility is promoted as beneficial for women workers and when the few safeguards put in place to protect women under the former bargaining system have been significantly reduced under the Workplace Relations Act 1996.