Current RUWCF Research Projects
The Gippsland Apprenticeship Project
Darryn Snell and Alison Hart
This project arose from growing concern among a range of stakeholders (e.g. employers, trade unions, employment agencies, educators, group training providers, etc.) in the Gippsland region about apprentices/trainees and training schemes. These concerns included issues surrounding declining retention rates; the quality of apprenticeships and traineeships; employers’ motivation in taking on apprentices; as well as apprentice/trainee motivations for undertaking training. The Gippsland Apprenticeship Project sought to evaluate some of the commonly held, albeit largely unsupported, claims about apprentices/trainees, apprenticeships and training schemes in the Gippsland region; gain an understanding of employers’ perspectives on apprentices and training schemes; and better understand apprentices/trainees' experiences with the different training schemes and the factors influencing their decisions to take up, complete or withdraw from their training. The final report, “I think about leaving everyday: doesn't everyone? ” confirmed much of the anecdotal evidence, but also produced some surprising findings about the parallel experiences of those in training and those who failed to complete.
Climate Change and Trade Unions in Australia
Darryn Snell, Simon Cooper, Professor Peter Fairbrother (Cardiff University) and Alison Hart
This project considers the impact of climate change and carbon emissions trading on work and employment in Australia and the role of trade unions in finding sustainable solutions through the promotion of green jobs, sustainable development policies and climate protection. One aspect of this project is to better understand how a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will affect the brown-coal power generation region of Victoria's Latrobe Valley and how trade unions are working to protect both jobs and the environment
Return to Work Project
Darryn Snell and Alison Hart
As part of the Ballarat and Gippsland Trades and Labour Councils’ Return to Work Project Dr. Darryn Snell, Coordinator of the Research Unit for Work and Communications Futures at Monash University’s Gippsland Campus, has been consulted by the Trades and Labour Councils to provide professional research advice and guidance into the development of the research component of the project. Research collected for the Return to Work Project will provide vital information on the return to work process, the various experiences among injured workers in returning to work and how those involved in seeking to get injured workers back to work perceive return to work cases and processes. Existing research on ‘return to work’ in the Australian context tends to focus on workers’ experiences of workplace injuries and rehabilitation rather than on the barriers to and factors for successful return to work. The data collected as part of the Return to Work Project will play an important role in improving our understanding of the barriers to return to work and where changes may be needed to improve return to work processes and outcomes.
Private Sector Actors and Post-Conflict Reconstruction in the South Pacific
Darryn Snell
Over the last few decades, multinational corporations (MNCs) have increased their activities in economically developing countries in the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America . The negative social impacts of MNCs increased activities in the global south are of growing local and international concern. Many workers and communities in the global south have complained of human rights abuses involving murder, rape, torture and displacement of people perpetuated by, or on behalf of, MNCs. Where corporations have come to operate in countries prone to or in the midst of civil strife concerns have emerged about MNCs complicity and contributions to this violence and instability. This project examines the relationship between private sector actors and conflict in the troubled South Pacific region and discusses some of the ways trade unions, nongovernmental organisations, international institutions as well as private sector actors are seeking to address these matters so that economic activity may be channeled to do more good than harm in the post-conflict reconstruction of Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
Market-Oriented Initiatives for Sustainable Food Production in Australia
Vaughan Higgins, Chris Cocklin and Jacqui Dibden
In a global context characterised by consumer concern over food safety and quality, and widespread interest in sustainability, farmers have experienced increasing pressures to adopt improved environmental practices while striving to ensure their economic viability. Means of reconciling these competing demands have been sought in various market-based mechanisms to encourage voluntary adoption of improved production processes. This project is concerned with voluntary market-oriented strategies to tackle the environmental issues confronting rural Australia . It addresses the significant question of how Australia can combine a competitive liberalised agricultural sector and viable farms with a shift towards more sustainable land management and rural places. This study will contribute to an understanding of market-oriented initiatives for sustainable food production, which are assuming increased prominence as governments and consumers look to new ways of linking food production and consumption. The project, therefore, has implications for the direction of agriculture, and the design of policies for more consumer-oriented agri-food production.
Podcasting in Higher Education
Philip Dearman, Chris Galloway and Professor Laurence Dooley
Philip Dearman is working with Chris Galloway (HUMCASS) and Professor Laurence Dooley (Faculty of Information Technology, Monash) to investigate the institutional logistics (systems, skills, expectations, etc) that can take advantage of the contemporary convergence of mobile ICTs by delivering teaching material via podcasting. New media present a challenge to existing models of distance education (i.e. off campus learning, or OCL ) content provision. Contemporary students are now exposed to, and frequently directly engaged with, a media environment that is much richer than that which current OCL technologies are generally geared towards. Universities, as both content providers and employers, face a range of technical and commercial challenges. There is a potentially widening gap in both teaching and delivery models currently used in higher education. The project seeks to reconceptualize practical relations of interactivity, in the delivery ofand engagement withlearning materials. The researchers will trial the delivery of unit material to MP3 players, in a small number of Arts and FIT units during 2006. The project has received funding from the Arts Faculty's Teaching & Learning Development Fund, and the Arts/IT Fund.
Representing and Regulating Labour: Mediating Reform Agendas
Philip Dearman, Chris Galloway and Donna Buttigieg
Philip Dearman is working with Chris Galloway (HUMCASS) and Donna Buttigieg (Faculty of Business & Economics, Monash) on a study of the format, content and conduct of media/PR campaigns that are currently attempting to intervene in the regulation of Australian industrial relations. The project seeks to describe the political use of various media forms/formatsboth old' and new' mediain order to compare and contrast the effectiveness of the rhetorical and practical strategies deployed by the Howard Coalition government, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). How do these key policy actors conceive of, and speak to, their respective audiences? How do they motivate them, and channel their actions and sentiments? What tools, resources and concepts do they have available to them? How do their respective campaigns construct the object of policy (i.e. the regulation of labour) formation? What impact do the campaigns have on core objectives of the actors (i.e. the union movement, the ALP and the Federal government)?