Labor-Management ‘Non’ Cooperation

Abstract

The paper gives a detailed account of industrial relations issues as public entities in Fiji journey into reforms. Though given little attention locally, what accompanies this journey is the repeated industrial relation concerns. This theme is empirically exemplified by a reformed Government Commercial Company (GCC) (Government Shipyard and Public Shipways), based on in-depth semi-structured face-to-face interviews, relevant published studies and archival data. A GCC is a wholly government-owned enterprise in Fiji and is generally financed through government equity and/or debt. The focus of this paper is on the interplay between industrial relations and public enterprise reforms. This paper has two goals. Detailed account of industrial relations issues of the Government Shipyard is presented as the first aim. The second aim unveils the height of superficial or one-way consultations. Overall, while the Fijian public enterprise reform process entails changes in the ‘modus operandi’ of public entities towards being more business-like in order to become profitable, industrial relations issues are impacted upon given that entities are unionized and definite changes do result in the way employee relations/unions are tackled and changed by the management/government. This paper suggests similar detailed empirical studies to be carried out between island nations and other reformed public enterprises to test its conclusion in different sites.