Strategic management of employment relations in the coal mining industry of Central Queensland: A research agenda

Since 1995 there have been many changes of employment relations in the Australian coal mining industry. The changes were as a result of management response to the intensive pressure to increase profitability and productivity in order to maintaining competitiveness of the Australian coal industry in the international market. Many prior studies tend to examine how poor labour practices in the coal mining industry had inhibited productivity enhancement. Little evidence has been shown that changing employment relations, as in the case of better or strategic management of human resource and industrial relations, has contributed to overall business performance of the industry. If strategic management of employment relations does have impact on business performance, how is the impact measured? And what extent has it contributed to business performance? This paper sets up a research agenda to address these research questions. The primary focus of the paper is to provide an outline of changes of employment relations in the coal mining industry since the abolition of the Australian Coal Industry Tribunal in 1995. The paper also discusses the importance of taking a strategic view on examining the relationship between managing employment relations and business performance, in particular relations to the future development of the coal mining industry. The paper then proposes a conceptual framework that assists in establishing a number of research hypotheses. It concludes by demonstrating a number of research outcomes that will enhance our understanding of strategic management of employment relations in the coal mining industry. The coal mines in central Queensland are selected for this study because of the strategic importance of the coal industry to sustainable regional economic development.