Abstract

Come to Perth next year and give us a keynote address. That was the gist of an e-mail I got one July day in 2008 from the Australian Society for the Study of Labor History. At the time, both the United States and Australia were grappling with labor law reform. In America, it was the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) put forth by the AFL-CIO and endorsed by the Democrats. Come November, they would almost certainly be in charge—White House, both Houses of Congress, the whole works. In Australia, after a decade in the minority, the Labor Party under the leadership of Kevin Rudd was back in power and bent on dismantling the anti-union program of its neoliberal predecessor. Labor's alternative was still a work in progress, but it already had a name, Fair Work Australia.

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