Reference no: EM133498548

MICKO and AUSW MICKO

is a large American Information Technology corporation with operations in eight different countries including Australia (MICKO of Australia). After 12 months of heated enterprise bargaining negotiations, MICKO of Australia and the Australian Union of Service Workers (AUSW) were unable to reach an agreement. The three key sticking points for the Union were pay, job security, and workloads. Staff felt that they were being worked harder than ever under increasing management surveillance and performance reviews with the possibility of disciplinary action or dismissal if they didn't meet management expectations. They also felt they were not being appropriately remunerated for their increased work effort and productivity. The AUSW log of claims included a 4% pay increase. Management countered with an offer of 2%, presenting an "ability to pay" argument to justify their position. They argued that to offer greater than a 2% pay rise would result in redundancies given the global competition the company faced. They also argued that without increased productivity by staff, they would need to close its Australian operation and shift the work to one of its other overseas subsidiaries. Staff saw this as a threat rather than a valid argument, which further heightened tensions at the bargaining table. The parties found themselves at a stalemate in bargaining as neither were willing to shift from their position on these key issues. Negotiations subsequently stalled. AUSW members went on strike for 24 hours to place pressure on management and voice their concerns publicly. MICKO responded by locking out staff for three days. MGMT2040 Workplace Relations Main Examination (Session 1, 2023) 3 It was hard to see how negotiations would progress, but the following month the AUSW and MICKO decided to take a different approach and made a joint application to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) seeking its assistance to conclude an agreement. The FWC accepted the application and Commissioner Pitt began facilitating negotiations between the bargaining participants. These participants not only included officials of the AUSW and management representatives, but also workplace union delegates (ie. elected representatives of workers). Commissioner Pitt encouraged the parties to take a "problem-solving" approach. Trust was gradually built between the parties as they shared information and began identifying common interests and possible solutions. Despite the previous protracted and adversarial negotiations, within 10 sessions an agreement was developed that satisfied the interests of both parties. After an all-staff meeting addressed by representatives of MICKO, the AUSW and the FWC, the agreement went to a ballot and was overwhelmingly endorsed (voted in favour) by the workforce. The parties have since worked co-operatively to jointly implement the agreement, with any issues dealt with through discussion and workplace-level negotiation rather than formal dispute.

Question: Did negotiations between MICKO and the AUSW reflect traditional position-based bargaining, interest-based bargaining, or both? Explain.