ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to answer the question 'what do managers mean by cooperation with unions?', by exploring the degree of cooperation which they have with unions, the extent to which they support joint decision-making with unions, and linking the two. The study is based on a survey of managers in the highly unionised Illawarra region of Australia, with a brief comparison to the attitudes of some of their counterparts in the United States. The Illawarra data is based on a representative sample of workplaces, in terms of industry dispersion, in a region where industrial relations are not typical of Australia. The US data is based on a non-representative national sample of large corporations, in unionised industries. The comparative analysis found that there was in the Illawarra a strong and significant positive correlation between variables joint and relationship. This outcome was in direct contrast to the US study, where there was a negative and highly significant correlation coefficient.
