History and timeline of industrial relations in NSW

In 1892, the Government Labour Bureau was set up under the Dibbs Government. From its start, the Bureau was responsible for assisting the '...unemployed in finding work and [providing] assistance to families impoverished by unemployment.

From 1892 to c1911, the Bureau provided welfare and help through sustenance relief payments - known as the 'susso.' They also operated a type of employment agency for the unemployed known as the Central Labour Exchange.

In 1893, the NSW Government established a co-operative farm for unemployed workers on the former Pitt Town Common, the Pitt Town co-operative farm. The Government Labour Bureau was responsible for this 'socialist experiment' at the former Pitt Town Common. There were similar schemes at Bega, Wilberforce and Randwick. This was under an Act passed in 1893 to establish and regulate labour settlements on Crown Lands (56 Victoria Act No. 34).

These co-operative farms were a response to the 1890s economic depression, but tended to be short-lived. The experimental farm at Pitt Town, for example, closed in 1896. The aim of the Pitt Town co-operative farm had been to provide work for unemployed city workers during the long depression years of the 1890s. The scheme failed because the farm was isolated from the city, and there was no support for city workers unused to rural working conditions.

In 1896, the site of the former co-operative farm at Pitt Town was used as the Casual Labour Farm to train unemployed city workers as farm labourers. This scheme, administered by the Department of Labour and Industry, was in operation until 1910. 

In 1895, the Government Labour Bureau became part of the Department of Public Instruction. This was managed by the Minister for Public Instruction and Minister for Labour and Industry. The Department of Labour and Industry created in the following year and was responsible for a range of legislation including the Apprentices Act 1894, the Factories and Shops Act 1896 and the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1899.

In 1901, the Government Labour Bureau transferred to the the Department of Public Works, along with the Labour Commission which had been appointed in 1900. It's purpose was '…organising, classifying and controlling all labour not in employment.' Along with the creation of the Department of Labour and Industry in the 1890s, were the beginnings of an industrial disputes resolution system for NSW. This saw the establishment of the Industrial Commission in 1926.

The Industrial Commission was intended to manage disputes over pay and work conditions, and was important in the resolution of strikes. Legislation relating to employment and industrial relations passed at the turn of the twentieth century included the Early Closing Act 1899, the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1899, the Truck Act 1900 and the Industrial Arbitration Act 1901.

The Arbitration Court, established in 1902 under the Industrial Arbitration Act, was managed by the Department of Attorney General and Justice. According to Labour Historian Greg Patmore, 'The NSW compulsory conciliation and arbitration system arose from the failure of collective bargaining and voluntary arbitration. Its administrative structure went through a period of experimentation (and its) final form adopted in 1926 was an Industrial Commission and conciliation committees.'

The Industrial Disputes Act 1908 gave the Crown a right to intervene into Arbitration Court cases and also allowed for ministerial intervention into legislation. The successive Presidents of the Arbitration Court from 1902, later the Industrial Commission from 1926, were independent arbiters who could settle disputes between employers and employees. The Attorney General continued to manage industrial relations legislation until 1911, when the Minister for Labour and Industry took over.

The Industrial Disputes Act 1912 saw the introduction of the wages boards, regulating pay and conditions for workers. Another office within the Department, the Board of Trade, regularly held meetings and inquiries into living conditions from 1914 and throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Into the twentieth century, the Department of Labour and Industry continued to play a major role in employment relations in NSW,. This included regulating working conditions and wages, and ensuring health and safety in the workplace, under the Factory and Shop Act 1912.

One of the key roles of the Department under the Act was to provide information and advice about working conditions. The role of the Industrial Commission was an independent arbiter in disputes between employer and employee.

In 1923, the Department of Labour and Industry undertook construction of its headquarters at 132 George Street in The Rocks. Sir George Fuller, then Premier of NSW, laid the foundation stone on 28 September 1923. The Department of Labour and Industry had occupied this site from 1906, as well as the building at 134–136 George Street, used as the State or Central Labour Exchange. The new headquarters was to be the Central Labour Exchange, as well as the Immigration Bureau. This bureau was became a part of the Department in 1919.

1923 was a challenging year for labouring classes of Sydney. The new building represented a threat to both striking and unemployed workers. The Royal Commission into Strikes began that year, and the introduction of the Empire Settlement Act 1922 and the Juvenile Migrants Apprenticeship Act 1923 paved the way for a new and competing workforce to Australia: the 'boy migrant'. In the early years of the twentieth century, the State Government sought to boost immigration to NSW, under the Dreadnought Scheme.

The Dreadnought Scheme, set up in 1911 and administered by the Department of Labour and Industry, brought the migration of 'boy migrants' and young men from Britain to work in farming and agriculture.  The Pitt Town farm was renamed Scheyville after William Schey, who was Director of the State Labour Bureau from 1905 to 1912. Scheyville provided the main accommodation for the Dreadnought Scheme, which ran from 1911–15, and then from 1919 to 1939. The Randwick Labour Farm (also known as the Randwick Labour Depot) was established in 1905. It was initially associated with the Casual Labour Farm at Scheyville and later the Dreadnought Scheme.

The role of the Department of Labour and Industry changed with the increasing pace of industrialisation. The Factories and Shops Act 1912 and later amendments to it, had a significant impact on the way that workplaces were set up and monitored. So while the Department still focused on providing help to the unemployed, through the 'susso' and unemployment relief works, it had a new focus; accident prevention in the workplace, particularly industrial accidents. Under changes to the Factories and Shops Act in 1915, inspectors carried out State wide factory inspections.

District offices were established at Newcastle. Broken Hill, Goulburn, Lismore, Orange, Tamworth, Wagga Wagga and Wollongong. Besides carrying out factory inspections, district inspectors (known as Country District Officers) were '…required to carry out work as Inspectors under the Industrial Arbitration Act and the Early Closing Acts, as well as that pertaining to the Departmental policy of Country Labour Exchanges'.

In 1940, the Department became the Department of Labour and Industry and Social Welfare. This was until the mid-1950s, when the Department of Child Welfare and Social Welfare was established.

The health and safety function of the Department dominated from the 1940s onwards, particularly after World War Two when there was a boom in the manufacturing sector. Under the Factories, Shops and Industries Act 1962, the definition of a 'factory' included '…cool stores, packing houses, ship-building yards, dock yards, wool stores and premises used for the manufacture of dairy products'.

By the 1960s and 70s, the Department continued the factory inspections and held advisory committees on safety standards. It engaged in preventative measures by holding conventions and forums on workplace safety, and by giving out occupational health and safety posters, and screening educational films with such titles as 'Don't Loose Your Grip' and 'Don't Be Sawed'. The Department was also responsible for regulating shop trading hours, public holidays and industrial law breaches. These are functions that the present Office of Industrial Relations continues today.

The Consumer Protection Act 1969 led the creation of the Consumer Affairs Division within the Department of Labour and Industry in 1969. The Consumer Affairs Division incorporated the Consumer Affairs Bureau, the Weights and Measures Office and the Prices Branch. In 1977, the Department of Consumer Affairs became a separate Government Department.

In 1979, the Department of Labour and Industry was abolished. A new Department of Industrial Relations and Technology was formed. The following year it was renamed the Department of Industrial Relations. As a result of a merge with the Ministry of Employment in 1986, the Department became known as the Department of Industrial Relations and Employment. The occupational health and safety functions were transferred out of the Department in 1989 to join with the State Compensation Board and form the Workcover Authority of NSW.

In 1989, John Fahey, the Minister for Industrial Relations and Employment in the Greiner Government, prepared an Information Paper announcing an overhaul of NSW's Industrial Relations system. Occupational health and safety inspections and regulations were taken over by a new statutory body known as Work Cover. In 1995 and 1996, the Department of Industrial Relations advised the Carr Government and the Minister for Industrial Relations, Jeff Shaw, on the development of what become the Industrial Relations Act 1996. During the tenure of Mr Shaw as Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations, portfolio responsibility for the Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales was transferred to the Attorney-General's Department.

In 2003, the Department of Industrial Relations became the Office of Industrial Relations (OIR) under the Department of Commerce. The commencement of the Federal Work Choices legislation in March 2006 reduced the number of employers and employees who were directly covered by the State industrial relations system. This moved employees of constitutional corporations under the federal workplace relations system. The reliance by the Commonwealth Government on the 'corporations' power in the Commonwealth Constitution was upheld by the High Court in the Work Choices case.

While the election of the Rudd Government in 2007 meant that the Commonwealth was committed to replacing Work Choices with a new Forward with Fairness system, the reliance on the constitutional corporation status of the employer as the marker of which system an employer and its employees belong to did not change.

The Forward with Fairness reforms saw changes to the controversial aspects of Work Choices legislation, while keeping some of the main elements, such as the 'federalisation' of workplace relations.

In 2009, the Office of Industrial Relations became NSW Industrial Relations (NSW IR), part of the Department of Services, Technology and Administration.

The NSW Government agreed to join the national workplace relations system in December 2009.

The Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) commenced on 1 January 2010, with the introduction of 10 National Employment Standards (NES) and a national system of industry specific modern awards underpinning the work of most Australians. A key function of NSW IR has been to assist those NSW businesses who had remained within the state system at the commencement of Work Choices (mainly sole traders and partnershps) to transition to the national system.  These businesses are completely covered by the national system on 1 January 2011.

NSW IR continues to provide best practice employment advice via its website and workshop and presentation program, assisting workers and employers in NSW.

In April 2011, the name of the Department of Services, Technology and Administration changed. NSW Industrial Relations is now a division of the Department of Finance and Services.

On 1 July 2012, the branch from the Department of Premier and Cabinet responsible for administering industrial relations policy and advice relating to the NSW public sector became part of NSW Industrial Relations. This branch is known as Public Sector Industrial Relations.

On 12 September 2012, NSW Industrial Relations was transferred to the NSW Treasury.

On 2 April 2019 a new Minister for Public Service and Employee Relations was sworn in by the NSW Governor. Related Machinery of Government changes post NSW State election transferred NSW Industrial Relations to the Department of Premier and Cabinet Cluster as part of it's Community Engagement branch.