Abstract
Australia’s enterprise-level collective bargaining system has experienced a sharp decline in coverage, falling from 27% of employees in 2012 to only 15% by late 2021. This reduction reflects a broader pattern across Anglosphere nations, where decentralised bargaining structures have struggled to sustain coverage. This decline has paralleled the rise of the "fissured workplace", a term coined by US economist David Weil to describe outsourcing and fragmentation strategies used by corporations to evade employer obligations and undermine collective bargaining. The article examines the institutional drivers of the decline of enterprise bargaining coverage in Australia and explores alternative regulatory models. It argues that the Fair Work Act structurally constrains broad-based bargaining through provisions that largely restrict bargaining to a single firm. By contrast, Denmark’s system of sectoral bargaining, characterised by ‘organised decentralisation’, sustains high levels of coverage through coordinated multi-level bargaining structures. The paper has three parts: Part 1 explains the historical context behind the decline of collective bargaining coverage in Australia with attention to the shift away from the award system. Part 2 examines the particular ways the Fair Work Act hinders broad based collective bargaining. Part 3 presents the Danish sectoral bargaining model as an alternative to enterprise-level bargaining systems. The discussion concludes that sectoral bargaining models offer a viable pathway to revitalise collective bargaining in Australia by expanding bargaining coverage and enhancing employee voice in the workplace.