Awards

Honorary Life Members

Ray Markey

Professor Ray Markey had an outstanding record in terms of both the quality and quantity of his publications across two fields: labour history and industrial relations. Nearly two dozen books, edited books and major reports, along with over 100 refereed articles and book chapters, speak of the extent of his contribution.

His work was animated by a deeply theoretically-informed set of approaches and by a serious engagement with pressing contemporary issues. His work was at once rigorous and relevant. Some colleagues may not be quite aware of the impact and quality of his work, beginning, perhaps, with his highly regarded study of the origins of the Labor Party. This book – The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales, 1880-1900 (NSW University Press, Sydney, 1988) – drew on massive primary research and social theory inspired by leading British social historians to redefine thinking about labour in Australia.

Not only was Ray one of the country’s leading labour historians, he was also an internationally-recognised leader in the fields of comparative industrial relations, employee voice and the field of climate change. He was closely engaged in policy debates about penalty rates and casualisation, working closely with peak bodies and individual unions in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia. He worked with the ILO and colleagues in Scandinavia.

Ray was a key leader across the field of industrial relations as:

  • Foundation Chairperson, 1987-90, Illawarra Branch, Industrial Relations Society of NSW.
  • Founding Director, Centre for Work and Labour Market Studies, University of Wollongong, 1987-2004.
  • Founding Director, New Zealand Work & Labour Market Institute, Auckland University of Technology, 2007-11.
  • New Zealand Employment Relations Society, Foundation Chair, 2009-11.

Throughout his career but perhaps most notably at Auckland University of Technology, Ray was an outstanding mentor. Supportive but demanding, he championed less experienced scholars and provided them with environments in which they could flourish. During Ray's time at AUT he effectively created the employment relations discipline and shaped the Human Resource/Employment Relations major within the undergraduate business degree.

Ray was a beloved member of AIRAANZ, he was a highly-respected, generous and committed member of the AIRAANZ executive committee, holding many senior leadership positions over the years. Ray embodied the true values and ethos of the Trans-Tasman spirit of AIRAANZ. He was responsible for fostering the careers of many academics in our community and leaves a fine legacy to those who follow behind him. Professor Ray Markey passed away on the 28th of April 2022.

Cathy Brigden

Professor Cathy Brigden became a life member at the online conference based in Sydney in 2021.

Her contribution to AIRAANZ has spanned many spheres: officeholder, regular inputs to conference proceedings, a leading role in the organisation of conferences, promotion of the interests of AIRAANZ and the discipline externally. Her commitment embodies the values of AIRAANZ. She has done at least as much as anyone behind the scenes to sustain the association.

Cathy has been attending AIRAANZ conferences since 1987 at Palmerston North (the third conference) as a fulltime tutor and postgraduate student. She was a member of the executive committee for 20 years, from 2000, including terms as President, Vice-President, and Secretary. She was a leading member of the Research Quality Framework/Excellence in Research Australia journal ranking sub-committee (2007-2012) at a critical juncture when journal ranking was introduced into the Australian university system. She has twice been a member of the conference organising committee (1995 and 2019) and has provided invaluable support to other organisers.

Cathy is a key figure in the significant labour history input to industrial relations amongst AIRAANZ members, particularly with her pathbreaking work on peak unionism, and more recently on gender and the role of women’s industrial organisation, as well as superannuation. In addition, Cathy’s work on the use of film in teaching of industrial relations has been particularly innovative, furthering the AIRAANZ practice of linking research and teaching.

In the best tradition of AIRAANZ, Cathy has engaged closely with the community of industrial relations practitioners. This is indicated in her work in the Victorian Trades Hall Council, History Project working party, 2015; Trades Hall’s Eight-Hour Day Anniversary Committee, 2003-2006; and as a part-time labour educator for the Vehicle Division of the AMWU, 2002-2003. Cathy has engaged with her own union (and its predecessors 1987-1993) as a founder member at national, state and branch level, as an NTEU National and Victorian Division Council member, 2002-2004, and a representative on the Victorian National Women’s Action Committee, 2006-2009.

Diana Kelly

Di Kelly has held academic positions at the University of Wollongong since 1983.

Her research has included the history of employment and industrial relations, the history of business and management thought, workplace health and safety, workplace bullying, and governance in higher education. Previously, she taught ER/IR, workplace negotiation, research methods, and HRM/OB but in recent years most teaching has been in undergraduate early modern Europe and world history. In 2020 she published an historical biography, The Red Taylorist: The Life and Times of Walter Nicholas Polakov(Bingley, Emerald). Di has supervised about 20 dissertations to completion in fields of labour regulations, politics, development studies, history, migration, and children's rights. She was a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Industrial Relations from 2008 – 2015 and has been on the editorial board of Economic and Labour Relations Review.

Di became an Honorary Life Member of AIRAANZ in 1999 after years of extensive service to the organisation, including as secretary from 1993 to 1998. She convened the 2001 Wollongong conference, and was on the organising committee for the 1989 Wollongong conference.

Russell D. Lansbury

Russell Lansbury became a life member at the 2011 Auckland conference.

Russell has worked with British Airways in the UK and has held a number of academic positions in universities within Australia and elsewhere, including Monash and the Graduate School of Management at Macquarie University. He was Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Sydney from 1987-2009 and became Professor Emeritus in 2009. He was the foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training (an ARC Key Centre) at the University of Sydney. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and honorary doctorates from Macquarie University and Lulea University of Technology, Sweden.

Russell was awarded a Senior Fulbright Fellowship at Harvard University and the Sloan School of Management at MIT, has been a Visiting Fellow at the Swedish Centre for Worklife Research in Stockholm and the International Institute for Labour Studies at the International Labour Organisation in Geneva, and a Shaw Foundation Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He received fellowships from the French, German, Danish, Finnish and Swedish governments in recent decades. He was made a General Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2009 and an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the General Division in 2018.

Russell was joint editor of the Journal of Industrial Relations from 1999-2009, and serves on the editorial boards of leading academic journals in North America, Europe and Asia. His major research contributions have been in the areas of international and comparative employment and industrial relations. His current research includes studies of the effects of management strategies of multinational enterprises on employment relations and labour practices. He has been joint editor of seven editions of International and Comparative Employment Relations, internationally the most consulted comparative textbook.

He has served on numerous government, industry and professional bodies. He has been a consultant to the ILO, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). He was President of the International Industrial Relations Association (IIRA, now ILERA) from 2006-2009, and of AIRAANZ in 1994.

Kevin Hince

Kevin Hince was the first AIRAANZ life member. 

After graduating from the University of Melbourne, he moved to London to play semi professional cricket and taught industrial relations at a vocational college in London, before returning to teach it at the University of Melbourne. He eventually moved from there to the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education in Churchill to become Dean of Business. There, he convened the inaugural AIRAANZ conference in 1983. In that year he moved across the Tasman to become Professor of Industrial Relations and the second Director of the Industrial Relations Centre (IRC) at Victoria University in Wellington, where he expanded industrial relations offerings and research substantially. Soon afterwards he convened the 3rd AIRAANZ conference in Palmerston North in 1987. Throughout this period and beyond Kevin was active within AIRAANZ from both sides of the Tasman.

Kevin Hince’s research focused on trade unions and labour history in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. The extensive range of his research interests included open cut coal mining in Queensland, shopfloor unionism, the Victorian wages board system, collective bargaining and employment legislation in New Zealand and the labour history of the New Zealand retail sector, trade unions in Fiji, and industrial relations in Kiribati. His collection of union records form the Kevin Hince Collection in the University of Melbourne Archives. He also pioneered industrial relations research in the South Pacific, as well as attracting students from the region to the IRC’s certificate and diploma courses. After retirement he co-authored (with S. Prasad and D. Snell) Employment and Industrial Relations in the South Pacific (McGraw-Hill, North Ryde, 2003), covering seven countries. In many ways he embodied the ethos and trans Tasman spirit of AIRAANZ. He passed away on 3 May 2020, aged 85.