This issue outlines our upcoming seminar 'Creating High Performing Public Sector Organisations' originally scheduled for February but now to be held on April 14, here at Victoria University.

Gordon Anderson discusses the recent Supreme Court of Canada judgment in two major cases, both of which reinforce the role that the Charter right to freedom of association plays in supporting the rights of workers to organise and collectively bargain. what does this mean for New Zealand?

We also include some interesting articles from The Centre for Workplace Leadership at Melbourne University.  Professor Peter Gahan, Director of the centre, will speak at our April seminar.

Following on from the work undertaken by the Productivity Commission on regulatory organisations, this seminar, to be held in Wellington on Tuesday April 14, brings together a strong lineup of leaders across the public sector to look at how the issues of public sector organisational performance are currently being addressed, strategies and tactics for success, and the role of leadership.

Programme

Registration

Professor Gordon Anderson, Faculty of Law, VUW

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in Article 2(d), guarantees that all Canadians have the right of freedom of association, a right also established in New Zealand by virtue of section 17 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. While many see freedom of association as encompassing the right to form unions and to take part in activities such as collective bargaining, that view is not one that has traditionally enjoyed judicial support. However, the Supreme Court of Canada has just commenced 2015 by issuing its judgment in two major cases, both of which reinforce the role that the Charter right to freedom of association plays in supporting the rights of workers to organise and collectively bargain.

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The Centre for Workplace Leadership at Melbourne University is a joint initiative supported with funding from the Federal Government of Australia and the University of Melbourne. They describe themselves as being “dedicated to excellence in leadership research, improving the quality of leadership in Australian workplaces, and developing individual leaders. We aim to bridge the gap between research insights and leadership practice” and therefore share similar objectives to CLEW. The significant funding that they have received is enabling them to establish a range of research projects around their key themes of ‘Future leadership’, ‘Leading and sustaining high performance workplaces’ and ‘Leading technology and workplace innovation’.

A key project, commissioned by the Australian Government Department of Industry, investigates high performance workplace practices among manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the barriers to adoption. The leader of the project Dr Brigid van Wanrooy provided an interesting update on the research in the following article/blog.

The report on the intial findings and the case studies from six enterprises can be downloaded from the Centre's website.