The mythology of 'staff' employment : a weapon of mass construction

This paper explores the use of symbols and myths by management of Rio Tinto as important components of their weaponry for implementing a de-unionisation program throughout their Australian operations. The special use of language, categorisations and generalisations, have been crucial to the company’s successful implementation of “staff” employment. The ability of management to challenge and undermine traditional mythologies and develop new ones has been an essential ingredient in the company’s recipe for success in its efforts to deunionise its workforce. In particular, the paper explores management’s skill in promoting either the equalisation or differentiation aspects of “staff” employment. The paper concludes that one of the distinguishing features of “staff” employment has been it’s ability to promote the appearance of equalisation while actually leading to an enhanced differentiation of power between workers and managers.

Dream dolls : misogyny and political mythology in fin de siecle Australian culture

Examines Australian nationalism from the 1890s onwards through the interaction between cultural stereotypes of the feminine and issues of identity, citizenship and political constructions of "democracy". The employment of an idealised masculine aesthetic as catalyst to creating an imagined state was compared in Australia and Wilhelmine Germany.

Radicalising Medeas : Euripidean mobilisations of maternal infanticide

The thesis argues that the representation of divinely sanctioned infanticide in Euripides' Medea enables an oppositional voice that politicises the definitions of the rights-bearing individual, particularly in terms of cultural and sexual difference. Modern Medeas mobilise the Euripidean motif to construct, and render radical their respective anti-imperial and feminist politics.