Fair Work Commission

AWRS acknowledgements from the President

The Australian Workplace Relations Study (AWRS) was established by the Fair Work Commission in May 2013 as part of an initiative to enhance the breadth and quality of information available to inform its work, and provide a valuable public resource to the Australian community more generally.

Over the course of the design and administration of the AWRS, the Commission has benefited from the guidance and support of a steering committee comprising employee and employer representative bodies and government organisations. I wish to thank these organisations, in particular the representatives who have served on the steering committee, for their contributions to the research. I would also like to thank these organisations for endorsing the AWRS as this greatly assisted us to achieve the level of participation we required amongst potential participants.

I also wish to thank the research community for volunteering their time and expertise to the process, particularly in the design of the data collection tools.

The project has greatly benefited from the dedication of the ORC International Project Team who undertook the data collection and processing components of the study. They worked tirelessly on the AWRS from testing the draft survey instruments in August 2013 to delivery of the processed data files and technical documentation in December 2014.

Most of all, sincere thanks goes to the 3057 enterprises and 7883 employees who voluntarily participated in the AWRS, and to those who provided valuable contributions to the Commission to test the survey instruments.

Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the AWRS Project Team, resourced mainly by the Commission’s Pay Equity Unit. A project of the size and scope of the AWRS presented many challenges and it took a great deal of expertise and dedication to reach this important milestone of releasing First Findings. We look forward to the upcoming AWRS data releases and the AWRS conference in June 2015.

Justice Iain Ross, AO
Chair, AWRS Steering Committee
President, Fair Work Commission