Considering Progress in an Australian

Greenfield Site

Keith Townsend
Griffith University, Australia

To characterise an ‘ideal-typical’ greenfield site, Baird

(2000) uses five dimensions. This article uses this framework
to assess the progress of one organisation in achieving
the ‘ideal-typical’ greenfield site. Some problems that the
organisation faced in its first two years of operation are
outlined and reasons that this greenfield site failed to
become an ideal-typical greenfield site are explored. These
reasons include seemingly pragmatic compromises made
by the management team to resolve immediate problems
that proved to be short-sighted and led to longer-term
problems. It is also contended that the parent company
of this greenfield site was using the site as one stage of a
broader de-unionising campaign.

Introduction

Organisations within the United Kingdom and the United States of

America have a long established history of relocating plants from
the ‘brownfield’ or established sites to ‘greenfield’ or new worksites.
Throughout the last quarter of the twentieth century, one of the key
motivations for relocating has been de-unionisation or remaining non-
unionised (Beaumont and Townley 1985; Lens 1985; Kochan, Katz
and McKersie 1986). Certainly capital mobility need not occur only
in terms of relocation, but in the flexibility to select an appropriate
greenfield site for a newly establishing organisation. That is, union
avoidance might not be the only reason for choosing a greenfield site
over refurbishing or redeveloping a brownfield site. Managers within
organisations are often challenged with making strategic decisions
of appropriate plant location based on factors such as (intended)
product markets, proximity to suppliers, labour markets, climatic and
geographic suitability, government legislation and possible incentives.
Without question, the legislative framework and trade union activity
are inextricably linked (Disney, Gosling and Machin 1998; O’Brien
2000). Federalist states such as the United States and Australia allow
a multi-tiered framework for employers establishing a new place of
business to ‘shop’ for the best deal and hence, the most appropriate site
for their operation.

79
80 Keith Townsend

While there has been debate throughout the last decade about
the degree to which the Australian industrial relations system
has been transformed (see for example; Kitay and Lansbury 1997;
ACIRRT 1999), this country’s organisations have a less-developed
level of capital mobility. However, there is increasing evidence within
Australia of organisations moving existing plants or setting up new
plants at greenfield sites (Baird 2001). Unfortunately, as Baird
recognises, knowledge of greenfield sites in Australia has been largely
limited to anecdotal evidence, leaving Australian researchers to rely
upon international empirical evidence for our understanding of this
particular organisational strategy. This case study of an Australian
greenfield site utilises Baird’s ideal-typical greenfield typology to
consider the management’s success in reaching their start-up goals
and adds to the level of empirical evidence for this country.
Greenfield sites are particularly interesting to study as they
provide an opportunity to understand the direction that management
and industrial relations may be developing. The motivations for such
moves can vary, from optimising the use of new technology, to more
insidious attempts to de-unionise or completely employ a new staff,
free of ‘old’ work practices. Australian Workplace Industrial Relations
Survey (AWIRS) data suggest that greenfield (new) sites have fewer
occupational categories, fewer unions,a and a lower incidence of
industrial disputes (Morehead, Steele et al. 1997: 51-53). Certainly these
points alone would provide managers with plenty to consider if their
current industrial arrangements seemed cumbersome, complicated or
problematic.
Firstly, this article will consider some of the existing research into
greenfield sites and outline Baird’s typology (2000). This is followed
by a brief description of the methodology used for this research. The
third section of this article outlines the development of the ‘FrOzone’
entity,b a wholly owned subsidiary of an Australian organisation, ‘The
Parent Organisation’ (TPO). This section will utilise Baird’s typology
to interpret the development of FrOzone. The final section of this
article discusses the problems faced by FrOzone managers and argues
that after two years of production the organisation had failed to reach
many of its start-up goals. Hence, the failure to reach the start-up
goals means that the FrOzone organisation does not measure up to be
an ‘ideal’ greenfield site for the management team.
Brownfield sites are bound by tradition, old equipment and
buildings in old established areas, often with a workforce—including
management—and unions that may be resistant to change. Moving to
a greenfield site provides organisations with an opportunity to break
free from the constraints that hold it and establish new processes and
work practices with an ultimate goal of increased profitability through
greater efficiency and productivity. Like many points of debate,
often the term ‘greenfield’ means different things to different people.
It is generally accepted that benefits of greenfield sites are that the
 Considering Progress in an Australian Greenfield Site

worksites are established without a pre-existing employment relations

system. This allows management to introduce a system that is viewed
as ideal. Leopold and Hallier (1999) recognise through their empirical
research that not all companies establish greenfield sites to break from
former employment relations. Indeed, in earlier work they suggest that
there are ‘many shades of green’ primarily determined by managerial
motivations (Leopold and Hallier 1997).
Greenfield sites in the United States in particular provide an
interesting comparison to Australian greenfield worksites. Greenfield
sites in the United States are largely non-union, but further, they are
often associated with union-busting strategies and union avoidance
(Katz 1985; Kochan et al. 1986; Walton, Cutcher-Gershenfeld and
McKersie 1994). In addition, a federalist system of government allow
managers within an organisation to ‘shop around’ and find a particular
location that best suits their specific requirements. The motivation of
many United States organisations has been a shift from the brownfield
sites throughout the northern states, towards the ‘sunbelt’ and
greenfield sites in the south. This activity is becoming more prominent
in Australia with one documented example being Fisher and Paykel,
a company that utilised this ability to ‘shop around’ in determining
an appropriate site for their expansion into Australia (Leopold and
Hallier 1999). Similar motivations that were utilised by TPO when
determining a plant location for FrOzone will be expanded upon later.
Other research has examined the motivation of managers who start
greenfield sites when they recruit young, ‘green’ staff (Leopold 2001).
Quite often greenfield sites have used ‘person-centred’ recruitment
that emphasises the ability of an employee to ‘fit in’. The disregard
of established skills can have negative implications for older workers
(Leopold 2001). The now ubiquitous term ‘culture’ is also a central
factor in many greenfield sites (Hurthouse and Kolb 2001). The aim of
managers to developed unitarist cultures to completely win the hearts
and minds of the workforce is well-documented (Kunda 1992; Barker
1993; Legge 1995; van den Broek 1997; Waring 1998; van den Broek
2004). However, in greenfield sites managers are able to develop their
‘culture’ from a blank canvas and employees are often recruited on the
basis of their ability to commit to the ‘culture’ despite the incapacity
of many managers to explain what exactly what is the ‘culture’ of the
organisation (Townsend 2005).
According to Baird (2001: 70, 71), there are five dimensions which
characterise the ‘ideal-typical’ greenfield site.c These are:
One New management philosophy and practice;
Two. The strategic use by management of location and
layout;
Three. New and innovative work organisation;
Four. Recruitment and selection of ‘new’ employees; and
Five. The alteration of traditional union-management
relationships.
82 Keith Townsend

This article will use Baird’s framework to analyse the development

of TPO’s greenfield site at FrOzone. Through the overlapping benefits
sought by the organisation in dimensions One to Four, it is argued
that the development of the FrOzone culture was an attempt at
union avoidance. Part of the aim was also to develop a managerial
framework that can be transferred to other areas of TPO with a view to
systematically limiting union effectiveness, or indeed, de-unionising.
However, this evolution has not progressed smoothly.
The data for this research were collected through 13 interviews
with managerial staff and union officials. There was also an eight-
month period of ethnographic job observation where extensive
discussions could be held with employees. In addition, the examination
of organisational documentation added to the data collection process.
In a further attempt to understand the motivations behind the
development of FrOzone, some information was sought from documents
that were within the public domain including parliamentary debates
and company websites. Combined, these data collection techniques
allowed a range of information that was ‘formal and on-the-record’ to
be supplemented with informal information, meaning that comments
from employees that did not conform to the management line could be
adequately analysed and presented. To maintain confidentiality, where
such sources are used they are acknowledged without full reference
details. Data collection occurred throughout 2003 and 2004.
TPO consists of a range of diverse operations, from transport to food
processing. Throughout 1999, TPO developed a concept for a new entity,
to develop and produce ‘innovative meal solutions to meet individual…
customer needs’ (FrOzone 2002). The previously mentioned strategic
challenges in relation to plant location will be traced below. Another
strategic choice was the development of an organisational culture that
was intended to meet the brief from TPO to ‘keep FrOzone as far removed
from The Parent Organisation as possible’.d It is widely acknowledged
within the management team that an important aspect of this brief
was to ensure the new entity would be removed from the troublesome
industrial activities of TPO.e FrOzone management interpreted this as
establishing an organisational structure, a management style and a
workforce culture that meant employees would not feel the need to join
a union.f The evidence presented through this case study suggested
that while the management of FrOzone had planned for the greenfield
site to minimise (or avoid) union involvement, it appears to have had
only limited success. If efforts had been more successful, FrOzone may
have offered TPO a managerial ‘template’ to systematically de-unionise
the rest of the organisation.
 Considering Progress in an Australian Greenfield Site

‘Ideal-Typical’ Greenfield Site?

New Management Philosophy and Practice

A significant part of the motivation for TPO in establishing the greenfield
plant was to move away from the adversarial culture present in TPO’s
brownfield sites operating within the food processing industry.g The
first stage of progression for the development was to form a project team
to progress a business plan for submission to TPO board. The project
team consisted of three TPO (management level) employees with a
cross-section of skills and specialities, from separate TPO subsidiaries.
Progressing the business plan required much international travel,
including a worldwide search for best practice in food preparation.
Further, a key requirement for the project team was to identify and
recruit a suitably experienced candidate to assist in developing the
submission to the TPO board.h The project team selected a suitable
external candidate who had previously been involved in establishing
similar organisations in Scandinavian countries.
The project team began a multitude of concurrent activities,
including approaching State governments to find a suitable location for
the plant and developing an economic plan for the new entity. The team
presented the board with their completed business plan in September
2000 and the plan was considered and approved immediately.i With
acceptance of the proposal the board offered the project team a
more focused brief: to ‘develop a business that while a wholly owned
subsidiary, it would be as far removed from the parent organisation as
possible. The goal was to create a culturally unique business’.j Implicit
in this brief was to ensure that union involvement was limited; hence
only one of TPO’s unions was recognised as a bargaining agent in the
new organisation. The question arises: if union avoidance was really a
goal, why was there any union recognition at all? This question will be
addressed in an upcoming section that focuses upon union/management
relations.
The management team set about establishing a pathway to
reaching the ‘vision’ for the new entity. It was the process of realising
the vision that the team found particularly challenging:

We knew what we wanted, we had the vision of what we wanted to do

but we weren’t sure of how to go about reaching the goal.k

The management team determined that the main cause of their

difficulty was the fact that all of their collective experience had been in
organisations with traditional hierarchical structures.
To resolve the issue of creating the vision, after five months
the project team employed the services of a ‘Performance Coaching
Consultant’. This consultant was employed to assist in the ‘de-
programming’ of the new management so they could ‘forget about all
the things we thought we knew about managing people and running a
84 Keith Townsend

business’.l This process involved spending two days a week behind closed
doors working through the stages of deprogramming and learning each
week prior to the opening of the plant. According to a management
team member they began the process quite cynically, before they were
‘deprogrammed’, and became more aware of the opportunities available
to them.

…after a few months it really started to mean something and I could

almost recall the day when we just had this awakening… After that
we started to create a mission statement and… make decisions.
We wanted a flat structure and to ensure that quality and open
communication developed. We wanted to lead not to manage—we
wanted to seek guidance from the team members not instruct.m

The project team recognised that all of the management staff had
arrived at FrOzone from management hierarchies and reporting lines
that were very bureaucratic. As the vision developed, the management
group was determined to create a business where they could instil ‘self-
responsibility’ (a commonly quoted term from management and staff
alike) in employees at all levels of the business and as an outcome,
create high-performance work teams. To do this, an important factor
would be a greater emphasis on ‘open and honest’ communication (again,
a commonly quoted term from management and staff alike), more
sophisticated personnel recruitment processes, payment structured for
successful achievement of team goals, and a multi-skilled staff.

Plant Location and Design

While the management philosophy and practice was developing,
discussions pertaining to plant location and design were being made.
As mentioned earlier in this article, the federalist structure of Australia
provides organisations the opportunity to ‘shop around’ and negotiate
with regional authorities in an attempt to negotiate the best possible
outcome for the new entity. Leopold and Hallier (1999) cite this as
a key aspect of Fisher and Paykel’s plant location decision in this
company’s expansion into the Australian market. Equally as interested
in securing the best possible outcome for the organisation, the FrOzone
project team entered into negotiations with three state governments
that provided the key aspects required for the new site.n The agreement
that was made for the new site was determined appropriate for a number
of reasons. Certainly one of these reasons was the tax incentives that
were offered by the State government. In conjunction with negotiations
with State level bureaucrats, the team negotiated with local councils
to find a suitable site. Other issues were the lease arrangements
offered by the local council, the proximity to the eastern seaboard road
network and the availability of fresh produce.o Further, this particular
city was also an area with relatively high unemployment and strategic
benefit to the organisation.p The suitable site was agreed upon and
construction began (FrOzone 2001).
 Considering Progress in an Australian Greenfield Site

A key factor in the plant design was that the organisation would be
utilising a just-in-time (JIT) production system. The JIT system was
pioneered within Toyota motors, with the idea that components are
delivered in precise quantities and at the exact time that they are needed
in the production process. Tight quality control is essential with this
style of system, as defective or insufficient parts immediately disrupt
production. JIT can be seen as a relatively simple way of effectively
coordinating the production process in which a large group of different
components are ultimately assembled into a final product (Turnbull
1998; Benders and Van Hootegem 2000). In the case FrOzone, the final
product is a frozen individual serve-sized meal.
Staff canteen and washroom facilities were incorporated and
common to management staff and employees alike. The organisation
offered the staff one meal per shift in the canteen,q allowing the
production employees the opportunity to (potentially) be eating
their lunch with their general manager. However, employees noted
this occurrence was almost unheard of. Other aspects of the newly
developing culture were incorporated into the plant design at the very
late stages. A last minute decision was made by the project team to
have no offices. Everyone from the general manager down (a phrase
evocative of hierarchy from which FrOzone managers would resile) had
an open plan work area. The only exceptions were to be if a separate
office was required because of proximity to food processing. According
to a project team member, this decision was made while construction
was occurring and the team was on-site in a demountable building.r It
was deemed a necessary decision if employees were to feel ‘part of the
team’ and not just a group of employees.
This worksite was designed with the basic premise of a flow shop.
Some benefits of such a design include the efficient use of space and
constant processing times (Meredith and Shafer 2002). The plan ensured
a single level plant where all physical barriers were removed as far as
practically possible while still ensuring the safety and integrity of the
cooking and storage processes. All processes followed a natural flow,
with fresh goods arriving at the eastern side of the plant and storage
facilities immediately beside the docks. Heading towards the western
side of the plant and away from the docks was the site of the cooking
area. This was followed by a natural progression to the catchment
region for immediately cooked products, and immediately to the west
of the catchment area were the assembly sections. In the assembly
sections, conveyor belts moved the trays past employees’ workstations
for the inclusion of food products and mechanised addition of sauces
and so on. From here, the self-contained food packages spiralled
through a freezer before returning to the next section for packaging
and storage. The completed meals left the plant via trucks on the far
western side. Ideally, there was no requirement for employees to be
going further than a few metres for all requisite equipment, regardless
of the section in which they worked. Management wanted a plant design
86 Keith Townsend

that would provide efficient use of potentially productive time, and as a

consequence, limit employee resistance in terms of the (re)appropriation
of time (Thompson and Ackroyd 1995; Ackroyd and Thompson 1999).
A plant layout where employees were not required to move far from
their workspace would limit the possibility of employee ‘loafing’ and
potentially avoid the temptation of employee ‘theft of time’.

New and Innovative Work Organisation

The issue of new and innovative work design was closely related to
management philosophy. Semi-autonomous work groups (SAWG)
were a goal for management; hence, decisions that traditionally are
viewed as managerial prerogative were incorporated into the processes
of the work group. Hierarchical decision-making was to be avoided
and employees were encouraged to promote new ideas and areas for
improving the processes of work. This was not done in a formal quality
circle process, rather as a ‘natural’ part of everyday activities. There
is literature that explores the difference between practitioner and
academic use of language in relation to teams (Ingram and Desombre
1999). This is certainly true in this case with the managers using terms
like SAWGs and teams interchangeably.
Employees were allocated work areas determined by supervisors
as necessary to meet line balance requirements, which is to say,
the employees did not decide the allocation of employees as is often
associated with SAWGs.s Employees were then confronted with very
different processes depending upon the area to which they had been
allocated. Employees in the eastern areas of the plant were permitted
the freedom to determine the pace of their work as they did not have
machines determining the flow of meals. However, once cooked, the
food (and therefore the pace of work for employees) was driven by
technology. For example, an employee cooking chicken fillets on a
conveyor belt (referred to as a belt grill) can determine the pace with
which they place the fillets on the belt. An employee at the other end
of the building in the assembly section had to place the chicken fillets
in three containers every two seconds, as the conveyor belt pushed the
containers past the employee’s workstation.
According to the vast majority of employees, and clearly apparent to
the researcher, the area of assembly contained by far the most tedious of
tasks to be performed. As a result, managers had a policy of job-rotation
and multi-skilling. This, in conjunction with employee involvement in
recruiting (discussed further below) and decision-making appears to
have provided team members with quite a substantial level of control
in this workplace. However, the teams were not self-managing, and
indeed the managers realised they were indeed still ‘assisting’ the
teams to take advantage of the freedoms which they were endowed. The
result of this reservation on the part of the employees was the insertion
of an additional layer of management in the form of team supervisors.
This occurred after approximately four months of operation. As such,
 Considering Progress in an Australian Greenfield Site

much of the ‘new’ and ‘innovative’ work organisation fell by the wayside
when production pressures increased after opening.

Recruitment and Selection of Employees

The catchment area selected for the FrOzone greenfield site provided
the organisation with a prospective labour market that while potentially
low-skilled, had not developed a culture of work unsuitable to the
managerial defined culture within the new organisation. In August
2001 the project team began the next level of recruitment. Two months
was devoted to recruiting approximately 30 people into positions such
as team leaders, research and development staff, quality assurance
staff, and administration staff.t Initial resources were devoted to
sharing the benefits of performance coaching to the new team members;
in short, developing the predetermined culture. Important in selecting
the employees that would take the lead in this cultural development
was to find people who were ‘willing to learn’.u It was determined that
the most suitable potential employees would be people who were ‘open
and honest people - people who are robust and are willing to question
without arrogance’.v
After the initial recruitment, the FrOzone human resource officer
set about establishing a recruitment process in an attempt to hire
the ‘correct individual… [S]ome organisations just take any square
peg but we make sure we find the round peg for the round hole’.w The
recruitment process included positions being advertised and shortlists
developed after which potential recruits were telephone interviewed.
Those applicants who made it thus far were gathered and provided
information on shifts, wages, position description, uniforms, breaks,
travel benefits, free lunches, and the rest of the recruitment process.
The remainder of the recruitment processes included a criminal
history check, drug testing, and a medical test.x The HR Team Leader
indicated that she then allowed time after telling applicants they could
withdraw if they did not think that the job or the organisation was
appropriate for them; some did. Those who remained were faced with
three separate written tests: mechanical reasoning, mathematics and
applied reading.
Managerial representatives for the organisation continually stated
the mantra that they looked for ‘ability and attitude—not skills—if they
are willing to learn they are better to employ’. This ability and attitude
was witnessed through the final stages of recruitment, a half-day of
role-playing and behavioural interviews. The general team members
were currently being trained to perform this stage of the recruitment
process. The human resource officer reported that the main factors that
are sought were demonstrably ‘team focussed and caring people’ and
that the ‘role-playing is most indicative of who will be successful’.y
88 Keith Townsend

Union-Management Relationships
TPO was highly unionised by Australian standards, with the other
food processing plants within the group having more than 90 percent
union membership desnity.z Furthermore, TPO was regularly faced
with industrial action from its various unions.
TPO was planning to make more than 100 positions at their
brownfield sites redundant when FrOzone became operational. As
a consequence of difficult union/management relationships at the
brownfield sites, TPO took a longer term approach to avoiding the
union at FrOzone. By recognising the largest and most active TPO
union from the beginning of the new project TPO was able to avoid
industrial action at any of its brownfield sites. Furthermore, TPO
wanted an enterprise bargaining agreement in place by the time the
business proposal went to the board. Hence, agreeing with the union
to a greenfield site agreement [as provided for by section 170LL of the
Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cth)] was a strategic trade-off on the
part of the TPO management. This meant the FrOzone management
could establish their organisation without TPO fearing or suffering
from industrial disputes in their brownfield sites.
The FrOzone management team made a conscious determination
to ensure they kept employees comfortable without feeling union
membership was required. Indeed, a management team member
suggested: ‘no union was the intention but it takes a lot of work to keep
the employees happy’.aa Further, the HR Team Leader suggested:

What the union have to understand is they aren’t needed here. We

are looking after our staff and what they should be doing is going
down the road and looking at the company who isn’t looking after
their employees. ab

Interestingly, members of the management team indicated that

the successful development of the FrOzone culture was likely to lead
to TPO using the framework at other highly unionised plants in an
attempt to limit the union’s involvement, or de-unionise.ac TPO upper
management members had been quoted in the mainstream media
as employing ‘strikebreaking’ personnel and refer to such actions as
‘customer protection’. Further, team-leaders had been told that their
positions at FrOzone were only temporary and that TPO was interested
in them being involved in ‘other ventures’. The implication to the team
supervisors was that if they proved their worth at FrOzone they would
have opportunities to be promoted to higher positions in similar non-
union start-ups in the future.ad

Discussion

To this point, the article has utilised Baird’s five-point framework of

‘ideal-typical’ greenfield sites to analyse the development of FrOzone.
This section will discuss aspects of the FrOzone case that illustrate
 Considering Progress in an Australian Greenfield Site

through the overlapping benefits sought by the organisation in

dimensions One to Four, that the development of the FrOzone culture
is an attempt at union avoidance. Some of the challenges that managers
faced, leading the management team to acknowledge and accept that
‘postponing’ union involvement was a more accurate characterisation,
will be discussed. However, the progression of time and actions of
TPO management suggests that widespread de-unionisation is in the
strategic plan of the organisation.
Certainly the management team at FrOzone had committed
significant resources into developing a culture in which employees
felt important, and part of the ‘bigger picture’. Commonly, employees
referred to being pleased to work in an organisation where managers
were approachable and interested in the views of the employees.
However, while some appear enthused, many other employees remained
cynical at this style of manipulated culture. One employee expressively
summed up the feelings of many at FrOzone:

The thing we all hate most is the manipulation. Talking about equality,
everyone’s equal in this place and you can see that because even the
boss doesn’t have an office, you know? I say, bullshit—when you try
living on $390 a week then come back and talk to me about equality
because at the moment equality is bullshit mate, it’s just a crock of
fucking bullshit and it really pisses me off when they say it to us. And
they say it with a straight face—it must be something they learn at
uni, is it?

Employee involvement in decision-making is something that

the majority of employees in the organisation had never confronted
in previous employment. In addition, it had been challenging for
management staff and employees alike. For example, leading up to
the interruption to operations for the Easter holiday period in 2003,
the management team provided employees with an opportunity to vote
on whether the plant would close for four days. Closure would ensure
that, along with public holidays, employees would have ten days leave
with only half of this leave paid. A number of employees remained
sceptical of the process with a common claim being along the lines of
this comment:

They’ll do what they want to do anyway, won’t they? It all depends on

production, let’s not kid ourselves.

Some managers also found this process to be quite difficult as this

was one of the first real exercises in giving up managerial prerogative
to employees. Incidentally, 69 per cent of the employees voted for an
unpaid shutdown.
Fellow team members performed the training of employees within
FrOzone. Each piece of equipment had an individual learning unit
associated with it and employees earned points for performing these
90 Keith Townsend

units contributing towards pay increases. From management’s pers-

pective, peer-learning and multi-skilling were key factors in limiting the
need for managers and supervisors on the shop floor. However, policies
of peer-learning and multi-skilling provided additional challenges for
managers to overcome. Such challenges included finding adequate
time for employees to complete training units, for example. According
to numerous employees, immediately after start-up training was
adequately coordinated. However as production pressures increased
throughout first twelve months of operation, training became less
important than ‘getting the job done’.
Multi-skilling was closely linked to job rotation. That is, employees
needed to be multi-skilled if they were going to rotate through various
jobs. At FrOzone, employees enjoyed the autonomy associated with the
early stages of production and were intolerant of the tedium associated
with the technological driven processes on the conveyor belt. Hence,
management staff found it difficult to have the employees understand
that being sent to the conveyor belt was not a punishment. Again,
the cry of inequality came from the workers who realised that six
months in the ‘hell-pit’ae would be difficult to bear and believed that
new employees should ‘do their time’ before existing employees were
rotated into the assembly line areas.
Interestingly, recruitment was shaping up to be a double-edged
sword for the management at FrOzone. While the HR Team leader
suggested that the organisation sought to employ people who were
‘robust and are willing to question without arrogance’af it was apparent
to the researcher that many employees with such traits seemed to see
through the rhetoric of management. Employees continually referred
to feeling daunted by the recruitment processes and when successful
felt rather proud of their achievement. However, the reality of being
in a job where you face ‘the same shit, just different people’ means
employees soon drop the ‘one big team’ ideology and regather an
approach of ‘us and them’. As one operator pointed out:

The worst part is the things you have to do to get a job here and then
they say you’re really good because you succeeded and they still treat
you like idiots.

And:

It’s manipulation. You believe one thing and they are trying to convince
you of something else. And it’s like, the more times they tell us, the
more they think we’ll believe it. And it’s bullshit, the more times they
tell us the more times I think that they are wankers who don’t have
any idea about what’s really going on.

After six months of operations, the union identified the greenfield

site as one with potential for membership that had thus far been
untapped. The union committed one or two representatives to the
 Considering Progress in an Australian Greenfield Site

organisation every week to sit in the canteen for a few hours. The
union representative suggested that ‘it’s difficult to convince low
paid employees to give up even more money to pay the union dues’.ag
Although the union made a concerted commitment to recruit members,
there were few employees joining. However, many suggested they were
interested in joining the union but were going to wait and see ‘how
things pan out for the others [other union members]’. Recently, FrOzone
were due to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement for the
enterprise (an EBA), a process that from management’s perspective
had disturbing effects on the workplace culture.
The management approached negotiations for the EBA by giving
the employees a vote on whether a third party (the union) was to be
involved. The majority of employees (72 per cent) voted against union
involvement. However, not all employees were prepared to accept
the vote’s outcome. Indeed, rather than gel the spirit of the team as
management had attempted to do since FrOzone’s inception, this
process of negotiating pitted union employees against non-union
employees, internal teams against each other and workers against
management. According to one operator: ‘it was awful—no matter what
culture they may have developed it was destroyed in a week’. After
spending some time before the federal tribunal overseeing agreement
making, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, FrOzone
managers maintained their commitment to serve the interests of the
majority of employees and agreed to a three per cent wage increase
without formalising the increase through an enterprise bargaining
agreement. As a consequence, the union had essentially been pressed
into irrelevance as the employer chose not to bargain and union
membership remained low within the organisation.
From a perspective of two years since operations commenced,
managers of FrOzone were still persevering in developing their ‘unique
culture’. However, evidence suggested that the employees were not
waiting around for the utopia to develop and had established a culture
of their own; a culture where employees felt that the management were
only marginally different in FrOzone than in any other organisation in
which they may have been previously employed. Further, employees
felt the managerially-initiated monoculture had few benefits to them,
and was really an exercise in manipulation. This is unsurprising as the
inability of managerially-developed unitarist cultures to completely
win the hearts and minds of the workforce has been well-documented
(Kunda 1992; Barker 1993; Legge 1995; van den Broek 1997; Waring
1998; van den Broek 2004). However, it appeared that union numbers
were fluctuating, with some employees joining and others resigning
their union membership. Hence, it may perhaps be too early to
determine whether the union avoidance strategy has been successful,
or if union postponement will be the reality. Importantly for the 2,000
or more union members at the TPO brownfield sites, this may have
been the early stages of a larger de-unionisation campaign.
92 Keith Townsend

Since this research was undertaken, Australia’s industrial

relations legislation has undergone a substantial change, termed
the ‘WorkChoices’ amendments. The new framework appears to be
supportive of managerial regimes that wish to undermine employee
collectivism and union membership (Briggs, Cooper and Ellem 2005).
With regard to greenfield sites in particular, WorkChoices allows
greenfield agreements to be established, not only without union
involvement, but also prior to any employees being recruited (Andrews
2005). Such legislation provides employees in greenfield workplaces
with no choice about their employment conditions save the choice
between accepting a job and not accepting a job. Clearly, there are even
greater incentives under this legislation for managers to consider the
possibilities of establishing greenfield sites as a means to de-unionise,
avoid unions or simply reduce wages and working conditions for the
potential workforce.

Conclusion

There are many processes that an organisation must consider when they
are establishing a new worksite. Where altering industrial relations is
a goal, there are five key components of an ‘ideal-typical’ greenfield site.
This case study has utilised Baird’s typology to measure the success of
one organisation in developing a greenfield worksite. TPO established
a greenfield site with a goal being the development of a culture that
provideed employees a sense of belonging and hence, no desire to join
a union. The successful development of such a culture would ensure
the new venture, FrOzone, would remain without union involvement.
Furthermore, successful development of the culture would allow the
transplanting of the culture to existing TPO brownfield worksites in an
attempt to de-unionise on a broad scale. However, evidence from this
case study indicated that the organisation was failing in developing
the desired culture and the exercise may have only been a case of
postponement of unionisation. If TPO was hoping to use the FrOzone
‘culture’ as a tool in a broad scale movement towards de-unionising
TPO, then the de-unionisation goal was either a long way from fruition,
or alternatively, forced downwards on the list of priorities through this
greenfield experiment.
This case study demonstrated that managers within organisations
make decisions based on what appears a reasonable proposition at that
time. The TPO board felt that a greenfield site would be a positive
strategic action for their future business success. While the alteration
of union/management relations is one aspect of the ideal-typical
greenfield site, this was a primary goal of the project team. Hence, the
development of new management philosophy, the plant location and
design, the new and innovative work organisation, and policies related
to the recruitment and selection of employees all suggest that FrOzone
comes close to what can be referred to as an ideal-typical greenfield
 Considering Progress in an Australian Greenfield Site

site. However, these aspects of the new worksite were essential, not
simply for their own sake, but as a framework to support the primary
goal of the greenfield site. That is, to ensure the successful alteration
of the union/management relationship resulting in successful union
avoidance and from there, the potential de-unionisation of TPO. It is
only with the further passing of time that the management of FrOzone
will be able to determine the success of this union avoidance strategy.

Notes

a Large workplaces in Australia typically have multi-union coverage.

b Pseudonyms are used throughout this article.
c Baird has modified Newell’s 1991 typology. Newell presents four
factors; Baird adds changes in management/union relations.
d FrOzone Management Team Member, 19 March 2003.
e Production Team Leader, 17 January 2003; Management Team
Member, 19 March 2003; Union Representative, 14 April 2003.
f Management Team Member, 19 March 2003.
g Production Team Leader, 17 January 2003; Management Team
Member, 19 March 2003; Union Representative, 14 April 2003.
h Management Team Member, 19 March 2003.
i Management Team Member, 19 March 2003.
j Management Team Member, 19 March 2003.
k Management Team Member, 19 March 2003.
l Management Team Member, 19 March 2003.
m Management Team Member, 19 March 2003.
n Interview: Management Team Member, 19 March 2003; also confirmed
in Parliamentary Debates.
o Local Council Website quoting FrOzone General Manager.
p Management Team Member, 19 March 2003.
q Often the staff had meals that are on the R&D trial menu, or have
failed to reach quality standards due to a very minor breach.
r 17 January 2003.
s Team Supervisor, 4 March 2003.
t Management Team Member, 19 March 2003.
u HR Officer, 12 March 2003.
v HR Officer, 12 March 2003.
w 12 March 2003.
x FrOzone recruitment policy documents.
y HR Officer, 12 March 2003.
z Interview: Union representative, 14 April 2003.
aa 16 July 2003.
94 Keith Townsend

ab 12 July 2003.
ac 16 July 2003.
ad Team supervisor, 4 March 2003.
ae An appellation elicited by the tedium of the tasks and the red painted
floors to demarcate the assembly section.
af HR Officer, 12 March 2003.
ag 14 April 2003.

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