The legal influences which consists of regulations and legislations, encourage the employers and employees to make direct agreement about the terms and conditions of employment that will apply at the workplace, and in this way, the power of unions are weakened as there are restrictions on union right of entry to workplaces and on the enforcement of union membership. Meanwhile, the economic influences on employment relations include the level of economic activity, which involves several stages. Globalization is also another major economic influence on employment relations. It means that Australian businesses have to produce products and services that can compete worldwide, and it is expected that more and more Australian businesses are likely to be doing business in other countries. And as a result, managing multicultural and diverse workforces provides a challenge for employment relations managers, while efficiencies have also to be matched with competitors all over the globe.
New organizational behavior also has an impact on the employment relations; for instance, in businesses with a traditional pyramid structure, high-level managers are at top and workers are at the bottom with layers of middle managers in between. As a result, there is little or even none if any direct contact between top management and the workers, while the process of