Research
Beale, G. (2024). Just Transitions: Just for Whom? Lessons from Australia’s Automotive Closure. In. Cebulla, A (Ed) The Future of Work and Technology Global Trends, Challenges and Policies with an Australian Perspective (pp. 97 - 116) CRC Press, Abingdon, England.
Beale, G. (2023). Opinion: Just for Whom? Australia’s Auto Closure Lessons, Just Transition Insights, Issue #22, October 2023 (subscription).
Gemma’s PhD: Recalibrated expectations: A qualitative longitudinal investigation into precarious work and industry closure
In October of 2017, General Motors Holden’s Elizabeth plant produced its last red commodore and, in doing so, marked the end of 70 years of motor vehicle assembly operations in Australia. This closure was distinct from past closures in that although it happened during a period of relative economic stability, there had been a clear and well-documented deterioration in job stability and job quality in Australia over the three preceding decades. To date, there has been relatively little research into the impact of high rates of precarious employment on closures and other mass unemployment events. And, of that pool of research, even less has explored the intersection of these two issues in the Australian landscape. This thesis addressed that oversight.
Writing
Business is trying to scare us about ‘same job, same pay’. But the proposal isn’t scary, The Conversation, June 2023
The employer groups are right about one thing. What’s at stake is fairness, although not in the way they suggest.
Life after Holden, The Adelaide Review, 9 April 2020
The first autoworker I spoke to six months after closure told me he would go back to Holden’s “in a heartbeat”. Job loss is a structural as well as a personal story and these stories are important because they remind us what a good job can mean. That workplaces built on safety and respect can nurture a happy and healthy workforce committed to the success and growth of their company. That job stability can build community.
Hating on the Woodville Pizza guy won’t fix a problem that was entirely foreseeable, The Conversation, 24 November 2020
Can we reform public transport without throwing users under the bus?, The Adelaide Review, August 2020
South Australia’s legacy of reproductive rights reform risks being derailed in parliament ,The Adelaide Review, September 2020
South Australians are rightly proud of our historic record on matters of equity. We are proud of the work of Catherine Helen Spence and Mary Lee that meant South Australian women were the first in the country allowed to vote. Of Gladys Elphick, president of the Council of Aboriginal Women of South Australia; and of Augusta Zadow, founding member of the Working Women’s Trade Union.
But this pride can lead to complacency. None of those women worked alone, and each notable success is borne of tireless and dry work eking out safer spaces, metre by one hundred and fifty metres. The work is unending, and this amendment is part of a legacy. A seemingly simple request: that people accessing abortions, and the loved ones who accompany them, not be subject to the harassment of strangers.
Wage theft thrives in times of precarious employment, and 2020 is a perfect storm, The Adelaide Review, August 2020
More South Australians are returning to workplaces, but sexual harassment and exploitation shouldn’t, The Adelaide Review, 22 May 2020
COVID-19 exposes the fragility of Australia’s workforce, The Adelaide Review, 19 March 2020
Government shows a lack of humanities in post-COVID universities plan, The Adelaide Review, 19 June 2020
Recent history shows us the new perspectives brought by first-in-family, poor and racially diverse graduates are vital to holistic theory. We are barely halfway through a year that has already inundated us with once in a lifetime events. Now more than ever we need to eliminate our real and rhetorical blind spots. During social and economic upheaval, we need thinkers from the groups most directly impacted. It would be a great shame if these price signals, read by their intended audience, inhibit that.
Minister Tehan’s education overhaul reveals an incredibly narrow understanding of both what it means to be job ready, and what kind of workforce we really need. This is not an all-or-nothing game; we can incentivise studying psychology and tech without literally doubling the cost of studying history.
Fair pay is a right, not a Christmas present, The Adelaide Review, 20 December 2019
Casualisation putting brakes on SA growth, The Advertiser, August 2019