Joe Isaac (1922–2019)
AO, BCom (1944), BA Hons (1944), PhD (1950) LSE, DCom (2001)
Joseph Ezra 'Joe' Isaac was a highly esteemed labor economist and public policy expert whose groundbreaking work in industrial relations left a lasting legacy that influenced generations of students and policymakers alike.
A highly respected and internationally recognised academic and public policy expert of labour economics and industrial relations, Joseph Ezra ‘Joe’ Isaac has had a long-lasting influence. He robustly linked the theory and practice of industrial relations, his advice changed wage legislation, and he facilitated a smoother cooperation between economics and law. Universally liked, he showed his diplomatic skills from an early age, and he was a renowned conciliator and arbitrator. Isaac’s door was always open to students and colleagues.
Multilingual diplomat and academic
Isaac spent his early years in Penang and Java, where he experienced a multicultural and multilingual environment, speaking English, Dutch Bahasa Malay and Bahasa Indonesian. From 1941, he moved to Australia and studied at the University of Melbourne.
Isaac’s multilingual skills allowed him to play important diplomatic roles as a young man, and he soon joined an Australian government mission that reported on the conflict in the Dutch colony of the Netherlands East Indies (today known as modern Indonesia). The group met with the future President Sukarno, building important foundations for the close diplomatic ties still in place between Australia and Indonesia.
From 1947, Isaac studied in the UK, completing a PhD at the London School of Economics. In London, he studied wage regulation, the beginning of a lifelong research focus. Upon completion, he returned to Melbourne to lecture in Economics.
Transforming academic scholarship and industrial relations policy
After ten years, Isaac was promoted to Professor of Economics at the University of Melbourne. In 1962, his expertise in wages policy saw him invited by the International Labour Organization (ILO) to advise Ghana’s government. In 1963, he was the Foundation President of the Victorian Industrial Relations
Society of Victoria (IRSV), which brought together academics and practitioners.
In 1965, Isaac moved to the new Monash University as one of the foundation professors in the Economics and Politics Faculty. He influenced generations of students, several of whom became prominent figures in unions, business, and government.
Isaac loved combining practice with academia and often advised the Department of Labour and National Service. As Deputy President of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission from 1974 to 1987, he was the first non-lawyer appointed to the post.
In 1985–86, Joe served as a member of the OECD high-level committee on labour market flexibility.
Over his career, he advised on wage policy in Fiji, Papua, New Guinea, Indonesia and Timor-Leste and was an economic adviser in China in 2011.
He also served as president of peak bodies including the Economic Society of Australia (1969) and the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (1985–87). He was awarded the Distinguished Fellow Award by the Economic Society in 2016.
Community and academic recognition
Isaac served as Deputy Chancellor at Monash University from 1980 to 1988 and was later awarded honorary doctorates at both Monash and Melbourne University.
He was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1989 and received a Centenary Medal in 2003.
For a decade, the University of Melbourne and Monash University have collaborated to honour Joe’s outstanding contributions by holding the annual Joe Isaac Symposium, which provides contrasting perspectives and challenges in the field of employment regulation.
He published widely, including on the history of industrial arbitration and labour market deregulation.
Joe Isaac returned to Melbourne as an honorary professorial fellow in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce upon his “retirement” in 1987. Joe remained at Melbourne for nearly 30 years, continuing to give public lectures and write papers well into his 90s.
In 2016, Keith Hancock and Russell D Lansbury released a series of essays on Industrial Relations in honour of Joe Isaac.
Within, they described him as a “man of generous spirit.”
“Those who seek his advice unfailingly get considered and considerate responses. But Joe is much more than a scholar, critic and policy formulator. To all who know him, Joe is a deeply respected and loved friend, as is his wife Golda.”
Professor Joe Isaac died in 2019. He was described in The Sydney Morning Herald as "Australia’s pre-eminent economist post-war."
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