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Similar in title only

IT was a full house at the Sydney launch for a new book, Up in the Air, co-authored by Monash University's Professor Greg Bamber, who is also Griffith University's Adjunct Professor.

Interestingly some attending assumed it was the book of the new film, also called Up in the Air and staring George Clooney.

In the film, Clooney's character flies around the US ruthlessly sacking (dis-engaging) people from their employer.

In contrast, this book focuses on advantages for bizzoids in fostering more engagement and partnership between employers and employees, and their unions.

The book, published by Footprint Cornell University Press, is co-authored with the US's Jody Gittell, Tom Kochan and Andrew von Nordenflytch.

Spied chatting at the book launch were such industrial relations professorial luminaries as Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Tom Kochan, Sydney University's Russell Lansbury and, from Ireland, Limerick University's Joe Wallace.

Also talking were such strange bed-fellow bizzoids as Qantas's IR executive, Sue Bussell, Virgin Blue's former IR guru, Bruce Highfield and the long time pilots' union boss, Terry O'Connell (a leader of the 1989 pilots dispute).

Unlike George Clooney's character, who sacked large numbers of people, the book shows the merits of long-term commitment between bosses and workers - the opposite of mass sackings.

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