The previous chapter outlined developments from 1907 to 1920. During this period the major activity of the Central Council of Employers of Australia was to restrict the federal arbitration system. Until 1913 the CCEA was successful on this front. Thereafter its High Court challenges merely opened the way for an expanded federal jurisdiction. The High Court's test of legal inconsistency adopted in 1910 allowed for a situation of overlapping federal and state awards. This enabled unions to treat tribunals as ‘rival shops’, to seek award variations from one tribunal in the knowledge that it could not reduce standards already determined by the other tribunal; to pick the most favourable combination of employment standards from their federal and state awards; and to jettison federal awards when it suited. The rationalisation of dual regulation became a major preoccupation of both employers and legislatures during the 1920s. Attempts to rationalise dual regulation included increasing the Commonwealth's industrial powers by the conferring of such powers by the states or by referendum, and, conversely, the Commonwealth vacating the industrial field in favour of the states. These developments are reviewed in the first part of this chapter. It also examines the emergence of basic wage and standard hours test cases during the period. Such test cases necessitated union and employer coordination. The organisational developments of the Central Council and its activities to bring about a ‘closer organisation of employers’ are reviewed in the second part of the chapter.