Future of Trade Unions in Australia - Essay Example

Do you believe that trade unions have a future in Australia? If so, why? If not, why not? Trade unions are workers organizations that have joined together to achieve common objectives like better working conditions, increase number of employees, higher wages, among others. Unions work on behalf of their members by bargaining with employers. Their service to their members include negotiating work rules, hiring rules, wages, workplace safety, promotions and firing of workers, complaint procedures, work policies and benefits. It is in Europe where these trade unions originated and then spread to many countries during the Industrial revolution, when employment bargaining power was shifted to the side of employers, resulting to underpayment and mistreatment of workers (Ewing, 2005). This was because many workers at the time lacked skills needed to perform most tasks. ACTU and Australian Labor Party are supporters of trade unions in Australia who acknowledge unions’ efforts to lead labour movement in the early twentieth century, which saw increase in wages, improvement of worker safety, rise in the living standards of people, provision of public education for children, end to child labour, provision of other benefits like maternity leave to working class families, and reduction in hours worked per week. Trade unions in Australia have played a vital role in the lives of workers by raising their standards of living and improving issues of social justice (Le Queux, 2000). Forceful and continuing trade union campaigns have ensured provision of equal pay for women, vocational training, shorter working hours, leave and holiday time, improved safety and health, among others. However, despite all these successes, trade unions have no future in Australia based on the statistics. Looking back at the history it is found that trade unions grew in the late 19th century when capitalism was being introduced as it rose from industrial revolution. They have been a central part of employees’ working life for the most of the 20th century. Two out of five employees joined a union from 1914 to 1990. There were a few fluctuations experienced by unions and the number of members grew rapidly in the Whitlam era, ‘20s, 60s, Depression and postwar. The force of the unions was on the Australian industrial scene for the greater part of the 20th century. Trade unionism around the world dates back to two centuries ago and its diversity is prominent. There are some relevant common themes of unionism in the past that may help understanding the projected future of trade unions (Ewing, 2005). First, past unions were established from solidarities that existed before. Those who joined unions had shared experiences at work accompanied by life lived in a surrounding community which shared religious, cultural and recreational pursuits. Unions were institutions implanted in an incorporated social landscape. Second, trade unions evolved from outlawed groups to their respectable status of persistently fighting for the underprivileged and the oppressed, as well as defending some interests of those working. Third, most traditional unions were established in industrialized countries to create employment relationship. Those who worked full-time but on contracts were the most targeted. The industrial working class was the most recognized in the modern society though it was less dominant numerically. Transitory and insecure workers and women were excluded from the union membership, though unions claimed to represent everyone who worked (Ewing, 2005). According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2010), Union membership in Australia decreased tremendously to 19 percent in 2009, though the union movement has been celebrating its increase by one percent in 2010 from 2009. Though the results show that many people are joining unions for protection, a closer look provides a different explanation, as the long term trend is worrying. The young people are supposed to be the future members of the unions, however the statistics show that only 24 percent of workers aged 15-19, 38 percent of 20-24 and half of 25 to 34 years had joined unions. The data show that for the last 20 years, the number of young workers becoming members of unions decreased sharply. This is bound to affect the union membership in the next 10 or 20 years when the young workers are at 30 or 40 years of age. This is because the unions will have no one or less people to recruit, as their growth is on the number of young recruits. Though the future of trade unions is said to be jeopardized by the low number of young people joining them, some experts say that young people are not yet experienced in the workplace and as they stay in employment, they are bound to rub shoulders with employers and thus forcing them to join unions. Trade unions are out of business from the success they have achieved in civilizing capitalism. Their war of providing balances and checks is largely over and they don’t realize that they have already won. During the introduction of trade unions, there were unfair dismissal of cases of employees, minimum wage, no substantial Maternity Leave for women, no Annual Leave Act, no superannuation laws, no occupation health and safety laws, no laws governing working hours and leave days, no state workers compensation laws, and so on. Most of these laws and Acts were developed in the 19th century and have been protected by legislation. Governments in most countries have accepted many of these laws and thus leaving left for trade unions to do (Leigh, 2005). Trade unions have no authority in the workplace anymore. Their bargaining power and relevance is reduced greatly when they have no one to represent, and furthermore when it is still a challenge to approach a majority. As this happens, many are not willing to remain members and lack of substantial incentive prevents new members from joining. Meaning, unions are wedged somewhere in a vicious cycle. The ABC report of a recent survey showed that job security is addressed by unions, yet it is a major issue affecting union membership in Australia, an issue that needs to be affected by the unions. Unionisation of private sector has dropped from over 50 percent in the 1970s to 24 percent. This is not because anti-union laws are present nor employers have become more generous, but because members feel that unions are not providing the services they need (ABC, 2010). The economic status of workers today may affect the future of unions in Australia. Many young people earn relatively low wages hindering them from paying excessive high union fees. Workers spend a lot of money on membership fees in exchange of unions negotiating for higher wages, but young people are not thinking forward. There have been arguments of providing free membership for young people or cut prices for new members (Kahmann, 2002). On the other hand decline in membership is not blamed on power balance between employers and employees. In fact there is still imbalance in the workplace but many young people are joining un-unionised industries like data entry and call centres ( Le Queux, 2001). The management in these industries don’t induct new employees on trade unions as their motive is to alleviate trade union issues from the workplace. There is large mobile workforce predominantly amongst small employers. The factors that determine whether individuals stay in their current employment are personal skills, job satisfaction, vocational education, alternative opportunities and pay. These individuals will rarely join a union because they are not stable in one place. There is however more preference in the private sector to join a union but their services are dissatisfying. There could still be survivor of traditional way of unionism in some areas like maritime and construction industries or workplaces where workers are exploited like low paying industries. But just like an insurance company, trade unions in the modern world act professional and regards themselves as earning a fee for service in order to survive. According to Cooper (2005), there is regulation of trade unions under the Act which requires elections of union officials, limiting the control of unions over those officials. Time and again there is intervention of the Federal Court which tries to cut short or discipline an office. Sometimes some officials go to work irregularly and the unions cannot do anything about it because of the ‘elected officer’ syndrome. The changes made to the legal regime governing trade unions are affecting the future of the unions. Legislation was introduced by conservative governments between 1990-1995 with a purpose of banning compulsory unionization and encouraging individual bargaining. This was contrary to 1920s legislation that encouraged wage arbitration and compulsory unionism which led to a rise in membership. Late 1980s saw many employees become union members as a requirement and condition of their employment. They were however freed of the requirement in 1990s, forcing many people to opt out. Those unions that depended most on the compulsory unionism laws were hit the hardest. In 1996, the Hoard Government that was newly elected abolished compulsory union membership in the whole country making it difficult for unions to strike and recruit (Anderson & Ramsay, 2005). Work Choices is the amendment made to the Workplace Relations Act, an industrial reforms packaged passed in 1996 by the Coalition government with an aim of restricting rights of workers and weaken the unions’ power in fighting on behalf of their members. The Coalition weakened the labour movement by attacking the rights of unions. The government rule of Prices and Incomes Accord provided a wage-fixing system that was centralized, reducing workers’ real incomes by 17% to 28% over the reign of the Labor government. Unions which tried to negotiate with employers outside the rules on the outcome were smashed mercilessly. Membership of unions reduced from 51% in 1981 to 31% in 1996 under the Labor government and later fell to 22.4% in 2005. The rate of employees from private sector declined from 31% in 1990 to 24% in 1996. In 1990, the Labor government introduced enterprise bargaining to deregulate the labour market (ACTU, 2005). The Howard Government on the other hand used Work Choices as weapon to weaken unions’ effectiveness in fighting for conditions and wages of their members. This has been described to the worst attack on trade unions in Australia in 100 years. According to Forsyth and Sutherland (2006), though Work Choices hasn’t prohibited joining of trade unions, it tries to overpower unions making it meaningless to become a member. However an agreement can be negotiated by unions on behalf of their members under Work Choices but excludes the non-members. Non-members cannot support an agreement negotiated by unions through strike action because it would be illegal. Furthermore, the rights of Unions’ entry into a workplace are restricted severely. Workers decide which union is fit to represent them, then employers decide when and where union workers can meet employees, hiding the unsafe working areas in the process, or intimidate workers by scheduling meeting close to the management offices. According to the rules, for union officials to visit a workplace, they must give employers a notice of twenty-four hours, allowing employers to clean up any unsafe areas in the workplace before inspection, and thus hiding the true picture and reason for the visit of union officials (Forsyth & Sutherland, 2006). The Work Choices also impose a $33,000 fine on unions if they seek to include contented that is prohibited in a collective agreement. For instance, asking for workers protection against unfair dismissal, asking to be involved in a disputes settlement procedure and anything banned by the government is illegal when negotiating an agreement. The Work Choices weakened the efforts of trade unions and has made it meaningless in the lives of Australian workers who have learnt to live without them (ACTU, 2005). Young people are the future of trade unions, but employment conditions and inadequacies of unions in the work places is making it impossible. According to Le Queux(2000), youth employment in EU showed that many young people worked in the private sector, especially in the service industry and likely to be under a contract. Unemployment rate is also higher among young people than the total number of people working as a whole, and those who work are in smaller working places which trade unions don’t cover. Most young people do part time jobs and with the increase in technology and especially internet, many are working in places where trade unions don’t go or visit and it will not be a surprise if many workers give the reason of not joining unions is they have not asked by those unions to. In a nutshell, the unemployment, nature of employment, and the distribution of youth employment affects the accessibility of trade unions. Additionally, young people have higher levels of qualifications than those they succeeded, therefore a large proportion of them have secured white collar jobs in areas that have reported lower unionization rates historically than workers who did manual jobs. According to Kahmann (2002), these young workers may expect a different service from trade unions from the traditional union members. Differentiation of working class and individualization approach is affecting the future of trade unions in Australia. Change in the employment patterns like outnumbering of blue collar workers by white collar workers in many developed countries has been pointed out regularly by analysts. Processes of organizational and technological change have been created where new workers with new skills are not appealed by traditional unionisms, and that many women have joined work places whose prospects and security depend on the goodwill of the employer. On the other hand there is growth of shaky forms of employment with manufacturing industry declining as private sector services expand. This workforce that has been seen as unimportant has been termed difficult to organize by trade unions. At the same time, workers have become bias concentrating more on the life outside work. There is increased diversity in tastes, attitudes and interests of people making it impossible for communication to prevail among colleagues. According to Allvin and Sverke (2000), individualization has taken place where the sense of finding individual identity through collectiveness has lost its significance and replaced gradually by large amount of identification sources, a belief in self effectiveness, more attitudes of independence and lack of readiness to participate in collective movements. The authors continue to say that central organisation resources for working collectively like seeing the union like an insurance company, finding self-identification through the unions’ goals and remaining loyal are fading away. A homogeneity of interest or collectiveness cannot be counted by trade unions but for them to succeed they must consider people who would like to be respected in their individuality and identity. A survey taken among Swedish blue-collar union members showed that the well qualified and young people’s instrumental attitudes towards trade unions was more prominent. Trade unionisms aspects attract old comers but not newcomers. The future is individualized and differentiated and the new generation is a self-conscious individual who know what they want and what their plans are. Change in individual interests, management and leadership in the workplace and emergence of anti-unionism among others have made it difficult for unions to perform and grow as discussed earlier. May be unions should try to take a strategy of client-oriented relationship with their members. The extend and quality of individual services offered to members and the status of unionism in the workplace should be considered. Unitary views provided say that instead of pursuing interest that seem contrary to those of employers, unions should instead collaborate and form alliances with employers (Allvin & Sverke, 2000). The future of trade unions in Australia depends on the new strategies that need to be established by the unions to surpass passed and current challenges. Trade unions management need to acknowledge there has been significant decline over the years and ponder on what made the unions grow in those years that has changed now. Trade unions should identify new types of jobs in the country that were never there before, and yet have substantial number of workers that can be targeted for their membership. Unions may think of providing free membership for workers or charge a lower membership fees. Trade unions’ future partly depends on structural factors such as workers believing that their interests can be protected by unionism and unemployment level. Most workers these days are comfortable with their jobs whether they are satisfied with them or not, especially the fact that they face hard economic times and sacrificing their complains for the sake of having a place to earn their daily bread is all they need. Past unionism struggle to change things in the workplace has played a big part in ensuring that labour reforms have been made. It however looks like that all was achieved as everything that unions fought for has been established or implemented, therefore having nothing remaining to fight for. Young workers may feel that they do not need trade unions in this era and may passive unionism as ‘old fashioned’ way of tabling work concerns or issues. Therefore, unions should think of creating a need in workers by making them feel a sense of injustice they are facing in their workplace. Besides that, they must ensure that workers believe that this injustice is caused by the management and must hold views of management as negative. Many workers also believe that trade unions cannot make a different at the workplace because they are too weak, thus, if nothing is done to change this perception then trade unions future is heading nowhere. Reference ABC. (2010). Employee Earnings, Benefits and Trade Union Membership. Common Wealth of Australia. Anderson, K & Ramsay, I. (2005) From the Picketline to the Boardroom: Union Shareholder Activism in Australia, Research Report, Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation and Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law, University of Melbourne. ACTU (2005) ‘Submission to the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Legislation Committee Inquiry into the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Bill 2005’ (11 November 2005) Allvin, M. and Sverke, M. (2000) ‘Do New Generations Imply the End of Solidarity? Swedish Unionism in the Era of Individualization’, Economic and Industrial Democracy, Vol. 21, No. 1, 71-95. Cooper, R. (2005) ‘Life in the Old Dog Yet? ‘Deregulation’ and Trade Unionism in Australia’, in Isaac, J. and Lansbury, R. (eds), Labour Market Deregulation: Rewriting the Rules, The Federation Press, Sydney, pp. 93-106 Ewing, K. (2005) ‘The Function of Trade Unions’, Industrial Law Journal, 34: 1-22. Forsyth, A. and Sutherland, C. (2006) ‘Collective Labour Relations Under Siege: The Work Choices Legislation and Collective Bargaining’ Australian Journal of Labour Law. Kahmann, M. (2002). Trade Unions and Young People: Challenges of the Changing Age Composition of Unions. DWP Leigh, A. (2005). The Decline of an Institution. Australian Financial Review, pp. 21 Le Queux, S. (2000). Young people and Trade Unions: International Overview and Australian Perspective, Working Paper. Employment Studies Centre: University of Newcastle, Australia. Le Queux, S. (2001). Stolen Future? Youth, Employment and Trade Unions, Paper prepared for the Australian Organising Conference, 26-27 March 2001, Sydney. Read More