Its detractors called it the “most radical shake-up of Australia’s industrial relations system in decades” — a “throwback from the ’70s” that promised to “cripple” or “bring disaster” to the business community.
The countervailing view was that Labor’s new workplace reforms, secured on the final sitting day of Parliament, constituted nothing short of a “victory for working people” across the country.
But the very prominence of either claim, others say, conceals the reality the reforms are of themselves unlikely to halt the decades-long decline of unions, much less return the union movement to the heights witnessed in its halcyon days.
“Unions are too weak and the barriers to industrial action are too high [for the reforms] to allow a return to anything resembling the 1970s,” said University of Sydney industrial relations expert Chris Wright, who recently wrote an op-ed on his support for multi-employer collective bargaining.
Far from representing a force to be reckoned with, the story of the union movement for the past 40 years is one of uninterrupted decline. Since its peak in the 1970s, when union members made up more than half the Australian workforce, the percentage of union members has plunged to 12.5% today — its lowest level in nearly 120 years.
Against the backdrop of historically low industrial action, the particulars of ABS data released on Thursday sustain the narrative, with union coverage accounting for just 5% of employees aged 20-24, compared with about 20% for those aged 55-64.
“Dire is way too weak an adjective” for the data, tweeted Tim Lyons, a former assistant secretary for the Australian Council of Trade Unions, adding that “existential crisis” would barely suffice either.
“It’s well past time for a lot more organising,” he said, “And to focus [union lobbying efforts] on giving workers better rights to organise.”
University of Melbourne professor in international labour and employment law Sean Cooney was of a similar view, telling Crikey the erosion of the union movement would continue unabated without measures that directly countered the pressures brought to bear by the structural fragmentation of the workforce.
“It’s possible [the multi-employer bargaining laws] might bring more employees into contact with unions, but that doesn’t directly say that will create more union members,” he said.
“Unless workers can talk to each other when they’re working from home or working in fragmented workplaces, it’s going to be hard to arrest the decline [of unions],” he added, citing the barriers fashioned by the rise of the gig economy and outsourcing across certain industries.
“The ability of people to communicate with each other is a really basic, fundamental right in other countries, yet from a legal perspective our system just doesn’t make that easy here.”
In this connection, Cooney said much of this difficulty could be traced to the extraordinary regulatory power of industrial authorities since the ’90s to restrict or limit industrial action in myriad ways.
The subsequent weakening of union power, coupled with the fact enterprise agreements apply to employees regardless of union affiliation, had in turn probably reduced the perceived advantages of union membership in the eyes of employees, particularly young people.
“It then becomes a collective action problem in classical terms — people start to wonder: ‘Well, what am I paying for?’,” he said.
This was especially the case in circumstances in which wage growth had long been depressed or non-existent in real terms — a trend which research across the board has directly linked to lower unionisation rates.
From 1975 to 2016, for instance, real wages increased by 74% for the top tenth of earners in Australia, but just 24% for the bottom tenth. In the same period, household income inequality, wealth inequality and top income inequality measures all increased.
There has, however, been something of a resistance to acceptance of these views in Australia — particularly the established fact collective bargaining increases overall productivity to the benefit of the whole economy. In Cooney’s view, so much owes to the tendency of the debate on the role of unions and collective bargaining to be too readily reduced to one of harm to employers or business.
“All over the world, in most countries across Europe, Asia and South America, collective bargaining is either a constitutional right or recognised as a human right,” he said.
“But here, the debate never proceeds like that. Here there’s a sense we can’t ever use the language of rights — the debate is only ever framed around efficiency or whether collective bargaining will hurt businesses.”
This was reflected in the recent industrial relations reforms, which included scant reference to the standards set by the UN International Labour Organization.
In Cooney’s view, unless the federal government embraces a rights-based approach to collective bargaining — or, at minimum, makes basic changes to improve the ability of workers to organise — unions could well remain in terminal decline.
With that, history tells us, will come widening inequality and, over time, the gradual erosion of hard-won fundamental workplace rights.
Is the Australian union movement on its way out? What will the future of industrial relations look like? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
And for some inexplicable reason, workers can’t seem to equate the loss of union power to the decline in wages and bargaining power. Strange.
And so many of them keep voting LNP!
The union movement started its downward slide in the 90’s when the AWU (Labor Forum) faction got control of the various Labor Governments over that time. Bill Ludwig was the man in charge. AWU executives have historically had close connections to big business, so it was no surprise that they started to flog off the farm. Starting with insurance and going on to electricity retail and the railway freightlines. all of which were owned by the people of Queensland and each action was roundly condemned by ALP membership and I can still remember one famous quote from a regional conference at Chermside when the cabinet minister present when presented with a 100 percent vote from the floor to stop electricity retail sales, said, “it doesnt matter what you people think, it is going ahead”. I think that drove a few members to the Greens and the odd Socialist.
Go backward to Ulan Coal 1988/9. The mine had quite civilised working hours, the miners had a 35 hr week plus one hours overtime per day, everyone was rostered on for 2 shifts every third weekend when the plant was in maintenance mode.so a 40, 40, 56,
Everyone could join a sporting team join the school P & C and live a generally civilised life.
These hours came about because of the improvements in safety following the mass mining deaths of the seventies when pro rata miner fatalities were worse in Australia than the UK in the thirties. So undermanagers and deputies were given enhanced safety responsibilities and the mines became a lot safer.
But 10 years later that all changed, with Hugh Morgan of Western Mining deciding to destroy the miners union (CFMMEU, Mining Division). He did this quite simply by offering different workers different rates of pay in complete disregards of their classification, in essence he split the union.
Coal mine owners in Qld and NSW liked the idea of a less militant union and less rigid conditions, so put similar proposals to their own workforces. At Ulan coal where I worked the union did not support the changes but were rolled by the workforce as they were promised 10 days extra off per year.
And so it began , 4 x 12 hr dayshifts, 2 days off, 4 x 12 hr nightshifts, 2 days off, 3 x 12 hour dayshifts, 2 days off, 3 x 12 hr nightshifts , 2 days off. and then started again.
To say that these hours were in completer breach of ILO guidelines goes without saying, but there have been a lot worse rosters since then, eg 3/1s and 4/1s.
I was ideally placed to view the results as I was in charge of stores and logistics which included under my wing the first aid station and ambulance.so, the first 3 months a big spike in minor accidents, stanley knives, trips, slips, driving and other fatigue induced accidents.
Now being on staff I didnt have to work these rosters, the biggest impact came at home, when the blokes walked into the pub after 3 or 4 12 hour shifts, they were walking in fatigued. As you and I both know that fatigue and alcohol do not mix, so the inevitable result, domestic violence went through the roof, those broken arms, bruises and one case death, can be laid clearly at the feet of Hugh Morgan and the mine owners
I left, i could not bear to see my friends lives falling apart any more, but it took a couple of years for the why to appear in my slow brain. As a construction project manager, i was good at costings, I knew that there was no cost benefit to these awful rosters, indeed, there was a downside with loss of productivity due to fatigue. The penny dropped, simply put, “fatigued miners are not militant”, that was what it was all done for and it worked. The Mining Division is now a shadow of its former self and does not object to inhumane rosters and does not object when contractors are brought in on a lesser rate of pay to do the same work.
So can they turn it around, yes they can but they need to revive the spirit of the seventies and the ALP needs to set in place worksafe policies that make life safer for workers. The difficulty there is that very few ALP MPs have ever done physical work so they dont understand.
My philosophy Is there should be no such thing as a rotating shift and there should be no such thing as a 12 hour shift when working with tools machinery or human life.
Best and most observant, evidence-based comment here today.
It was all in preparation of FIFOs so companies would not have the pay for community infrastructure. Destroyed local communities and towns and killed country areas.
true 2
I agree with the latter comment 100% about no 12 hour shifts. Even in safer more white collar industries and occupations. Rotating shifts were brought in in workplaces so all workers could experience the same pay rates and conditions. Otherwise they are effectively part time workers even if their hours are equivalent or close to equivalent for full time workers who do rotating shifts.
I would also add that in addition to fatigue being a drain on militancy, indebtedness plays a part as well. Very few people want to strike or complain when they are facing mortgages of $300,000, $500,000 or $1 million. This is the trick that the Federal and Victorian government foisted upon Soldier Settlers during the 1920s and 30s. They wanted a rural, proprietor-based workforce in debt to the banks and occupied only with their farming and business concerns. That is why they were absolutely angry that so many of these soldier settlers walked off their properties. 30% in fact. It meant the whole scheme became a failure and the banks would stand no chance of getting their ill-gotten money back that they loaned to these folk. Trying to grow grain on dry plain woodland without proper infrastructure to farmers who were prior to the war, rural workers who had little knowledge of business and capital management which is what farming really is. And poor rural farmers are effectively proprietors, small business people and they are not militant or union members here in Australia. In Spain it was a different story but Australia had no history or background, culturally or politically or economically or socially of collectivised organisation. Nor a common enemy to fight against. There were no landowners. Just the greedy banks and hopeless and hapless governments.
What’s changed over 40 years is not just unions — it’s the whole nature of work and capital, which are consequences of technology.
In the 1950’s, the distinction between labour and capital was clear. Bosses owned the means of production, and workers had what they could do with two hands for 8 hours a day.
Blue collar workers joined the ALP and expected to be members for life, because the only way they could get benefits was to have a large organisation advocate on their behalf.
Today the balance of power, or the factors of power, are more nuanced and mobile, literally. A personal computer and the internet and a cell phone allows a tradie to be more than a blue collar worker. A tradie is an entrepreneur. Their spouse is a back office, operating accounts payable and receivable, advertising, marketing and procurement departments, and human resources.
Add to this the greater access to capital that banking deregulation has brought, and a tradie is only one or two steps away from being a developer.
Where is the line between labour and capital? It’s a lot more difficult to distinguish. Is a barista working from their own coffee van a minimum wage laborer, or an entrepreneur?
Well said, Frank McGill. To add to the changed (and still changing) environment has been the rise of the human resource sociology approaches including that co-operation beats conflict. As one Union General Secretary (of the old school) said to me once he had never seen a pay-rise (forced via a strike) that made up for the lost pay of the union’s members.
On another occasion the National President of another (and more fractious union) and he also the leader of the socialist left in our state commented – as I was briefing him on planned workforce reductions the large organisation of which I was the HR executive – that “there was nothing he / the union could do to stop employees accepting the redundancy packages on offer once I had told their wives what that was worth, save make sure I followed all the rules”. Thus, over a thousand employees (of 3,000) left as technology and competitive / market change dramatically reduced the requirement for labour. None of that – and much more – caused any conflict or media attention. Many more employees have gone since.
All those men and women – save those who went into retirement – quickly found other work (mostly paying better, and their redundancy payment paying off mortgages), or purchased a franchise, or created a new business, even turned hobbies, etc into a major income source.
It seems work is moving not just to the gig economy but right away from the structured forms of the past 200 years. Where that leads “industrial relations” I know not. What I do know is that notwithstanding my life-long affection for the labour movement and support of Labor, unions have no appeal to young people let alone those in professional and semi-professional roles.
Another contributing factor is the consolidation of Business, in Australia. Companies including Wesfarmers and Woolworths have become unassailable empires. They grow now by accumulation, and cost reduction. They have a stranglehold or an effective influence, for producers, landlords, and consumers.
They have a finger in most aspects of consumer spending. Liquor outlets, food and general retailing, hardware, gas production, fuel sales, transport and logistics, pharmaceuticals, to name a few, Between them I expect they influence every decision any supplier or consumer has to make. I am sure they are a powerful advocate for keeping wages low, what union can ever hope to have a meaningful conversations with these behemoths?
I wonder how many small business tradies would have been union members in the old days? Is it possible that union membership was more for tradies who worked for a government or large business?
From my experience, unionism began to die out when compulsory membership was abandoned, and when workplaces began to fragment and deconstruct. It’s one thing to have a shop where the members can all be summoned at a whistle, and another to have to text, phone or visit members who work different shifts across different work sites. Add to that, the excruciatingly difficult task of having to explain the benefits of unionism to different cultures, different ages, different levels of wealth, and different levels of education. I’d like to see a return of compulsory membership for as many unions as possible, and having said that, I am now awaiting a visit from the IPA who want to show me their baseball bat collection.
…And having just read Rundle’s article, it would also help if some of our bigger unions behaved themselves and looked after the grassroots membership rather than milking political power and acting like d*ckheads.
Some good points there, Frank. As a now retired but lifelong unionist I do find this situation distressing. In more recent years I’ve worked with mostly young, non-union guys who decry unions as unnecessary and an impediment to they’re efforts to please the bosses.
But having said that, at a recent demo outside Perth’s Parliament House I bumped into a couple of officials from one of the larger unions – my own, as it turns out – and after briefly saying hello, was treated to the sort of contemptuous superiority that small-time officials often adapt. I looked at these two blokes and wondered why anyone would bother to join up, if one’s reps were so utterly full of themselves.
Ah, the benefits of diversity!
This is interesting and sad. I had my first experience with collective action in the workplace this year and it has been an incredibly positive one. We have been well supported by our union organiser throughout the process and now have high union membership in the workplace. The result is that members have gone from feeling powerless and beaten down, to a having agency over the future of our workplace. I now understand through experience why collective action is the answer to many of the political problems facing our society.
RoRo I’d love to hear more about this. What type of industry and workplace? And how did you take collective action?