If a union negotiates a pay rise for a workplace, but only some of the workforce are union members, should it be able to charge non-members a compensation fee? Or should non-members be allowed to “free ride”, receiving benefits without paying those who worked to achieve them?
It’s currently illegal to include such “union security” clauses in Australian industrial agreements. But last week, multiple union officials renewed their push for removing the ban. Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union secretary Steve Murphy told The Sydney Morning Herald: “Imagine walking into a fishing club or a footy club and demanding all the benefits without being a member. You wouldn’t even get through the door.”
Albanese government sources didn’t rule out making the change, but suggested it won’t be part of this year’s second round of industrial relations reforms, which will focus on labour hire and the gig economy.
Meanwhile, the Coalition and business groups flipped their collective lids, with opposition workplace relations spokesperson Michaelia Cash criticising the union push as a “disgraceful demand which trashes the fundamental right of all Australians to freedom of association. Australians have the right not to join a union and they should never be forced to do so”.
As Cash should well know as a former employment lawyer, this mischaracterises the nature of union security clauses. Unions aren’t asking to forcefully conscript people as members, or operate “closed shops” where non-union candidates can’t be hired. Rather, they’d like to charge non-members a fee for the negotiating services they provide when a successful agreement is reached. Non-members would still be charged less, be denied the full benefits of membership, and couldn’t vote in union elections.
Comrade Milton defends the ‘scab tax’
Even so, are union security clauses an affront to freedom? The Howard government certainly thought so when it tightened legislation to restrict the practice. But funnily enough, in the 1970s, economist Milton Friedman, the doyen of conservative freedom lovers, pondered the issue and uncharacteristically came down on the unions’ side.
He argued that laws banning union security clauses (called “right to work” laws in the US) would violate the freedom of companies and unions to negotiate freely. “Right-to-work laws are in principle wrong because they are an interference with the right of employers to contract,” Friedman told a US lecture audience.
ACTU president Michele O’Neil justified her support for revising Australian law similarly, saying Australia was “unusual internationally by having workplace laws restricting the content of collective agreements”. Indeed, union security clauses are common in many countries, though specific provisions differ.
But in Australia, unions remain smothered in the kind of red tape that conservatives would usually oppose. Unions cannot negotiate agreements for their members alone — differentiated pay scales are prohibited. And even though other bargaining agents generally charge for their services, unions cannot insert clauses charging non-members for theirs, even though the agreements containing such clauses would have to be voted for by a majority of employees regardless.
This is despite the fact employees who don’t want to be represented by a union can represent themselves at the bargaining table — though few would, given the required time, effort and expertise.
The ‘right to work’ or the ‘right to be poorer’?
Why should we care about how much unions get paid? Because their resources help determine the number and quality of industrial agreements unions can pursue, which help determine the standards by which we all get paid — whether you’re a union member or not.
New US research finds right-to-work laws “significantly reduce” unionisation rates (by an average of 4%) and subsequently wages (by an average of 1%). In highly unionised industries, they reduce unionisation by between 12% and 20%, and wages by 4% to 7.5%.
Right-to-work laws also increase economic inequality by reducing the bargaining power of the lowest paid. Conversely, one study found such laws can modestly increase union members’ satisfaction by increasing the level of competition between unions to offer the best deal, but Australia’s industrial system does not facilitate much within-industry union competition anyway.
Unions still need to recruit more members
Even if the Albanese government eventually proceeds with the proposal, unions will still need to organise to broaden membership. Unions don’t just need members for money; they need on-ground expertise, volunteer efforts, and, crucially, a willingness to strike if necessary. Without an engaged membership, unions can’t assuredly advance pay and conditions, failing to fulfil their social mission and flattening their pay-graded membership fees.
The percentage of Australian workers who are union members is now just 12.5% — its lowest level in nearly 120 years. And that number drops to 5% for those aged 20-24, boding poorly for the future.
To turn this around, the labour movement will need more than just legislative change. It’ll need to educate increasingly fragmented workers about how collective action can make the economy fairer, so fewer will want to free-ride in the first place.
I feel quite strongly about this as a union member, workplace delegate and local branch chairman. The whole raft of present workig conditions, leave entitlements (eg sick leave, overtime, 5 day weeks, long service leave), safety, worker’s compensation and the like came about through union members negotiating, losing their pay, sometimes being imprisoned or killed. In general, noone realises this, I have been on strike reluctantly and sometimes we have had a win often we have merely lost less badly. But the other people in my workplace smilingly accept any benefit but offer no assistance to the process. Sometimes members feel they cannot afford to strike, but at least they help pay the bills. The others are rather more like leeches.
I agree with much of hat you say. I was a union delegate in two different workplaces over the years, so am certainly NOT anti-union. But – and it is a very large but – from Keating’s time onwards, the unions lost their way. Amalgamating different industries and types of work into the one union was a first step on the slippery slope: what do clerks in a transport workplace have in common with, say, prison officers? Very little, I can assure you! And then came the sneaky practice of including both popular and positive things eg a pay rise, with a nasty negative into the one motion. If you wanted to vote to pursue the pay rise, you also had to support some other nonsensical item, as the vote was on the whole motion. The final straw for me was when the public sector union used my membership dues (among others’, of course) to fund a float in the Gay Mardi Gras. I resigned that day, as I realised that the CPSU had stopped representing its members’ interests in pursuing better pay and conditions, and moved into social engineering fields…
I remember when I was a vehicle builder in the ’70’s the union used some of the collected fees to bring folk singers and activists Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger Adelaide to perform a gig for the workers. I didn’t go (wish I had), but I had no problem with this. I believe that a good union needs to think outside the wot-about-the-workers box now and again, like the old time BLF and the green bans.
Hopefully McColl sang his sublime The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (without the lyrics adjusted for delicate American sensibilities).
The version sung by Mary Travers to the workers on the Sydney Opera House site is without parallel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFTsr9Si_dQ
I’ve also known people who have refused encouragement to join a union, when later faced with their own personal industrial issue, then come running to union members to ask the union for advice.
Unfortunately I remember the efforts of the ACTU, using young promoters to reverse the trend in the 90s to no avail. I had hoped that Workchoices would have had an impact: but no. Now I am afraid that it would now be impossible to wage such a successful campaign given the industrial apathy of the current generation. As it stands, everything now hinges on numbers in Parliament not the shop floor.
The LNP is morbidly terrified of the union movement and has successfully destroyed Australian maunfacturing to knee cap unionism. The LNP dislike large manufacturing places because they are relatively easy to unionise. This tells us the LNP is not working for Australia, only a few priveldged individuals who dont need manufacturing for their own personal ends. Extractive exporters and agricultural interests are favoured by this approach. Maybe that tells us something.
I want to know why everyone can’t know this. Imagine the LNP ever had to wear their crimes.
The LNP is terrified of the union movement and destroyed manufacturing here to knee cap it. Totally agree. And not just here but in the US and UK especially and in other parts of western Europe and the Anglosphere. Some say this was deliberately done since Lima 1979. Could be. But how do we bring back manufacturing here? I always said there should be a leaving town tax but is anyone with me?!
Yes I have zero respect in my workplace for workers that are leeches, that have accepted the wage rises in the past, but have contributed nothing to the union which has got them this. Under Howard – YES HOWARD!! -and Rudd and Gillard, wage rises for the public sector were considerable. The latter had the opportunity to reverse some of the less positive changes wrought by the former but didn’t. However some workers in my department did not only avail themselves free of charge of the 2.5%, 3 and even 4% annual wage rises which occurred from 1999-2013 but through successful brown-nosing, or sob stories to the right people, ones they play golf with, these leeches have ensured they remain on shift. Maybe not to the great extent of 1 or 2 areas within the department but close to it. For all shift applicable employees that is an earning capacity of 33% approx. higher than the Base rate for any position. For someone like myself on a low-middle position, that equates to about $20,000/annum. In the 2000s it was around $14,000 but through substantial pay rises which lifts all boats, in 2013, that equated to about $24,000 more. With rostering changes during the COVID era, payment that is now for a low-middle employee like myself, that is about $20,000. And with a shift position, one gets more rostered days off. Not many people want to work non-shift in my agency. Mobility or rotation is a flashpoint issue in my department as it would be in some others. The NSW State Police spring to mind but I am largely unaware of their workplace contractual or shift or workplace arrangements. I can understand that many people don’t want to go up the ranks for the reason that doing so takes you off-shift and with that comes risk if your career goes bung. If the pole is too slippery.
Therefore should unions get rewarded for the good deals they made in the past? This is what it boils down to as the deals done now are rubbish and Albanese and Chalmers have the unions in a far weaker position than Hawke and Keating did at any time they were in office.
If it is, a some have stated outright, that it is up to government in State or Federal Parliaments to fix industrial relations and the poor state of union membership and industry relations outcomes, then we have come to a poor end and are in real trouble. Unions now can’t strike like they used to. Bad news there. They are more hamstrung in negotiations. Bad news here too. They have a much reduced membership largely as a result of this. It is up to governments therefore to fix this through legislation. Do they want to? Never. Even a labour one. We are back to the late 18th Century I’m afraid
Only a Bill of Rights can give unions a chance. The workers of today won’t do it for themselves. More on this later.
I think this article also misses the point. That is it is all well to cry and hue about union numbers but the unions today are simply hamstrung and have a gun held to their heads all through any negotiations. That is point 1. Read the new (un) Fair Work Act. Or as some of us call it, WorkChoices lite.
Second, notice that those occupations and industries where union membership is strong, is in areas of and still under, State awards. Teachers. Nurses. Cops. Ambos. Firies. This is indicative of the award structure and State industrial architecture.
Third, Keating’s 1993 Enterprise Bargaining regime has failed us all miserably now. It worked for a short time after a long, slow start but its weaknesses are showing and have demonstrated themselves since 2005 with the passing of WorkChoices and the FWA which replaced it. Also the industrial architecture around it has been disbanded. Fewer courts or industrial matters. Weaker tribunals. You can’t have bargaining when the rules were changed as they were from 2005-2009.
Fourth, the new multi-employer bargaining framework and legislation which is in place recently, will require unions from various employers in one industry essentially, and of 20 or more workers, banding together to represent workers and strike better bargains. Great!! More effort. Then they have to go through the grist-mill of the FWA. As most workers are in industries or companies of less than 20 workers then there is no chance of bargaining and much less achieving the substantial wage outcomes to make up for the loss we have endured over the last 10 years.
If the law says unions can’t strike then what do you expect? Go to jail? Can’t do that no more. No one can survive on a shoe-string like they could in the 80s and 90s and that includes the 1780s, 1880s and the 1980s. But it took a recession, a Labour Government, 2 conservative governments to undo 2 centuries of good work.