Australian Union Membership 1

TRENDS IN UNION MEMBERSHIP IN AUSTRALIA

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2

Discussion..................................................................................................................................2

Decline in Union Membership in Australia............................................................................2

Union Membership in Australia.............................................................................................3

Reasons for the decline in Union Memberships.....................................................................4

Consequences of decline in Union memberships...................................................................6

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7

References..................................................................................................................................8
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Introduction
Australian union membership has been facing decrement since the 1970s. The rate at which
unionism takes place in Australia have declined from more than 50% of the total working
force to less than 40% in the last few decades which is the minimum level of unionization in
Australia since 1930s (Peetz, 2019). Although a few among the unions in Australia have
managed to experience growth in the rate of membership but the overall number of
Australians in the union memberships have been declining on a continuous rate since
decades. At present, merely 25.7% of the total employed workforce of Australia are observed
as the members of the Australian Trade Union Movement which is the minimum since the
official start of the unions in Australia (Peetz, 2019). This has a direct impact on the
organization of work in Australian organizations in terms of the bargaining power of
employees, employee involvement and the welfare of the interest of the employees. The
union membership decline in Australia have also impacted the patterns of wage structure of
unions. The following report aims to highlight the various reasons that might have
contributed to the decrement in the union membership in Australia and the consequences of
the same.

Discussion
Union Membership Decline in Australia
At present, the reduction in the union density as well as the decline in the union membership
has become the major concern for the Australian Council of Trade Unions. As per the reports
of year 2000 that were provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, despite of the serious
efforts and measures taken by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the decrement in the
union membership in Australia continues to evolve. As per the ABS statistics, the union
membership in Australia has dropped from 40% to just 25-26% of the total employed
workforce of the Australia (Stanford, 2019). These figures show the general trend following
the union membership in Australia and no further recovery or improvement has been
recorded in the above figures during the last 5-6 years. Therefore it becomes important for the
Australian Council of Trade Unions to analyze the reasons contributing to the continuous
decline and what unions need to do in order to improve the downward trend in the union
membership in Australia. Over the past forty years, the union membership has been falling at
a very fast pace in Australia. During the year 1976, the total number members in the different
unions was approximately 2.5 million whereas in the year 2016, the same figure was
observed to be just 1.5 million union members. Figure 1 shows the decline of almost 40% i.e.
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around 1 million union users (Hassel and Schroeder, 2019). Moreover, the union density
around the same period has been observed to have declined from 51% to just 14% (Stanford,
2019).

(Figure 1: Trends in level of union membership and union density—1976 to 2016)

Sources: (Stanford, 2019)

Union Membership in Australia

In Australia, the unions were first established during the start of the nineteenth century which
marks its beginning. During the 1880’s, there was a tremendous growth observed in the union
memberships in Australia. The main objective behind the development of the trade unions is
to improve the well-being of the members of the trade unions and to enable them to neutralize
the effect of the super economic power of the employers (Stanford, 2019). The most
important function that is being performed by the trade unions is to maximize the salaries of
its members and to improve their wages. The major reasons for which most of the employees
prefer to join unions are the dissatisfaction among the employees with the economic aspects
in relation with their jobs and the desire to influence such economic aspects of the job with
the help of the unions. Moreover, the major reason employees prefer to join trade unions is
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that they have a firm belief that the benefits arising out of the unionism are far more than the
expected costs. However, despite the benefits as well as the objectives of the trade unions,
Australians are facing continuous decline in the union membership. There are many reasons
behind the suggested decline in the union membership. Among the major are the changing in
the employment and workforce structure, the casual effects arising out of the business cycle
as well as the introduction of the Accords.

Reasons for the decline in Union Memberships

According to Australian Council of Trade Unions, the major factors that might have led to the
decline of the union memberships in Australia comprises of the legislative changes that are
considered to have negative impacts on the trade union memberships. This led to the
withdrawal of the union recognition and as a result employment relationship got
decollectivized. The reduction in the necessary unionism ultimately led to the decline in the
memberships as it adversely effected the union memberships.

Another major reason that led to the decrement in the union membership is the attitude of the
employers towards the trade unions and the changes introduced in the employer strategies.
Increase in the government opposition as well as employer opposition to unions was
observed. The Australian unions are considered as twice effective as compared to American
unions (Ibsen, Toubol & Jensen, 2017). In Australia, it was observed that globalization led to
the development of some American style anti-union trends in Australia which emerged as the
new employer attitude to the trade unions of Australia and hence they failed to respond to
them in appropriate manner. Failure to respond to changed employer attitude led to the poor
strategic decisions being made by the trade unions that ultimately led to their decline (Gomez
and Gunderson, 2019). Furthermore, another major cause of the union membership decline is
supposed to be the effect of the government as well as the impact of the legislation on the
trade unions. The introduction of the accord has been considered to one of the main reasons
behind the decline. During the 1990s and 1980s, the labor government in Australia adopted
neo-liberal policies of trade and privatization which is again associated with the sudden
decline in the union memberships in Australia (Rens, 2019).

In general, it has been observed that there has been a continuous decrement in the trust of the
workers in the trade unions. The workers have lost confidence in the union’s capability to
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deliver effective services to its various union members. In other words, unions are considered
to have become toothless for many of the unionists as well as the non-unionists. This
ultimately has reduced the demand of workers for the trade unions. It has been observed that
job growth is greater in the segments that are less involved in the union memberships as
compared to areas where highly unionized labor force structure is followed. During the
1980’s and 1990’s, most of the employment growth was observed in the private sector where
there less union density as compared to that of the public sector jobs (Rens, 2019). Other than
this, the job growth in the manufAustralian Council of Trade Unionsring industries has also
declined due to the relatively higher unionization in this sector. Another main factor of
changing employment structure is the inability of the unions to recruit part time workforce.
Part time workforce recruitment is increasing rapidly in the service industries but it has been
observed that unions have been unsuccessful in organizing casual as well as part time
workers for the organizations (Rens, 2019).

Moreover, the factor responsible for the decline i.e. Business cycle’s casual effects, is related
to the high levels of unemployment in Australia. In Australia, the levels of unemployment
during the 1980’s and 1990’s were high which had a significant negative impact upon the
union memberships (Curtin, 2019). This is because of the reason that unions find it difficult
to retain the unemployed members during the harder economic times. And finally, another
major factor responsible for the subsequent decrement in the union memberships in Australia
is the introduction of the Accord. It was during 1983 that the Australian Labor Party as well
as the Australian Council of Trade Unions together introduced the statement of Accord in
order to establish the prices as well as incomes (Bishop and Chan, 2019). However, the
introduction of the Accord statement helped in the development of the industries and sectors
where there was high unemployment but at the same time it required unions to compromise
their rights (Curtin, 2019). Also, the change in the attitudes of the employer towards the
unions contributes in the decline in the unionization rates across Australia. It has been
observed that Australians consider unions to be too powerful and unresponsive towards the
needs of its members and hence as a result of such beliefs, there has been a decline in the
support of the unions and therefore the Australians are refusing to become the part of the
unions as they have the feeling that they are not required by the unions and in this manner the
tradition of unionism in Australia is gradually fading.
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Consequences of decline in Union memberships

It has been considered that the continuous decrement in the Australian union memberships
have led to the reduction in the collective power of bargaining of the union workers which
has led to the growth of the low wage structure (Bishop and Chan, 2019).Also despite the
decrement in the trade union memberships, it has been observed that the Australian
workforce share as covered by the enterprise agreements in relation with the union
involvement negotiation has not reduced (Curtin, 2019). This implies the considerable rise in
the number of the Australians who wish not to become union members. Furthermore, unions
have understood the relevance of recruiting more young members in the unions (Bishop and
Chan, 2019). Therefore, the Australian Council of Trade Unions as result of decline in union
memberships is trying to promote union memberships through various programs in order to
provide people with information about the union work and their role in the community.

Thus, the continuous decline in the union memberships is not going to be unnoticed by the
Australian Council of Trade Unions and hence they have been trying to control the rapid
decrement in the union memberships in Australia since long. Therefore the Australian
Council of Trade Unions has committed to have an increase in the number of the union
members by becoming more powerful as well as more responsive towards the needs of its
members (Bray, et.al, 2011). Various strategies are being developed by Australian Council of
Trade Unions in order to ensure the survival of the trade unions in Australia. As a result, it
has decided to make more powerful and effective unions rather than less powerful many
unions. The idea is simple i.e. to have fewer but more powerful unions rather than having
many as big unions with bad policies are of no use and therefore are considered to have no
future. This is evident from the effective union movement of Germany where there are only
19 unions in total (Bishop and Chan, 2019). This shows that policies are more important than
the size of the unions. But despite all this, the workforce in the age of enterprise bargaining as
well as enhanced workplace diversity, employees find the unions to be less useful for them.
Hence, it is difficult to say that what is actually required in order to increase the union
memberships in but enhanced and strong relations between the workers, employers and the
government are surely going to help. There is a need that unions understand the importance
of being responsive towards the needs of its members and hence emphasize on improving the
quality of their services.
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Conclusion

Union memberships in Australia have been declining rapidly over the last four decades. This
has resulted due to the structural changes in the employment policies in various industries as
well as due to the increase in the use of the flexible employment forms. However, despite
this, few unions in Australia have been able to retain their members or mark increment in
their union membership especially those who were engaged in the health care services etc.
The declining level of union memberships in Australia shall continue to prevail in Australia
as more and more industries are using the flexible forms of employment in Australia.
However, through strategic planning and with the continuous reform of the union structure,
the union memberships in Australia shall rise for sure.
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References

Bray, M., Waring, P., Macdonald, D. and Le Queux, S., 2011. The ‘representation gap’in
Australia. Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, 12(2),
pp.1-31.

Bishop, J. and Chan, I., 2019. Copyright and Disclaimer Notice| RDP 2019-02: Is Declining
Union Membership Contributing to Low Wages Growth?.

Curtin, J., 2019. 14 Engendering union democracy: Comparing Sweden and Australia. The
future of trade unionism: International perspectives on emerging union structures.

Gomez, R. and Gunderson, M., 2016. The experience good model of trade union
membership. The Changing Role of Unions: New Forms of Representation Edited by:
Phanindra V. Wunnava (New York: ME Sharpe, 2005). https://books.google.co.in/books?
id=QGOlDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hassel, A. and Schroeder, W., 2019, August. Trade Union Membership Policy: the Key to
Stronger Social Partnership. In Industrial Relations in Germany (pp. 73-94). Nomos
Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG.

Ibsen, C.L., Toubøl, J. and Jensen, D.S., 2017. Social customs and trade union membership:
A multi-level analysis of workplace union density using micro-data. European Sociological
Review, 33(4), pp.504-517.

Peetz, D., 2019. Declining union density. Journal of Industrial Relations, 32(2), pp.197-223.

Rens, T., 2019, April. Is Declining Union Membership Contributing to Low Wages Growth?.
In ANNUAL CONFERENCE (p. 1).

Stanford, J., 2019. A turning point for labour market policy in Australia. The Economic and
Labour Relations Review, 30(2), pp.177-199.