Trade Unions - The End Is Nigh
Union membership at record low as workers flee
UNION membership across the workforce has fallen to its lowest level, with just 12 per cent of private-sector employees choosing to belong to organised labour. Overall, unions lost almost 93,000 members in the 12 months to last August, with total membership falling to 1.74 million, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show. Membership remains strongest in the public sector, with almost 42 per cent of workers signed up. The ABS found that public sector membership had dropped by 1.7 per cent. ACTU secretary Dave Oliver blamed job cuts and changes in the economy and labour marketfor the decline. “The No 1 recruiter for the trade union movement is Tony Abbott,’’ he said. “Australians aren’t going to stand by while the Abbott government and the business lobby go after their penalty rates, seek to cut the minimum wage every year for 10 years and conduct the biggest assault on the social safety net this country has ever seen. “People are ready to fight and together with their unions will take it up to the government. Last year there were structural shifts in the economy, the number of people in insecure work — which is typically low in union density — grew and there were redundancies in traditionally unionised areas such as manufacturing and the public sector.” Mr Oliver predicted that union membership would rise this year due to the unpopularity of the Abbott government’s policies. Employment Minister Eric Abetz blamed union leaders for losing members. “As well, workers are becoming more savvy,’’ he said. “They are more willing to deal directly with their employers and cut out union bosses.” Private sector union membership fell by 56,000 members to 1.028 million, the ABS found. Australian Mines and Metals Association executive director Scott Barklamb said the decline showed unions were not as attractive to a new generation of workers. According to the ABS, 68 per cent of union members have belonged to a union for at least five years. Employees in the education and training industry had the highest proportion of trade union membership followed by public administration and safety. The occupations with the highest rates of union membership were machinery operators and drivers, where one in four were members. Professionals at 24 per cent and community and personal service workers at 22 per cent were the next highest.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/trade-union-membership-hits-record-low-20151027-gkjlpu.html
It would seem 85 per cent of workers would disagree with you . Even the 15 per cent is inflated as we found out in the Royal Commission with workers being signed up and their fees paid by companies in dirty deals
One of the sad things about unionism is that, so often, choice does not exist.
Do you think a kid just starting at Maccas can join a union, and still get allocated shifts? not a chance.
It's a power thing.
I was in an equivalent situation myself at one point of my career. It's not a pleasant situation.
Whats your point
But we grow up and Adults when given a choice say no thanks . But I guess State employed teachers don't have that choice
Unions are irrelevant - hence their demise
Still sore about beinbf sacked as an IT worker eh Barak
As I said - those who can't, teach
And even if you do a loust job, you have your teacher's union to stand up for you
I think I have demonstrated that they are very relevant. but I don't expect you to see that.
That's OK. All views are welcome. I'm pleased you're actually epressing your own.
Yes Carlos, we are given a choice to say no, just as by making that choice we are open to unfair practices and exploitation. Most people are unaware of how much of their wages and conditions are there because of Unions. Most people who choose not to join a Union are still happy to work underb the minjimum conditions that have been negotiated through Unions. Get rid of Unions, but I hope you are prepared to scrap all Awards and E.B. conditions and start again?
unions taking a dive in the US but a long way befor collapse
but what about that minority of Australians who still belong to unions? Obviously they think membership is still worth it, right? Wrong. Just ask members of the Queensland Nurses Union who, during a recent enterprise agreement negotiation, decided they’d had enough of the union’s tactics and chose to force them out of the negotiations by unanimously choosing to appoint an alternative Bargaining Representative.
As far as I’m aware, this is the first time that’s happened in Queensland, and their new Agreement even contains a clause which records the union’s embarrassing eviction for all the world to see.
But once again, who can really blame these workers. Their union’s State Secretary is currently berating their State Government for risking lives via budget cuts. This from the same union (albeit the Victorian branch) which, during their last round of industrial action, deliberately forced the closure of hundreds of hospital beds.
In the battle of relevance, unions lost a long time ago.
http://www.switzer.com.au/the-experts/david-bates/still-not-convinced-unions-are-irrelevant-just-ask-their-members/
There's no objectivity in your position. Just hatred.
Bye.
My post described your position on this matter. You described me.
That's unacceptable.
bro you 2 fight a lot
see you fella later.b'fast time,eggs bacon pancakes dredged in maple.
thats an awfully poor diet hiker
You will live a short life if you dont make some changes, hope it's a happy one
The best way to save Unions is to get rid of them. Once they are gone and workers have to negotiate with the bosses face to face on their own behalf they will soon see what life is really like on their own.
At the moment most workers are protected by Awards, these documents safeguard wage levels and conditions. Take away Unions and you can kiss these Awards goodbye, you can also say goodbye to any hope that business will be brought to account for bringing in cheap labour from overseas, or not paying overtime and other Union negotiated conditions.
Being in a Union is like having an Insurence Policy, with any luck you pay your fees and never have to use them, but if you need them you dont begrudge the fees paid.
So get rid of the Unions, I guarantee they will be back stronger than ever within 5 years.
Nice perspective there ex PS.
It's always annoyed me that those paid under Awards, but not in unions, still gain all the benefits negotiated for by unions.
Freeloaders
And you're right. Abolish the unions, and they will come right back again, simply because too many employers are greedy bastards.
Nothing wrong with Unions just Australian Unions
Unions in Australia still take the adversarial approach or worse work with large corporations to depress wages as did the shoppies with Coles or Shorten with cleaners.
Modern Unions as in Germany work with Enterprises to ensure the success of the business .
Awards are a racket that work against the unemployed .
Most business and the biggest employers are small business . Yet week end awards ensure they can't open or give employment to students when they can work.
The lowest paid should be protected by a Government enforced minimum wage as the Cnserative Government has done in the UK
"The national living wage policy already makes some allowance for a downturn in economic growth because it is set in relation to median wages, and is targeting 60% of media UK pay by 2020. The minimum wage for over-25s rose by 50p an hour in April to £7.20 as a result and 9.20 by 2020
A Treasury spokesman said: “Since April the new national living wage has been boosting the wages of the lowest paid. The independent Low Pay Commission will advise on the path future increases should take, taking into account the state of the economy.”
Australia HAS a minimum wage.
One day, Carlos, you will base you opinion on knowledge and facts.
Carlos, how many wage or EB negotiations have you taken part in?
I have been in several representing the Union, you generally get an aggresive adversarial approach from junior managers who are trying to prove how tough they are. They are generally shut down by their own management team pretty quickly. This is the 21st. century, those old tactics are left to dinosaurs and are not considered helpful by either side.
Both sides negotiate, sometimes quite hard, but an air of mutual respect is generally encouraged. In most cases where negotiations are held up it is where the Union representative takes a proposal back to the members as they are compelled to do and the members reject it.
In relation to deals agreed to by organisations like Coles and Woolworths, I don't know, but I suspect that the agreement was signed off because an apethetic workforce who did not bother to respond to the Unions proposal when put to the workforce. The other argument that could be put forward is that if most of the workforce was not in the Union did they have representation at the bargaining table, why di they not stop the agreement going through? I may be talking through my hat hrer since I have taken very little interest in Union activity since 2007, so I apoligise now if you are acting on more information than I have, I am generalising a bit.
As far as Public Servants being forced to be in a Union, if this is so, why have the last E.B comitees I have taken part in in the Public Service had non-union representative from the shop floor on them?
Here's why we need unions:
"The enterprise agreement that sparked an ongoing industrial dispute at the Carlton and United Breweries' (CUB) Abbotsford plant in inner Melbourne was voted on by just three casual workers in Perth, two years ago."
When employers are as sleazy as that, Australians need unions.
Yes Australia has a minimum wage . I was using the example of the U.K. To show what a radical right Government enacts to create a living wage, they don't just set and forget but have a policy where it will rise each year until it reaches 60 per cent of the median wage.
The Unions now represent , on inflated numbers, less than 10 per cent of the employed in the private sector ( the Se Tor that generates the wealth ) Yet control one of two Major parties in Australia and promote policies that are in their interest not that of the Nation .
The reason that the Mums and Dads , in the Trades ( Tradies , Howard's Battlers) Trucking and IT cleaning etc etc etc have set up their own companies and contract is simply that that earn more and keep more .
Prove that they earn and keep more.
And comment on the CUB agreement
Prove that workers are better off running their own companies.
Christ mate , have you ever run your own company , the write offs are incredible .
So, no proof.
Just dogma.
Thouht so.
Prove a hypothetical ?
You're dumb
It's not a hypothetical. It's a simple and absolute claim you have made.
I won't call you dumb. It's not polite, nor within the guidelines. I'll just let the obvious facts speak for themselves.
Is it the end of the road for enterprise bargaining? You may be surprised that I am even posing this question. Most people probably assume that enterprise bargaining is a central feature of our industrial relations system and this isn’t going to change.
Actually, enterprise bargaining has never really developed into the comprehensive method of pay setting the original proponents expected. There are a variety of reasons for this outcome, not least the excessive degree of regulation of the enterprise bargaining process and certification.
And while enterprise bargaining is incredibly strong in the public sector, with nine out 10 public sector workers covered by enterprise agreements, its popularity in the private sector is waning. This latter trend is about to accelerate as more firms seek to have their enterprise agreements terminated and revert to the award.
If we take enterprises, rather than employees, we find that only 14 per cent of private sector firms are covered by enterprise agreements. Individual arrangements are the dominant pay-setting method, with 64 per cent of enterprises using this method.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/judith-sloan/enterprise-bargaining-set-to-boldly-go-way-of-the-dodo/news-story/0d843ce380ebb98ba8eb159338056da9
Individual arrangements rip off workers.
People aren't stupid . Unions rip off employees (see above) Why do you think less than 10 per cent of workers belong .
Most no longer have the option.
Individual arrangements rip off workers.
No only Public savants have no choice .
That's simply evidence of your ignorance,
http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/sold-out-quarter-of-a-million-workers-underpaid-in-union-deals-20160830-gr4f68.html
Australian workers in retail and fast-food outlets, including Woolworths, Hungry Jack's and KFC, are being underpaid more than $300 million a year, in a national wages scandal centred on deals struck with the shop assistants union.
A Fairfax Media investigation has uncovered new evidence that some of Australia's biggest and best-known employers are paying many of their employees less than the award, the basic wages safety net.
McDonald's underpaying employeesMcDonald's employees are being underpaid tens of millions of dollars per year thanks to an agreement struck between the fast food giant and the food workers' union.
The findings add to earlier Fairfax revelations of inferior wage deals with retail and burger giants Coles and McDonald's. The Coles agreement was quashed in a landmark Fair Work Commission May ruling because it underpaid workers, failing the 'better off overall test'. The decision was described by workplace law expert Professor Andrew Stewart as being only the "tip of the iceberg".
The revelations and the commission's ruling are now threatening to unravel a longstanding and cosy partnership between big retail and fast-food employers and the socially conservative Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees Association (SDA).
RELATED CONTENTColes knew more than half its workers were underpaidThe man who exposed the Coles wages scandal in his spare timeThe Fairfax probe points to underpayment of more than 250,000 workers through dozens of enterprise agreements - many excluding penalty rate payments.
In a letter to union leaders, national secretary Gerard Dwyer explains how the SDA is now reviewing nearly 100 enterprise agreements in a bid to make them compliant with the Fair Work Act. He says a particular focus will be weekend and late-night penalties. He concedes that workers will "inevitably" have to be paid more "either through higher penalty rates or even higher base rates of pay".
The behaviour of those unions AND those employers was completely unethical.
What's the solution when we have such nasty people on both sides?
I have great difficulty with the belief that workers using a collective bargaining strategy to improve wages and conditions is a bad thing. It is simply another form of lobbying, people who believe that only workers have Unions need to have a good look at the real world.
Employees have associations that do exactly the same thing as Unions, they pool resources and elect representatives to lobby governments in order to improve their business oppertunities all the time, the only differance is that they don't call themselves Unions.
I have been involved in one Union or another for most of my working life, mostly in the workplace but I did spend some time on the Executive Council, sometimes you have to fight the battles you can win, and sometimes you have to take a stand, but most times it is for the good of the workers being represented.
Most people in the workforce are taking advantage of a Union paid for by other people, they just don't know it and I have yet to see an opponant of Unions refuse to take advantage of a wage rise or improvement in conditions won by a Union.
People don't join Unions for financial reasons, they would rather have the money in their pockets than pay for a service they are compelled to pay for. But I have witnessed time and again the staunch anti Union worker who gets into trouble and can't wait to sign up so as to get Union protection. I fought for and got a policy change in my Union before I left to ensure that those who waited to get into trouble before joining did not get help. If you don't pay the insurance premiums, you should not get the cover.
Teaching unions provide full legal support to member teachers accused of misconduct.
Many false allegations, of sexual misconduct in particular, are made against teachers by vindictive students.
Spoken like a true public servant riding the gravy train. Lefty leaners !!!
Barak, are those vindictive students in Catholic Schools too?
I certainly know of one female teacher in a Catholic school who ended up having a nervous breakdown when she was accused by a vindictive boy of attempted seduction, she was cleared eventually when it became apparent that there had been no opportunity and that the boy had received justifiably low marks so had targeted her. She was pretty traumatised and gave up teaching altogether. She certainly wasn't sacked.
innes, the answer to your question is "Yes" from me too.
It's a problem that's getting worse, and almost always against a teacher trying to crack down on poor behaviour, and from a kid whose helicopter parents don't support the teachers.
Vivety tell that to the check out lady who has just been ripped off by the unions and gets the minimum wage as parental leave .
Wheress Victorian teachers , AbC announcers etc get their Parental leave loading plus the minimum wage.
Brack - helicopter parents. wtf - you still living in the 80's ?
anyway everyoone knows real helicopter parents send their kids to private schools. State school quality of teachers is wayyyy below standard
Carlos try to stay on the subtopics I.e. Teachers. subverting it doesn't change what I have just stated and for your information there are excellent teachers in the State schools just as there are also some poor teachers in the private schools IMO.
Yes. A lot of what Carlos has said above is simply wrong.
A mother of one of my current, government school students is a self declared helicopter parent.
I have taught in the Catholic, private and government systems. By choice every time I've change, despite the personal attacks here alleging the contrary. What Vivity says is true. Good and bad teachers in all three sectors.
Oh, and that check out lady was ripped off by her union AND her employer. There are very few pure black and white issues.
Barak, how could that possibly be true? You told us many times that all Catholic teachers are paedophiles, as well as the congregation.
Why we need unions.....
"A majority of young workers say they feel mistreated by their bosses, including being underpaid, undertrained and at times abused."
hahahah - an ACTU survey
surely no self interest at play here
Moving along, Next .......
I presume that you are certain of this Barak. How thing have changed. In my day, if my boss abused me, I would resign. There are plenty of jobs for people that want to work.
Innes
I had a female boss who abused me.
Then she promoted me
Let's attack the messenger, and blame the victims.
There are NOT plenty of jobs. Particularly in certain geographical areas.
You must have served her very well Carlos. You have a wonderful detailed memory for a lad nearly as old as me.
One never forgets one's first sado masochist encounter
As one never forgets ones first love
I believe bosses wil use this strategy in order to isolate the workers with no backbone, they then promote them knowing that they will toe the line and cause no problems.
RIGHTS WITHOUT UNIONS
Government urged to press on with national living wage
7 September 2016
A centre-right think-tank is urging the government not to bow to pressure from business leaders who want increases in the national living wage (NLW) scrapped or delayed.
The Resolution Foundation, led by former Tory MP David Willetts, says limiting planned increases would be "costly" for women, the young and older workers and that Prime Minister Theresa May should "stick to her guns".
Low-paid workers could lose out by as much as £1,000 a year if the plan to increase the NLW to 60 per cent of average earnings by 2020 is dropped, says the foundation.
National Minimum Wage to its highest the national living wage of £8.20 ever .
Mr Clark said: “The Government promised to create an economy that works for all and today’s increase means our lowest paid workers will benefit from their largest pay rise since the recession.
“This will make a real difference to hard-working people up and down the country and means for the vast majority of workers, the national minimum wage is at its highest level in real terms.”
Signatories include the Federation of Small Businesses, the Association of Convenience Stores, the National Farmers Union, the Charity Finance Group and the British Beer and Pub Association.
The Prime Minister has set out her stall as governing in the interests of hard-pressed families and so is not inclined to back down on a progressive policy that has the strong backing of the likes of trade unions.
Her spokesman told The Guardian: "The prime minister has been clear that we want to build an economy that works for everyone… and making sure that people earn a decent wage for a day’s work is an important part of that."
We need unions until all bosses are always completely fair to all employees at all times, and are fully knowledgeable about all relevant employment law.
We also need unions whenever there is a power imbalance between employer and employee.