It has been widely reported that overall membership of trade unions has plummeted to an all time low. Union membership has crashed, with recent figures demonstrating that the unions have lost more than 125 000 members in the past 12 months.
What is particularly intriguing for the unions is that this has occurred in the midst of the union movement’s ongoing campaign against the Howard Government’s Workchoices industrial relations reforms and a multi million dollar recruitment effort.
A survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) – “Employee Earnings, Benefits and Trade Union Membership,” found that the overall membership rate is down, to 20.3% (from 22.4% a year earlier), 15.2% in the private sector (down from 16.8%) and 42.6% in the public sector (down from 47.2%). This leaves an overall figure for union membership of just one in five workers. Additionally the survey shows that union ranks are being dominated by nurses, teachers and public servants.
It seems that other occupations have mostly abandoned the unions.
A primary example of this is the fact that, the latest ABS survey illustrates a remarkably sharp loss of membership in the mining industry. This is surprising as the mining industry was once a union stronghold. The ABS survey demonstrated that
the rate of union membership has fallen by nearly 50% in one year within the mining industry.
The Federal Government is clearly happy with these figures. They provide a huge boost for the Government, since it has become apparent that industrial relations will be a significant campaign issue for both the Coalition and the ALP during the
2007 federal election. Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Joe Hockey, declared the decline sent a clear message to Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd, that the more he involves both himself and the ALP with “union bosses,”
the more out of touch the ALP is becoming with ordinary Australian workers. Minister Hockey argued that the current resources boom, had been put at risk by Mr Rudd’s pledge to end Australian Workplace Agreements. He also claimed that workers were voting with their feet and abandoning unions and the labour movement. Contrary to the Governments opinion, Greg Combet (ACTU secretary) attributes the reduction in membership directly to Workchoices, the Governments industrial relations reforms. He declared that the entire objective of Workchoices significantly reduced the ability of people to join a union and take advantage of union representation. Combet believes that this makes the ability to join a union nearly impossible. He maintained that it is extremely difficult for people to choose to be a member of a union under the Workchoices legislation. He also holds that the legislation made it exceptionally difficult for employees and unions to negotiate collective agreements.
What this dramatic reduction in union membership means for the ALP and the unions is yet to be seen. However from the results of this survey, it is irrefutable that union membership numbers have severely decreased and there has been concern
amongst members of the ALP. Some within the ALP have conceded that these membership rates severely call into question the validity of the party rule that requires party members to be members of a trade union. At the recent Labor National Conference(on the weekend of 28 April 2007), ALP Leader Kevin Rudd downplayed the significance of this requirement. He stated that he did not believe it was necessary for all members of the ALP to be a member of a trade union, dismissing the requirement as a mere technicality. However, he did not go so far as to say that the rule should be abolished.
It seems that no matter what the outcome of the next election is, it will have significant consequences for the Coalition, the ALP and the trade unions. It will be interesting to see what is in store for these organisations.