By James Vassilopoulos
It should come as little surprise that union membership has fallen yet again. The percentage of workers who are in unions has been declining for more than 20 years now.
In August 1996, 31% of the work force were in unions, according to statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on February 3, compared to 33% in August 1995. Ten years ago the figure was 46%.
There has also been a decline in absolute numbers of unionised workers. In August, 2.19 million workers were in unions, compared with 2.28 million in August 1995. Ninety thousand workers have left unions in just one year.
The rate of decline of union membership has also increased in the '90s. In the 1980s the percentage of union membership fell by 1% a year; since 1992 it has fallen by 2% a year.
The unions are facing a huge crisis. Why is union membership falling, and what can be done about it?
When I worked as a recruitment officer with the communications union, I encountered a number of responses from workers which helped to explain the answers to these questions.
For a while I concentrated on recruiting workers in the Telstra shops. There are 16 shops in metropolitan Sydney. My job was to join administrative officers, customer sales officers and technicians to the union.
I would rock up to a workplace and introduce myself as being from the union. Then I would chat and listen to what they had to say about their work, about their views on Telstra and what they thought of unions.
The majority of workers (about 60%) were neutral or semi-apathetic. There was a small group of anti-union workers, who had had a bad experience or believed unions were bad. And there was an even smaller group who strongly supported unions and were in favour of collectivity.
Workers would say that unions do nothing; unions are troublemakers and strike too much. I also heard the more realistic criticism that unions are too close to management. Staff I met would say, "Look, I don't need a union. I can look after myself. I can just get a promotion." Others would say, "I'm disillusioned. Nothing can be done. Why should I join a union?"
Many workers could not see the advantage of being in a union; many were very individualistic and others felt that little could be done. It is hardly surprising that workers felt these things after 13 years of the ALP-ACTU Accord, under which their working lives worsened and little campaigning occurred.
Working people are not dumb, and they have learned a few lessons. The fact that union leaderships have not led, and have in fact hampered, many struggles has led to many workers asking why they should fight, if they are going to lose anyway. I remember one worker telling me,"What can we do? Look at what happened in Victoria. They tried there, but they lost."
Why do workers join unions? Workers join unions largely to have their jobs protected, so that their working lives can be improved, so they can have some dignity and hope. They don't join for discount goods. If workers wanted to buy cheap goods, they could go to a Grace Brothers stocktake sale.
Union membership is falling because workers have no confidence that their jobs and working conditions will be protected, let alone improved. The ALP's Accord — which meant that real wages were slashed, conditions traded off and struggles suffocated — was devastating for union membership.
It led to a decline in struggles and campaigns, and the consequence of this is the loss of a whole generation of union activists. Young people today are the hardest to join to unions. Most barely know what a union is.
Many workers believe the union-bashing in the Daily Telegraph, for example — that unions cause trouble and strike too much, even though strikes are at their lowest for 40 years. Workers cannot contrast this propaganda with a visible, public, mobilised workers' movement. They believe it, and it becomes an obstacle to them joining a union.
One reason often given for the decline in union membership is the structural change which is occurring in many industries. More and more work is part time and casual in nature. The size of the highly unionised public service has been reduced.
These changes have occurred across all western societies. Yet in Canada, for example, there has not been a decline in union membership because the unions have responded to the changes. The fact that these changes have occurred is symptomatic of unions not seriously campaigning to defend permanent work and the public service.
To increase union membership, a serious fight is needed to combat the Howard and employer offensive, of which the passing of the Workplace Relations Act is just the beginning. We don't need a token fight, like after August 19, when unions did nothing to stop the bill, but a sustained campaign to show workers that unions will defend their interests and restore hope that things can be won.
Opportunities for militant grassroots campaigns are certainly there. But don't be too surprised when the union membership figures come out again next year, and have fallen again.