Red News Readers,
No wonder union membership is falling when you have self serving bureaucracies sitting contentedly in their air conditioned offices with cozy relationships with Labor governments helping to deliver whatever gains are made. Union officials need to get off their bums and redevelop a close relationship with their members and their members concerns. That may mean getting rid of the ACTU's Organising Model which seems to mean that union delegates in the workplace do all the hack work and organisers swan around holding high level meetings that the members hear nothing about. The Workchoices period was diffiicult for unions, but we are getting past that now, and a new approach is called for. Unless we adopt this new approach I predict union membership will fall even lower.
Jenny Haines
Union membership rates halved in two decades: ABS
24 July 2008 Content provided to you by AAP.
CANBERRA, July 23 AAP - The number of trade union members in Australia has almost halved in the past two decades, new statistics reveal.
The figures, from Australian Social Trends 2008 released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics today, show 46 per cent of employees (2.6 million) belonged to a trade union in 1986.
By 2007, the rate of membership had fallen to 19 per cent (1.7 million).Older age groups were more unionised, the figures show.Union membership among employees aged 15-24 saw the biggest decrease from about one in three (36 per cent) to one in 10 (10 per cent).
During the same two-decade period the rate among employees aged 25-34 dropped from 48 per cent to 15 per cent.
Similar trends were recorded for the baby boomer generation born in the 1950s.
The report also shows that the number of industrial disputes declined markedly over the past two decades.In 1987, there were 1,519 industrial disputes.By 2005, the number of disputes fluctuated between about 520 and 770, before falling to 135 in 2007.
About Me
- JENNY'S RED NEWS
- Dear Fellow Bloggers, For some time I have thought about starting a left of centre news and commentary service and I have tried to do this by using email. But as some good, but email overloaded friends have suggested, a better way to go may be by blogging. So here it is! Jenny's Red News. My primary interests are left of centre politics and the very important question of how can we get left of centre parties, groups and grouplets in Australia working together more co-operatively. The right of centre predominates politics in this country at the present time, and they are on the march. We on the left of centre need to work together more co-operatively and constructively to put the left of centre agenda out there, for the perusal and consumption of the Australian people. Particular topics that will be reported on and on which comments are welcome are: Industrial relations - Opposition to Workchoices Refugee and Asylum Seekers Human Rights Civil Liberties Opposition to the Welfare to Work Changes Health System Reform Aboriginal Health and Reconciliation Jenny Haines posted by JENNY'S RED NEWS at 12:50 AM 0 comments