International Socialists

Andrew Cooper

Figures show union membership continues to rise – along with an overall increase in strike activity.

The annual report from Victoria University’s Industrial Relations Centre shows that a total of 329,919 people belonged to trade unions as of December 2001, an increase of nine percent from the December 1999 figure. In the same period the number of people in paid employment rose by 4.3 percent – meaning that union membership is rising at twice the rate of employment growth.

Meanwhile the Statistics Department’s latest work stoppages report, which measures complete and partial strikes as well as lockouts by employers, shows that after crashing following the 1991 Contracts Act and remaining at historically low levels during the 1990s, the number of stoppages has started rising again in the last two years.

But there’s still a long way to go. After reaching a low point in the year to December 2000, when only 21 strikes or lockouts involving 2,632 workers took place, the figures have increased to 46 actions involving 24,580 workers for the year to June 2002 – but this is only just over half the figure for 1996 – and still well down on pre-Contracts Act figures.

A much less scientific but perhaps more real feeling for this slow recovery is the visibility of industrial action – almost every day the newspapers carry reports of some sort of strike – when even just a couple of years ago it was possible to know about just about every single action taking place!

Still, we need to be careful not to get carried away – strikes remain at historically low levels and most workers lack the confidence to fight unless their officials take the lead.

Union officials argue that the main factor behind this halting recovery is the new Employment Relations Act. PSA national secretary Bryce Fleury describes it as a turning point with a general acceptance amongst workers that it’s now okay to be a union member.

This is of course complete rubbish and involves a reversal of cause and effect. As we pointed out a year ago ("Unions: The Beginning of the Recovery?" Socialist Review 8 (Spring 2001)), the main purpose of the "new" industrial relations legislation was not to give workers or trade unions greater power at the expense of bosses. Rather it was to strengthen the hand of the paid union officials in relation to their members.

In other words long-term economic conditions, in particular gradually falling real incomes, not the "union-friendly" Labour government, are forcing workers to re-forge workplace organisation and (slowly) take more strike action to maintain their wages and conditions. The ERA is an attempt to ensure that when these actions happen they are firmly under the control of union officials with a stake in maintaining "industrial harmony" and "good relations with employers."

As the teachers’ dispute clearly showed, because their day-to-day activities often involve far more contact with management than their own members, union officials often try to dampen down struggles that clearly have the support of most union members.

The teachers’ dispute was very important – for the first time in many years a significant and well-organised group of workers took action in open defiance of the union leadership. It would have been hard to imagine this happening in the first couple of years of the Labour government – when union officials were able to convince members to "give Labour a chance," and not "alienate public support." But these arguments simply don’t wash with an increasing number of union members.

As the union movement continues to recover in the coming years, reorganising a strong network of rank-and-file activists will be vital to defend and advance workers’ interests.