THE ‘CLOSED SHOP’ workplace has virtually been consigned to industrial relations history, and Australian workers have never felt so free about their choices to join or not join unions, according to federal government employment advocate, Jonathan Hamberger
THE ‘CLOSED SHOP’ workplace has virtually been consigned to industrial relations history, and Australian workers have never felt so free about their choices to join or not join unions, said federal government employment advocate, Jonathan Hamberger.
However, he added that a minority of employees in some industries still experience significant pressure about this choice.
The Office of the Employment Advocate (OEA) commissioned the Social Research Centre to conduct surveys of more than 3,000 union and non-union members about whether or not they have been pressured in relation to their union membership status.
The resulting report, Freedom of Association – A Survey Report, found there had been a significant decline in the level of ‘de facto’ compulsory unionism. In 2003, just over 5 per cent of union members felt that they were not free to resign from the union if that was their wish. This compares with a 1996 study which shows that over a quarter of union members were employed in workplaces that were de facto ‘closed shops’.
Furthermore, 92 per cent of respondents agreed that union membership was left up to the individual to determine.
However the NSW Labor Council hit back, claiming the big issue in modern workplaces is not union coercion but employer intimidation of union members.
“The reasons for workers not joining a union are varied but include: barriers to union access; the spread of non-union contracts and perceptions that joining a union will hold a worker back in their career,” said Labor Council secretary John Robertson.
Citing a survey conducted by Essential Research into 1,005 NSW workers earlier this year, he said 29 per cent of all non-union members said they would be in a trade union if they were free to choose.
“Given these findings… we call on the federal government to make victimisation of union members and the intimidation of prospective members as a priority area for the employment Advocate in the coming months,” he said.
“The Labor Council and affiliated unions would be happy to cooperate with the OEA in an inquiry along these lines.”
