People have been regularly announcing the collapse of the Australian labour movement. Parliamentarians in the NSW Parliament in the early 1890s were confident that the upsurge of the labour movement by 1893 was a just a passing phase, and would disappear by 1900.
The simple reality is that unionism is, in part, a response by employees to the nature and environment of their work. Each era of work prompts different groups of employees to organise collectively in temporally-appropriate ways. We will see unionism morph into new forms, despite legislation, the boofheads who captured some unions, and changing attitudes.
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- By Sarah Michael
- From: news.com.au
- May 14, 2012 1:41PM
- Union movement now at “breaking point”
- Howes says HSU crisis has left movement hanging
- Unions face major issues organising young workers
THE union movement is at a “breaking point” because it had failed to keep up with young professionals in modern “knowledge industries”.
And the crisis involving the Health Services Union scandal, which could dog younger members for decades, “must never happen again”.
Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes said unions were facing a crisis of legitimacy.
“We have to ensure that we never allow something like this to happen again, because if it does that could be the thing that wipes us off the map,” he said.
These were the messages delivered to the inaugural ACTU Youth Congress in Sydney this morning where delegates are looking at the movement’s future and the key work issues being faced by young people today.
Mr Howes said unions faced a major issue in organising workers in knowledge-based industries – like IT and finance – where most young Australians were being employed.
“These workers are not selling their labour for profit,” Mr Howes said. “They’re selling their intellect for profit.”
He said union representation was strong in blue collar sectors where there were existing structures, but the future of the movement would be in growing the “density of membership” to encompass a greater proportion of the Australian workforce.
“Our movement is at breaking point,” Mr Howes said. “We’ve had five years of a Labor Government and we’ve had no growth in density.”
ACTU Youth Committee chair Josh Peak said many young people were employed in workplaces where they could not join a union because there was no union to join.
“With these new industries we’ve failed to get a foothold in those new sectors,” Mr Peak told news.com.au. “You know, dot-com workers, the finance sector – we need to focus and make sure there’s feet on the ground.
“A lot of it is simply about face-to-face contact and saying to workers: ‘You should join a union and this is why’.”
Mr Peak said the ACTU’s youth policy planned to specifically target younger workers by reaching out to industries that had not traditionally been unionised.
This includes working with unions who already cover those areas, such as the Finance Sector Union, to grow coverage rates for younger workers.
“The Health Services Union saga has meant the very legitimacy of trade unions have been called into question,” Mr Howes added.
“Those of us who are relatively new in this movement have an added and extra responsibility to ensure the organisation we are members of and work for doesn’t allow a debacle like the HSU to occur again.”
The HSU was suspended from the ACTU in April following probes into alleged spending rorts by former HSU national secretary turned federal MP Craig Thomson and HSU East general secretary Michael Williamson.
Both men are accused of taking secret commissions from a graphic designer, while Mr Thomson allegedly misused a union credit card for prostitutes, lavish meals and cash withdrawals between 2002 and 2007.
- with AAP
4 Comments
Well, it only goes to show how smart is this Paul Howes joker when he announces he and his boofheaded union is throwing its support behind Madame Jul-liar. Obviously, he has mis-read the electorate; a thoroughly aggrieved electorate which is utterly fed up with the rot that has gone on at the national level since 2007 and perpetuated and worsened under Gillard’s stewardship, aided by the slimegreens and the woeful turncoats. The baseball bats are at the ready to give this utterly incompetent , indeed, the worst damned socialist minority government Australia has had in the history of Federation since 1901 a most severe, unprecedented caning come the next national election. Gillard and comrades have blatantly lied to the citizens of this country in relation to the carbon dioxide taxation rort using corrupted science and the list of its failings, the disgusting financial and ‘policyeeee’ mess, coupled with equally poor judgement and jaw-dropping stupidity are very, very well documented and on record for all to see. Just go away Paul Howes and take the ninja, her comrades, greens party and the grinning ‘turncoats’ with you, son. Aussies don’t suffer fools easily in case you didn’t know!
Of course, Paul Howes is no intellectual genius. I understand he left school in year 9. He will need a much higher education, exposure to public speaking like a gentleman, exposure to University education and success at Masters or Doctorate level and demonstrable success in a real job at basegrade, then middle level followed by executive training and integrity based executive management experience before he can advance and pretend to push the now utterly defunct, proven incompetent and absolutely shattered rotten labor party. It is just so sad that those many Australian workers still contribute financially to the failed AWU of which this joker is its Secretary. Dear oh damned well dear! I trust the labor party is never again given the mantle of government anywhere in this country.
What I regret the most is having paid into a damned union for years and damned years and received absolutely nothing in return! Yet the great bulk of every union members’ contributions went to the damned rotten labor party. I am talking of millions upon millions of employee contributions to the rotten union here. Thus I encourage all employees and future employees not to contribute to damned corrupt unions. You have adequate recourse to workplace problems and their resolution by taking independent legal action where the proofs are there to put a cross on the forehead of a crook employer and a rotten damned industrial union. Rest my case.
Huh, Huh, are your there Mr Paul Howes, the AWU ‘genius’ ?