Unions are still relevant
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5:50 pm, September 7th, 2024 - 26 comments
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Unions are not for everyone but just shy of half a million (488,700) or just under 20% of all paid employees belong to a union (24Q2).
Over the last 8 years this percentage has increased, slowly but surely.
Union membership is relatively evenly spread between ages 25-64 with union members of each of the 4 age groups representing around 4.5% of the total pool of paid workers.
The trends over the last 8 years are positive for ages 25-34, 35-44, and 65+, and negative for the age group 45-54. Fewer employees aged 15-24 are union members and people over 65 tend to leave the (paid) workforce.
As one might expect, union membership is higher among older workers with the strongest representation at 55-64 with more than one in four belonging to a union.
One other interesting observation is that women who are union members outnumber men across all age groups.
Given the resilience and relevance of unions in New Zealand it is not surprising that the neo-authoritarian coalition government has started union busting battles in its class war. Of course, the Right is as aware as the Left of the merit of joining forces with others, but it tends to call this euphemistically ‘association’ (Association of Consumers and Taxpayers aka ACT party) or ‘network’ (as in Atlas network) unless it takes the piss with its astroturfing offshoots such as the Taxpayers’ Union or the Free Speech Union.
Collective efforts and combining forces are the only way to stand up against corporate power and the might of wealthy capitalist elites. They may not evil per se but they certainly don’t have your and our best interests at heart. Follow the money and watch out for and listen carefully to the sock puppets doing their bidding – they can sound very compelling and convincing (but so does AI).
Arguably, unions and group solidarity are becoming more relevant if we want to protect our hard-fought rights against the erosion of apathy and historical ignorance let alone to consider making progressive changes and improvements to society and ways of governing.
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Most of the things we NZ workers take for granted like sick pay, bereavement leave, paid annual leave are there only because unions fought for them in the past. Those who rubbish unions have no idea what their predecessors sacrificed to get what we think are our rights now.
The price has at times been heavy.
Massey's Cossacks, Kiwis Care, Employment Relations Act – all have treated unionism as an enemy that need to be eliminated.
Now we have Seymour and co who want to go back to the glory days where people who want to join a union or sign a collective agreement are demonised.
I am not currently a union member but I soon will be.
When you see Seymour interfering to stop people from signing a collective agreement then you know this government has an agenda to f.. workers up the a… and you had better get prepared.
That is why they like a foreign migrant workers coming here. They are easy to manipulate into not joining unions and thus are easier to exploit.
Unions need to work out how to activate within the current legal system to exert power. Annual only collective agreements would be a good start. Advocating for automatic annual pay increases linked to inflation to maintain wage value would be another. Support for benefit increases to reduce the impact of the standard 6% unemployment rate in order to suppress wages. Increased employer contributions to Kiwisaver to start to bring NZ closer to Australian levels.
NZ Workers have been f****d over big time cf to our AU counterparts here in NZ we work weekends for NO Penal Rates. We work Night Shifts for No Penal Rates, How Does That Work ??? We have been F****d Over as Workers here in NZ. We are a low wage, low rent economy ???
Only 12% of Australian workers are unionised, and in their private sector it's les than 8%.
NZ unions are much stronger and making an even stronger comeback over the last year as workers realise they need united protection against this kind of government.
The fall from 40% membership to just 12.5% since 1992 has been bad for the average Australian. With wage growth being pretty poor.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1324471/australia-annual-wage-growth-wpi/
Some officials at big aussie unions have been caught up in corruption scandals for decades, the most recent, top union leaders involved in bribery allegations in the construction industry. This may contribute to ambiguity about belonging to a union there.
I learnt a great deal of aussie political shenanigans on reading the excellent Melbourne crime thriller series by Shane Maloney. Murray Whelan is a small time Labor politico who falls up the political ladder to state government. Good books, great inside info on the grubbiness of Victorian politics in the 80s and 90s, from electorate infighting up.
First of all, people should pay their worker union fee and be supportive members of what is really an insurance that a worker can not be treated badly.
The only power workers have is in numbers. Solidarity and collective purpose working together to protect pay and conditions of work.
Seymore knows if people lose trust in their union and don't join, that will have weakened worker rights and strengthened employer rights.
I was a union delegate advocating for members, and also experienced workplace bullying myself. There is no insurance that you will get fair resolution, even if the union is involved. Management gets their way in the end. The only question is the degree of burn the member experiences.
Teachers have the strongest unions in the land, that is why they are a target for Seymore.
https://www.employment.govt.nz/fair-work-practices/unions-and-bargaining/unions/union-membership
Thanks Incognito, a timely post.
A few random thoughts.
A few days after my father passed away following a massive stoke at work, my Mum got a knock at her front door. Two men, representatives from Dad's union gave her an envelope. It was enough to sort out all the funeral arrangements and a little bit more.
As to ideas to bolster union membership, I would suggest a subsidy subscription. As an older member of E Tu (I'm in my late 50's), I would be happy to pay an increase in fees that would allow a junior member of the workforce to receive complimentary or well subsidised membership.
In regards to higher female membership, not a crticism just an observation, I wonder if that is down to nursing and teaching unions and their apparent strength.
As Tiger Mountain has said a few times, we (unions and their members) need to start getting more assertive and stroppy. Assertive by helping Labour with the necessary 'reforms' (living wages for any sub-contractor the state employs and union membership for every RSE and migrant worker for a starter), and stroppy with push back against the likes of Van Velden's safety reforms and Seymour's anti-union charter schools experiments.
UNIONS. The people who gave us Weekends
However NO PENAL RATES for working weekends.
I thought Samuel Duncan Parnell was the first proponent of a 40 h week in the 1840s for carpenters in Wellington.Were Chartists union members? The 40 hours included a Weds and Sat half-day for some.
Parnell was a sole trader builder.
Note, that these days independent builders "colluding" to fix working conditions/prices is illegal.
As is Union members striking to get the same working conditions from multiple employers.
Good post. Interesting to see US unions are growing. Like the song says I’m gonna be union til the day I die.
The song by Harlan County miner's wife, Florence Reece, and its history, asks a question that still needs answering- "Which side are you on?"
https://unionsong.com/u015.html
Since the National blitzkrieg of ’91–the Employment Contracts Act–that decimated union density in a year, it has been a slow grinding task to even maintain numbers as work became more precarious, particularly in the private sector.
New Zealand has a large self employed/small business sector and a strong anti union streak, all unionists are really swimming against the tide in a certain sense. But against the odds unions have remained and there is slow growth. First Union (ex NDU, retail, logistics etc.) always hovered in the high twenty thousands of members but is now at 32,000. The DWU Te Runanga Wai U–has high density at around 90% in much of the Dairy Industry–7–8000 members.
The PSA who I criticise for their “partnership” and political neutrality policies has good numbers, and maybe 7000 sacked so far will give them a nudge now. Teachers held the line magnificently on Charters and National Standards when Hekia and sirkey were going for them. I hope the new gen teachers have the understanding to do likewise now.
Joining a union is one practical thing most workers can do. I have been helping local transfer station workers get organised when I visit for recycling, providing health and safety info etc.–the boss wanted them to buy their own gloves for metal handling! A number have now joined First.
The missing piece for me is the timid NZCTU leadership, a union membership drive needs to be in peoples faces, and the leaders need to be in the news weekly taking on the CoC Govt. more directly.
My take on unions in the workplace is that any sensible senior exec team sees they provide an alternative pipeline on what is happening in an organisation, sideways to the layers of management and the stifling of bad news and unhappiness travelling upwards.
There was a time, when everyone could tell you, who the sitting President of the CTU was. (And before that, who the leader of the F.O.L was.)
"the leaders need to be in the news weekly" TM
Today, if you stopped people on the street, and asked them, "Do you know who the President of the CTU is?"
Most would say, "No."
Many would ask, "What's the CTU?"
That is about to change.
"taking on the CoC Govt. more directly" TM
On the 23rd of October the CTU is calling a nationwide stopwork of all unions.
Agitating for change and selling ideas of fair pay security and safety has fallen out of our ken thanks to the laws passed by Key's Government.
Workers were not allowed to challenge conditions of work. A whole generation grew up under the contract act, and thought unions were communist.
Like Kiwi saver, belonging to a Union should be automatic, with an opt out clause, and that membership should have a service arm, to assist current and past workers through hard times.
If the idea of a Union as a self help service was more prevalent that would negate the idea of trouble makers, and grow the understanding of collective strength and voice.
Giving an advocate permission to promote requests, seek law changes and speak on behalf of a group needs organisation and funds.
Unions would have to guard against closed shops and precious behaviour about skills, as innovation needs promotion as part of this idea.
We are to a degree separated by our devices, yet in many ways organising group actions has never been easier.
Maori again are leading the way, showing strong connections, contributions and plans for their futures. They will not be separated into easily picked off groups again. We need to observe and hold likeminded gatherings, where people feel the power of numbers again. IMO.
Good post Patricia. An idea could be to have transferable union membership so you are basically union for life, if you are unemployed or between jobs the fee drops to a token $1 per week so you can still participate.
"Collective efforts and combining forces are the only way to stand up against corporate power and the might of wealthy capitalist elites."
Unions probably have a role representing the interests of the reserve army of labour, too. Perhaps it's time they properly joined forces with the unemployed?
There was some co-operation between unions and unemployed during the 80s and 90s particularly, and it needs to happen again with 7000 public service workers sacked so far (and more behind the scenes with NGO defunding etc.). Even Seymour’s downgrading of school lunches from hot nutritious meals to dried out sandwiches will affect a number of suppliers livelihoods.
The Unemployed Movement was large around the country as Rogernomics and Ruthanasia hammered working class people, Sue Bradford’s Auckland Unemployed Workers Rights Peoples Centres and Beneficiary Advocacy provided great service and political push back on the likes of Jenny Shipley.
There are still many advocacy groups around like AAAP, but they definitely need to make a more public return.
The main reason unions struggle for members in NZ is that most businesses are small.
97% of our businesses employ less than 20 people. 2.1% employ 20 to 100 and less than 1% employ over 100 .
Those employees with talent necessarily move quickly between working class and boss class.
Unions can work well in big low paid industries but most NZ businesses work as a team culture. Not us vs them.
[Lprent recently gave you your only warning that if you want to assert statements of fact, then provide substantive links (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-28-07-2024/#comment-2006385). Yet, you make assertions after assertion without links, and misleading links when prompted (https://thestandard.org.nz/guess-who-needs-help-with-his-literacy-and-numeracy/#comment-2010469).
This is an attempt to re-write my Post that states and shows (with links) that union membership in NZ has been rising steadily over the last 8 years. You’ve provided nothing but an assertion.
Lovely assertion, but no link to check the veracity. In any case, it’s people, not the businesses they work in/for, who become members of a union or not.
Here’s some actual data to counter your unsubstantiated assertion:
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/new-zealand-business-demography-statistics-at-february-2023/
And here’s some slightly older data showing growth of union membership and on the distribution of members across various industry sectors: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/clew/news/union-membership-in-new-zealand-shows-further-growth.
Mate, you’re dreaming.
Nonsensical unsubstantiated statement aka BS.
I present to you Exhibit A: ‘them’ aka this coalition government and Brooke van Velden in particular (https://www.beehive.govt.nz/portfolio/nationalactnew-zealand-first-coalition-government-2023-2026/workplace-relations-and).
You’ve used up your warnings here. Take 2 months off – Incognito]
Mod note