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Assignment on Union Density

   

Added on  2021-04-17

9 Pages2413 Words57 Views
Running head: UNION DENSITYUnion DensityName of the Student:Name of the University:Author note:

1UNION DENSITYIntroductionEmployee representation is always regarded as the most central concept in the contextof industrial relations and trade unions are considered to be the superior form of the employeerepresentation. Between the years 1991 to 2008, the world has experienced huge changes andso does the union density. This paper will elaborate on this context. It shall shed light on whathas happened to the union density rates during this period in New Zealand. Furthermore, itshall focus on the possible reasons behind the stagnancy of the density rates after theintroduction of the ERA in 2000, notwithstanding that the act has supported for trade unionsand specific objective of promoting collective bargaining. Finally, the outcomes that areassociated with the decline in collectivism shall be discussed below. It shall end its discussiondescribing the factors that underlay the decline in private sector union membership andcollective bargaining, along with a conclusion to sum up the whole.

2UNION DENSITYDecline in the rate of union density in New Zealand: New Zealand, actually, is a verypowerful example of the significance of legislation to the growth of union and now is also thesame for the union decline (Schnabel, 2013). The decline in the union membership issignificant as because they have the potential to affect the employment, investment,productivity, distribution of the earnings and the overall outputs, for the good or the ill. It isto be noted that declination in the membership of union was not just started within a day. Amajor slowdown in the global economic growth as well as productivity, along with increasedinflation after the oil shocks of 1970s had created an adverse labor market conditionsvirtually in all the Western countries (Khan, 2014). The two legislation pieces that havealmost directly influenced the levels of union membership are the Employment Contracts Act(1991) and the Labor Relations Act (1987). However, it has fallen markedly in the early1990s. By the May of 1991, there were about 69.1% of fewer unions than that was in theDecember of 1985 and this was due to the Labor Relation Act that required the unions toconsist of minimum 1000 members, where in the previous legislation it was only 30members.The sudden fall in the union membership or union density at the initial two and a half yearsafter the Employment Contracts Act of 1991 had been passed was vigorous in both theprivate and the non-profit sectors. It was intense among the workers belonging from thesecondary labor market. New Zealand has led the way in liberating and releasing the wagebargaining and economy with the introduction the ECA and the reduction in governmentpower on wage bargaining. From the year 1991 to 1994, the union densities in New Zealandfall from 40.8% to 24.1% (Maloney & Savage, 2016).

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