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MGT5ERN Employment Relations and Conflict Management

   

Added on  2020-04-21

11 Pages2730 Words78 Views
Running head: EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSEmployment relationsName of the universityName of the studentAuthors note

1EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSIntroduction:The report is prepared to depict understanding of union membership in employmentrelation in Australia. It deals with presentation of reasons behind the decline in trade unions inAustralia. Union movement in Australia has been declining for several decades and the decline ismostly attributed to economic and social factors. The concept of unionism in Australia isoperated within a uniquely antipodean labor market legislation pattern (Wanrooy et al. 2013).Later part of report deals with some proposals for uplifting change and increasing union densityin Australia. Discussion:Australian labor party has extended has extended the Australian unionism uniqueness toits active parliamentary political engagement. In year 1983-1996, labor government witnessclose national accords between union and labor in government (Hodder et al. 2017). This leadsto an essential shift in determination of wage by decentralized enterprise bargaining comparedto centralized wage fixing. Successive piece of legislation and outright hostility have beenexperienced by unions and this have helped in fostering employment legislation individualizationand have worked against the union bargaining and union membership. Among Anglo Saxoncountries, Australia have been experiencing sharp decline in density of union. During 1990scompared to other OECD countries, Australia has been experiencing steep decline in uniondensity (Bach and Bordogna 2013).

2EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSAustralian union membership trends and estimates:(Source: Abs.gov.au 2017)The above graph depicts trend movements in union membership and density from year1982 to 2007. During the quarter century, there have been fall in trade density and in year 1990,there was severe fall in union density. As there was stabilization in union membership, there wasease in rate of density decline. With the introduction of Work choice legislation, there was fall inunion membership. Declining power is commonly signified by declining union density that hasbeen the case in Australia. In year 1850, the transformation of economy due to gold discoveryhas led to unionism and establishment of formal union was confined to tiny skilled elite. Earlytrade unions policies was regarded as exclusive as they were organized for protecting theposition of relatively privileged labor market. In year 1860s and 1870s, historiography ofAustralian union included Sydney Trade and labor council and Melbourne Trade and Hallcommittee (Heino 2016). A number of impediments was faced in an attempt to broaden the base

3EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSof union movement. In year 1875, a shearer union disappeared that was established inQueensland. Another obstacle to the growth of Union in that era was small scale nature ofmanufacturing sector. The flood tide of Australian union was represented for the period between1968 and 1974 in the history of Australian union. There was a drop in union intensity to 49%after 1954 (Godard 2014). Change in fortunes of union was mainly attributable to structuralchange in economy. In year 1970, there was sustained fall in union support. Unionism inAustralia has significantly workforce of white collar in year 1920 and from early 1950, there wassteady growth in workforce and by year 1980, white collar workers constitute 40% of totalunionist (Healy et al. 2017). The effect on trade union in Australia have been dramatic as the basis for union supporthave been reduced by de regulation of financial and economic sector and changing compositionof Australian workforce. There has been decline of number of public sector employees who hadthe more likelihood of being trade union compared to private sector employees. Although therehave been increase in casual and part time workers who have the difficulties in unionizing alongwith decrease in full time workers. Decline in union has also been contributed by increasingtrend of female employment (Kalleberg 2015). Therefore, Australian working life have been redefined by dominance of neo liberal policies that are driven by market. Decline in density ofunion have been explained by such trends. Some of multiple factors explaining the reason ofunion decline relates to changing role in public sector, institutional protection loss, employmentcontracts, increasing hostility of employer relating to union and anti-union policies, workplacelevel union organization weakness and government actions during recent periods of conservativestate and commonwealth government. Nonetheless, there are cultural factors that is leading toshift in Australian society from one that are characterized by egalitarianism and collectivism

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