Management Trade Union Australia Discussion 2022

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
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Topic- Trade unions have lost their relevance in the Australian labour market (Agree)
Introduction
The trade unions are termed as the association of the workers forming the legal unit or
the legal personhood which is known as the bargaining unit and legal representative for the
unit of the different employees in the different matters of law or in the administration of the
collective kind of agreement. As commented by Wright et al. (2016), there are three major
principles of trade unions that includes negotiating of wages as well as working condition
terms. Furthermore, the trade unions help in regulating proper relations between workers as
well as employers and enforcing the terms of collective bargaining. The main aim and
purpose of the essay is to understand and identify the factors which has led to the loss of
relevance of the trade unions in the Australian labour market.
Discussion
As commented by Pulignano, Meardi and Doerflinger (2015), the first Australian
unions were mainly formed by the different free workers in Hobart along with Sydney in late
1820s. However, the entire spreading of the unions was done in the late 1830s and between
the years 1850 as well as 1869, there were more than 400 unions that were formed. As opined
by O’Sullivan et al. (2015), most of the trade unions were formed for assisting the different
members at the time of illness, unemployment or death. However, according to Murray
(2017), most of the early unions were short-lived in nature and it affected their growth in a
negative manner. However, from the year 1870s, the different women became an active part
in the trade unions movement and they often formed separate unions.
On the contrary, as commented by Marino (2015), during the 1890s, it challenged the
overall growth and growing related strength of the Australian labour unions negatively. As
opined by Lechner (2016), it was being seen that there was a drastic fall in membership

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which was due to the economic kind of depression along with union defeat following the
various kinds of strikes. Due to the same, many of the recently formed and small formed
unions collapsed and it affected the overall growth prospects of the trade unions negatively as
well. From different incidents, it can be made clear that the trade unions in Australian
economy are in much weaker position than they were during the accord years (Holgate 2015).
With low kind of density, it can be seen that the Australian unions are in limited position for
countering causes related to the declining power of workers as well as the inequality which
have been caused among the workers. Due to decline in the unionisation in Australia, it has
been leading to the decreasing kind of prevalence in the union membership and due to the
same, it has affected many men and women negatively who were involved in the process and
it impacted their growth-related prospects in a negative manner.
From the different data which have been generated from ABS, it can be made clear
that the density of union members specifically, who are men have declined and fallen from
43% in 1992 to 13% in the year 2016. On the other hand, the decline in the density of the
women union members have fallen from 35% to 16%. The slight higher kind of proportion of
the different female union members is due to the concentration in the industries which is
partly in nature and the occupations are likely to be unionized such as teaching or nursing. As
commented by Holgate (2015), there has been huge increase in the part time employment in
the Australian economy that has led to the decline in the union membership and it affects the
growth prospects of the company in a negative manner and it helps in prohibiting the
compulsory kind of unionisation which were enacted by the state government.
As commented by Hodder and Edwards (2015), the high level of competition for rents
had generated spiral of unemployment as well as inflation that had promoted Accord as the
solution. In the current scenario, there is extraction of rents as well, however these are done
with the help of the different kinds of groups such as extremely high-income earners,