The article well sums up the long-term trends that have impacted on unionism. I doubt if it could be put much better.

The state of unionism these days is that the members have no power, and so the union has no power. Consequently, the union is being forced to move to political strategies to get its message across. Unfortunately, the only way the unions will ever get any power back is if the Government and employers start bending workers over a barrel again. I'd like to think that the business world is more self-enlightened than that and realises that, in the end, doing this is counterproductive when attracting workers in a competitive environment.

Getting back to unionism, if you're an individual member the union will only help you if one of the following criteria are met:

1. The union can win your case.
2. It doesn't have to go too far out of its way to help you (ie you're part of the brethren).
3. It can get some political capital out of your predicament (eg, like the union ads against WorkChoices).

If, as an individual member, your situation doesn't satisfy one of these criteria, you'll be given short shrift.

An interesting article.
I had always been a union activist and had total faith in the union and the Labor party till 2000, when I was bullied at work and confidently turned to my union for support. To my amazement the union organiser told me that there was no hope of justice and that I should "accept the things you cannot change".
My story is told in more detail on the Bad Apple Bullies website at http://www.badapplebullies.com/investigations.htm
I rang the ACTU to tell them that my union would not help me, and they told me that workplace bullying was endemic in Australia and that unions could not afford to support the numbers of members who were being bullied. There was the added problem that my union - the Queensland Teachers' Union - is for both workers and bosses (teachers and administrators at every level) and the union has a "member versus member" rule which states that no member will be helped if they are "in dispute" with(i.e. being bullied or harassed by) another member.
In my opinion unions became the bad guys when they adopted a policy of allowing members to be abused at work because it was cheaper than protecting them. This policy exposed union members to workplace abuse.
For example, in recent research 97.5% of teachers claimed that they had been bullied at work. 50% of teachers leave the job after just five years. And teachers are reported to work with feelings of profound sadness. These are the benefits of union membership.
So what are our union fees actually being used for? Why - to pay actors huge fees to act out fabricated workplace problems in TV adverts, and to persuade the mug punters that, if they have a problem at work, unions will protect their workplace rights.
Well, I am not an actor and I am not being paid a huge fee, and I can tell you that when I needed help in 2000, my union abandoned me.
That was when unions became the bad guys.

Well put.. A union should only exist to ensure minimum rights and conditions are met. Beyond that they have little influence on Australian workplaces today. I do fear though for the little guy who has very little bargaining power to begin with. Alas, for they will always be trampled on.

With any organisation that you have to pay to join, you won't join if you perceive no benefit.

With unemployment at an all time low, the ability to jump ship to improve conditions, means that employers are competing to keep workers, and the benefits of union membership and long time employment are fading.

In my time I have seen two types of union, one which is militant and who tries to score points off management at every turn, and one which engages management and acts as two way conduit for concerns and improvements. The second while having a lower profile tends to get all the major gains such as pay and many more smaller wins for the individuals and management, and job conditions and productivity improve hand in hand.

As the other comments suggest, unless the unions see themselves as providing a service to all parties, the workers will simply shop elsewhere.

I think that few people would disagree that unions have had some positive impacts in the past, however in more recent times, unions have been involved in a series of both public and not so public situations which casts some very bad light on them.

An example from my own experience is the ETU when I was consulting to an energy company - a union official threatened to walk the whole staff out because two apprentices were being paid differently.... the difference (a rounding error) was the equivelent of 5 cents a year. Is this what we call acceptable behaviour?

Working in HR and payroll, I have plenty more stories like this.

A more public example is the waterfront dispute - the MUA had not only been deliberately working at lower than capacity levels, but had been the epitome of what was descibed here... overalls and all. This was a very public display of an entrenched union behaving very badly.

As I said, no argument that there was some good work done 20+ years ago, however todays negative image of unions is entirely their own doing.

Yep, the unions became the bad guys, or probably more correctly "superfluous to requirements", when they stopped helping the little guy.

My experience was with the Community and Public Sector Union when one of its delegates told me that the union didn't help individuals with grievances. There was no explanation why, just a firm, don't-argue statement. It was then I realised the union was all bark and no bite and all its rhetoric about helping workers was recycled from its more successful past. The latest CPSU ads on TV are a complete joke and it's clear to me the union is just angling to attract soft-headed and idealistic members who want to feel secure but who, in reality, aren't.