Well, yes and no. Union numbers have been declining for the past 25 years but I wouldn't say this is due directly to market forces, as Whitlam started introducing tariff reductions in 73 and the ACTU was a power house then.

They are still powerful but the rise of less manual professions and some perceptions that unions are a thing of the past, has helped to deplete their numbers. I would also suggest there is a generational schism between union members of the 60s and those of the 90s. There was a fall in campaigning to get new, younger members in the 80s and 90s, plus Hawke was in and the ALP seemed entrenched.

Not so sure about claims to have eradicated child labour. Unions and the old Dems gave it shot. Better have a look at some practices in the footware and textile industry. Not so much child labout here (see India, China and Indonesia) but out source workers - mainly migrant women.

Coda: I think this is a long cycle event. We only have a snap shot of 100 years. Would be interesting to see how membership goes once employers get the yips and start cutting jobs. Many people haven't lived through a rapidly contracting economy. Hope they don't

It’s all in the labelling. Have unions ‘declined’ … or have they reduced, stabilised, contracted, levelled off, downsized, fluctuated, delegated, become trim, taut and terrific ... or just moved on?

If unions have indeed ‘declined’ as much as is claimed, why do they still attract so much interest and why are our captains of industry still so frightened of them? And, if they have lost their relevance, why did Work Choices crash so spectacularly along with the Howard government?

Small is not necessarily a bad thing. The smaller the membership, the more flexibility the unions have to address the needs of a rapidly changing workforce and an economic future made uncertain by global warming, peak oil and, more recently, the excesses of capitalism (which is definitely in decline!)

Sadly SJF, I think we have declined.

All the reasons the author has cited have contributed very significantly but a change in mass attitude from collective values to individualist values has, in my opinion, taken the greatest toll. The concept of "we" seems to have been largely replaced by the concept of "me". Workers who no longer identify with the working class are easily moulded by employers into a new kind of relationship - they identify with the employer rather than with each other.

Plenty of people with little market power seem convinced that they are "negotiating their own wage and conditions" while little resembling negotiation actually occurs.

Of course, after many years of an employee's market, we may well be about to enter the oppostite swing - the employer's market. Many under the age of 40 will recieve a rude awakening as their individual bargaining power evaporates as the demand for many kinds of work withers with a serious slowdown or even recession. A good, hard lesson in the reality of longer-term economic cycles could be just the thing we need to start bringing people back to the fold.

The article needs updating to take account of the defeat of Howard, not least around WorkChoices and the mobilisation fof 500,000 people in the first demo against the regime. The failure of the ACTU to take the campaign forward but rather to retreat into tepid anti-Government advertising has allowed Rudd to introduce his own version of WorkChoices.

The two graphs at the end of the article suggest a correlation between declining strike days and declining membership. Maybe the class collaboration of the union leadership over the last 25 years (from 1983 with the Accord) and the concentration of power in the hands of a tiny group of paid officials and the destruction of rank and file organisation and networks is an alternative explanation for the decline of unions.

I think, SJF, small is not better.

I agree with Fozz on that. But I am not sure an economic recession is going to see an increase in membership. This is because a fearful workplace doesn't think in collective terms; it thinks in individualistic terms.

But Fozz's description of the myth of equal bargaining power is spot on. Individaul "negotiation" appears OK during a boom since the bosses can transfer a greater share of national income to capital and still pay real wage increases to workers. (I note that Labour's share of national income is at its lowest for 40 years.) But come a recession and the solution from a bosses' point seems obvious - to retain profit levels cut real wages and conditions.

The timidity of the last 25 years means they may be successful in doing this in coming years. There may be fight backs but they will be in traditionally strong union areas like building and construction and transport.

Since the union leadership have done little to build fighting unions over the last twenty five years (eg trading off hard won conditions and policing recalcitrant workers) and are likely to continue that role with a vengeance during recession, why would many workers now under threat of wage cuts or job losses even think a union would defend them?

I agree that workers are less likely to join up during a recession Passey but what I was alluding to is that during a prolonged economic downturn - which has not occurred in this country for almost 18 years, resulting an a whole generation of workers with no experience of anything other than relative prosperity - and the squeeze is on the bottom line, the bad bosses show their true colours. I think that many people have no appreciation of the fact that for quite some years now, employers have been relatively generous not necessarily because they are generous by nature but because they have had no choice. The demand for labour in many areas has been outstripping supply. They have had to pay a premium to secure labour which has been relatively scarce.

A few years of the supply of labour being significantly greater than demand, accompanied by the usual lay-offs and attacks on wages and conditions, will see many people learning the hard way about the true nature of the employment relationship.

In the long run, such widespread bitter lessons among the prols may be beneficial to our cause.

Passy and Fozz

I agree with what you both say. I was (flippantly) addressing the ‘labelling’ issue more than anything. A decline in membership does not necessarily mean a decline in effectiveness or relevance.

Some good news is that voluntary unionism has remained relatively stable (or at least decreased at a lower rate) compared to compulsory unionism, despite concerted efforts by successive governments to diminish – even remove – the role of unions altogether. Also, some research (Peetz 1998) has revealed greater levels of satisfaction among voluntary union members in terms of their union’s effectiveness and support.

Unions have been around in one form or another for many centuries. Until I read the book ‘Radical Brisbane’, I had no idea of the extent to which unions have shaped so much of our social history and our thinking – yet our official historical narrative portrays them almost entirely in terms of their power to strike.

If I were a union PR person pondering how to ‘sell’ the importance of union membership into the future, I would suggest they try to tap into their historical benevolent role and position themselves more as an important social force – similar to NGOs, charities and religions – rather than the adversarial image they have assumed (albeit perhaps unwillingly).

Fozz

‘The concept of "we" seems to have been largely replaced by the concept of "me".

True. Apparently, in the very early conceptual phase of the Your Rights at Work campaign, it was the ‘Our Rights at Work’ campaign, but someone decided ‘Your’ would be more effective in the current social climate.