• Tony Teesdale

Union Membership in Decline?

The Government has clearly signaled its intention to strengthen the position of unions and grow employee collectivism. 

Compulsory data collection of union numbers has not existed for some time. However, information is available through Victoria University and the Council of Trade Unions. 

The numbers are clear. The total number of union members as at 2017 was 361,660. The number has fallen 6.4% since 2010. Hence the Government’s various proposals to strengthen unions. These include changes to the Employment Relations Act to make it easier for unions to gain access to employer premises and conclude collective agreements; and the proposed introduction of sector and industry bargaining through the proposed Fair Pay Agreements. 

Union membership is highest across public and community services. This includes health care, social assistance, and education. The marked growth in union membership in health care and social assistance has in fact resulted in an increase in union membership in the public sector in the last two years.

Outside the public sector, union membership in manufacturing increased for the year to December 2017. However, it has ultimately declined by 40.4% from its peak in 2005. The biggest area of growth is in the transport, postal and warehousing areas.

If we consider union density, which is the ratio of the number of employees who are members of trade unions, against all employees, the position is the same. At December 2017, union density stood at 17.3%, but this was down 21.3% from 2010. The growth rate of new jobs since the GFC has impacted density because, in spite of union membership numbers increasing in some areas, it is offset by more people in new jobs who have not joined a union.

Unsurprisingly, union membership and union density are higher in the public sector than the private sector: 60% in the public sector versus 10% in the private sector.

Compared with other countries, union density in New Zealand is higher than in Australia (15.5%) and the USA (10.7%) but less than the UK (23.2%) and Canada (30.4%).

The Fair Pay Working Group made much of NZ’s low coverage by collective agreements and concluded that Fair Pay Agreements would be a means to increase wages and productivity; and indirectly grow membership. But it’s not as simple as that. No matter where you look, the percentage of people covered by collective agreements is declining. Even those countries that have high coverage of awards or collective agreements still have relatively low union density. Australia is a case in point, where some 60% of workers are covered by their modern awards, but union density is lower than New Zealand’s (17.5% vs 15.5%).

The reason is that such workers do not have to be union members to receive the benefits of award coverage. The same would apply here with the proposed Fair Pay Agreements, which is why some unions here are questioning whether such agreements would benefit them or their members.

It is too soon to determine whether the policies of the current government will achieve the desired outcomes, but one suspects that in the modern age where people are better educated, more people prefer to paddle their own canoe.

 


Issue 97 April 2019