Chris Trotter has strong opinions, when I get the time to follow him – which isn’t often. But this short story, about Blue and Harry, stalwarts of the good old days of unionism, has turned up on my media monitoring, repeated in every little down-home country paper throughout the country. Blue says :
“I heard that Darien Fenton woman talking on the radio the other day – Labour’s industrial relations spokesperson. You know what she says?”
“What did she say?”
“She says: ‘Nobody on the Left is calling for the reintroduction of compulsory unionism and national awards.’”
“Never asked us”, said Harry.
“No, she bloody didn’t”, muttered Blue. “But I know what I’d like to ask Darien Fenton. I’d like to ask her how much longer Labour’s going to let this wretched experiment in voluntary union membership go on before declaring it a failure?
“Ninety-one out of a hundred, Harry. Ninety-bloody-one! That how many private sector workers lack union protection. Hundreds-of-thousands of ordinary Kiwis stripped of the ability to negotiate with their employers on equal terms. To look the boss in the eye and say ‘no deal’, without being sent down the road.”
Yep, well Blue and Harry (and Trotter) have got that right. There’s only 9% of private sector workers covered by unions and collective bargaining in NZ. It’s not a NZ only situation – and there’s plenty of international evidence mounting now, including from the IMF and the OECD, that the decline in unionism and collective bargaining has contributed to rising inequality and even the GFC.
I honour the commitment of the Blues and Harry’s and of those who followed them. I’ve worked in workplaces where there’s been strikes for weeks on end. I have my share of war stories, just like many Labour MPs (and they’re not all glorious). We worry about leaving the next generation much worse off than the one we inherited from their struggle. But the world has sadly changed. In Blue and Harry’s day, a casual worker would have been unheard of. Working the weekend for ordinary rates would be a strikeable offence. But women getting equal pay, paid parental leave, domestic leave and four weeks holiday were also just as unthinkable, so it’s not all about what happened yesterday.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t injustices, low pay and exploitation. There is plenty to go around.
But Blue and Harry would find today’s workplace unrecognisable and while we learn from our history, yesterday’s solutions aren’t the only solutions for today’s problems. Try, for instance, telling a young IT worker they should be compulsorily bound to a union.
So, Blue and Harry (and Chris Trotter) be patient. Talk with me if you want – anytime. Labour’s policy will be announced soon. We will be standing up for workers, and as we have always done, standing up for the poor and the lowest paid, and taking into account the fragmentation of the labour market, the huge inequalities that have developed, and the need to create a fairer society for everyone.
Sorry Darien the whole world has moved on, workers still enjoy all the rights they ever had, they now don’t have to worry about being hauled out on a strike they neither need nor want in support of their “comrades” hundreds of miles away involved in a dispute over some trivial rubbish.
How many hungry mouths sat round a table waiting to be fed while the breadwinner was on strike or to scared to cross a picket line.
Thank god those days are gone, and the only ones out of a job now are union organisers, stop trying to drag the country back to the dark past and get on with the job of at least trying to look like an opposition party.
This is the most sensible thing I’ve ever seen you write, Darien.
I voted Labour religiously in a prior time but haven’t for the last 2 elections due to the rank ideologically-driven drivel that comes up continually, especially with such clear control of the party from the Union movement.
No doubt you’ll get sh*t from some about not following a blindly pro-compulsory unionism line, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that the “reasoned” approach you’ve hinted at above will resonate far more with many than the outdated “Union or bust” rubbish that we’ve heard up until now.
There’s a reason 91% of people don’t want to belong to a Union. That’s not to say there’s not a place for Unions or that the 9% they look after don’t need them, but you’re dead right – times have changed. And a big proportion of that 91% strongly dislike the strong-arm tactics often employed by Unions both now and prior.
Well done. Will be interesting to see where this goes and whether you can hold that line in the face of the inevitable criticism you’re no doubt about to be hit with.
“But women getting equal pay, paid parental leave, domestic leave and four weeks holiday were also just as unthinkable”
I would have thought Darien equal pay was always fundamental to unions since 1880s. As Helen Kelly pointed out recently only union contracts are fully disclosed so the employee can see equal pay for the same job title. Holidays also have consistently been one week extra for shift workers (ie give the boss a reason) and put out as a barging chip by all unions, who generally go after a higher base rate. Reasonable consideration of employees circumstances (today would include domestic circumstance) of all workers (except scabs of course) is also a fundamental. The difficulty has always been trying to get the boss to express these desires and the union to look past their noses.
“Try, for instance, telling a young IT worker they should be compulsorily bound to a union.”
Many professional bodies charge huge fees for registration without offering the benefits (to the payer) of a trades union body, and many are compulsory. Not the same job but I don’t hear too many complaints about the Law society, Medical council, or teachers board creating a closed shop.
So, given the choice, people don’t chose to join unions? so we should force them to do it because it’s for their own good?
It could be read that 91% of workers think that unions are irrelevant. In my workplace the union is sorry sack of lazy (and old) plant operators that go around looking for ways to attack management. If they put half the energy into working and building the team the workplace would be better than any pie in sky view they have about worker control. My GM works 7am to 10pm at least 2-3 nights a week. More than the lazy sad excuse for a man who prides himself on ‘being union’.
Unions. Irrelevant.
@Michael – so true. Unions are irrelevant in this day and age, I have two terrific employers, if I have an issue with the pay or conditions, I act like a grown up and go to speak to them myself. I don’t see why I need to pay someone 1% of my wages to talk to the boss across the room from me. That seems like daylight robbery!
That sounds remarkably like an excuse – this changed and so that had to change as well – but contains no information at all. If the dropping of compulsory unionism caused the increasing inequality and the attributed to the GFC, which wouldn’t surprise me as free-market dogma is irrational after all, then we should probably look at bringing it back and not making excuses.
That said, I’d prefer businesses being forced from a private ownership model which gives all the power and wealth to the few to a cooperative model. On the plus side of cooperatives you get more dynamic businesses, more likely to listen to the community, and more likely to be sustainable as well as curtailing the inequality that is a curse of any capitalist society that only rewards the few – usually the psychopathic few at that.
That’s probably because your GM is an idiot. There’s no way anybody should have to work those hours in this day and age.
in the UK when the closed shop was outlawed a good side effect was that it stopped lazy unions sitting back and watching the subs roll in. It meant they had to get out and recruit and talk to workers. The fall in union membership over the last decades was not (mainly) down to the end of the closed shop, it was due to globalisation, the loss of traditional industries, outsourcing and the end of job security. If you don’t expect to stay long in a job, why bother paying union dues? Of course that’s an oversimplification but it’s a lot closer to the truth than the fallacy that workers were forced against their will to join a union.
@Dorothy – maybe people grew backbones and could have a chat to bosses themselves without paying someone else to do it?
Another contributing factor to falling union membership has been the rise of the “cult of the individual”, not to mention the apathy engendered by years of attacks against workers and their rights.
@ Oliver I: Union membership fees don’t just pay for getting a third party to “chat to the bosses”: they also pay for support to workers and mediation during employment issues (such as disciplinary hearings), they pay for legal representation for workers when employment situations — such as changes that could negatively impact their employment — arise, and they pay for providing information to workers about their rights at work. All-in-all, a measly 1 – 2% of your pay is pretty good value.
After all, isn’t it fair that workers act collectively to counter-act the collective power of capital?
So they have to pay an enormous 1-2% of their salary – hundreds if not thousands a year – as some kind of insurance just incase they get into some kind of employment strife? and everyone should be forced to make this purchase for their own good?
Imagine what compulsory workers union membership could do to Labour’s funding.
Crikey
That’s probably because your GM is an idiot. There’s no way anybody should have to work those hours in this day and age.
@ Draco
Maybe he’s incentivised accordingly. Each to their own.
Free association is a cornerstone of our society and as such, while there is certainly a case for Unionism and collective bargaining, there is no case for it to be compulsary.
There is possibly merit in a system whereby Union membership could be managed on an opt-out basis similar to Kiwisaver, but it would have to be sold to the electorate as beneficial.
I for one don’t agree with ‘equal pay’ as a principle, other than it being in terms of base rate for similar roles across similar enterprises.
Incentives should always be available for employers to reward outstanding workers without Union interference.
If the above commentary thread is indicative of the views held about trade unions and unionists by avid Labour followers (presumably the primary audience for “Red Alert”) then it isn’t very hard to see why the party’s poll numbers are so dire.
What has a Labour Party capable of attracting members and supporters hostile to unionism got to offer working people?
Dig deeper Chris, is there a survey that will show how many then or current union members voted National at the last election?
@Chris – if you visited Red Alert more often, you would know that as many comments come from the right as the left.
Chris, Maybe you should comment on Red Alert more often and convince others to. You’re always welcome; unless you breach the mod rules of course…(I would do a smiley face but don’t like them)
Chris is like a restaurant critic who doesn’t like food. or maybe hes just a grumpy old man
@ Oliver I: That’s precisely what part of it is, insurance against employment strife. Of course, there should be no compulsion in this, I was merely pointing out the advantages of being a union member (apart from the inherent solidarity and ability to negotiate better wages and conditions, not to mention guarding against the erosion of work rights). 1 – 2% is hardly enormous, and if you weren’t aware, some unions have tiered fees. (Educating yourself about how unions work and what they do would be a good thing to do.)
Then again, those on the right don’t like workers organizing collectively because when workers are in a stronger position to negotiate, employers have less money in their pockets (sadly some employers are so short-sighted to see this as their only goal), and less control over their work force.
Ahhh the days of collective bargining….. I remember those days when all the useless pricks got the same wage rise as the good performers!!!
“I remember those days when all the useless pricks got the same wage rise as the good performers!!!”
As opposed to now, when hardly anyone gets a wage rise (or very small wage rises) because “things are tight”, and because workers hardly collectively bargain now, they’re getting hours AND wages cut back (in real terms) because they have no means to fight against it.
Unionism and collective bargaining is “bad” because everyone got to have their wages raised in line with cost-of-living increases? Interesting.
And so Dan when Times are tight for employers as they are now, you propose handing out large and unaffordable pay rises?
@ Jeff: Nice attempt at diversion. When did I propose that employers (or imply that they should) “[hand] out large and unaffordable pay rises”? If more workers were unionized, we’d see a bit more balance in employment relations and be able to say — just like in the original post — “no deal”, without being sent down the road.
This is an excellent position Darien, may it continue.
The notion that the only answer to “workers’” problems is unionism is condescending, and Labour should not be tied to it. People read newspapers, they like making up their own minds.
Elaborate theories about why people should be forced to join trade unions – whether they like it or not – are laughable and they are only going to alienate people in this day and age.
Cue Chris Trotter:
“What has a Labour Party capable of attracting members and supporters hostile to unionism got to offer working people?”
I don’t want to join a union. If a Government tells me I have to and I refuse, what action will it take?
Some thoughts on the wider discussion
http://robertwinter.blogspot.com/2011/09/insomnia-cure-2-putting-gareth-morgan.html
Darien, I find your final paragraph fascinating.
I look forward to Labour’s industrial relations policy, yet to be unveiled.
It is about bloody time the Labour Party did something for the economically disenfranchised.
Since 1984 it has all been one way traffic for the benefit of the Employers Federations, The Business Round Table, Federated Farmers and various business groupings.
They, of course, have no collective interests in common.
Yeah right!
How come ordinary folks are discouraged from forming associations with collective interests in common?
It is time the Monetarist Mullahs, Fundamentalist free marketeers, bull shitting bankers and their associated bullying business cabals were given a real good shove.
The “Arab Spring” is rooted in revolt against ideological and economic tyranny. There is a long festering resentment building up in this country against the wealthy few who despise those less fortunate than themselves and who block avenues to better themselves.
If all those privileged wealthy power brokers know so much how come the world is in such economic strife.
None of the above emperors have any clothes.
If only 9% of the workforce are union members how can they possibly be a threat to business?
@Robert Winter : thanks have read your blog. Missed the Herald article today – perhaps too engaged in trivia! Interesting and challenging discussion – hope we are on the brink of real change.
@peterlepayson : good points and hard to disagree. Something deeply wrong and needs to be challenged.
No, it’s because he’s an idiot. If there’s enough work for two people, which is what you implied, then two people should be doing the work. It cuts down on errors and gives both a far better living standard.
And I, for one, don’t agree with workers not having a say in how much they’re paid and I’m not talking about negotiation. I’m talking about the worker seeing the books, seeing how much the position is worth and then working out how much he should be paid in association with everyone else who works there. The owners (of course, I’m also totally against the capitalist ownership model as well as it really is just legalised theft) shouldn’t have a say at all unless they also work there.
Cooperatves really are better. Better pay for the workers who also have a say in how the business is run and so are enthused and motivated about their work rather than just turning up to do as they’re told for as little as the owner can get away with paying.
They don’t know anything. What they have is a belief in how they want things to work. The whole lot is collapsing again because it’s not how things work. Reality has a radical left bias.
Damn, that reply got caught in the spam trap.