The post-Work Choices drop in union membership revealed today is consistent with the pattern experienced after the introduction of legislation hostile to unions in the UK, NZ and Australian states in the 1980s and 1990s, according to Griffith University Professor of IR, David Peetz.
One year since Work Choices took effect, the ACTU maintains the new IR regime has failed not only on the score-cards of social equity and benefit to the economy, but also as a piece of law.
Union membership has plummeted, with ABS data released today showing a loss of 126,000 members in the year to last August, and density dropping to just 20.3% overall and 15.2% in the private sector.
Rising numbers of older workers in the labour force are expected to lift participation rates from 76.2% now to 78.1% in 40 years, while labour productivity will grow by 1.75% a year in the same period, according to Treasury's second intergenerational report.
The Australian Industry Group is asking the Fair Pay Commission for a $10 a week increase in minimum wages for the nine months since its last decision from December, with proportionally higher increases if the operative date is later.
Transnational companies are “very worried” about industrial instability in Australia – and its government-induced instability that concerns them, according to the director of Sydney University’s Workplace Research Centre, John Buchanan.
The Federal Court will order Tristar to keep dismissed die shop supervisor Marty Peek on full pay, but not to reinstate him ahead of a full hearing later this month, following interlocutory proceedings this afternoon.
The federal ALP is still to determine whether its new IR regime will be based on a federal or a national model, and whether the Howard Government’s building watchdog – the ABCC – will survive if it wins office, according to the party’s Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for IR, Brendan O’Connor.
Unions seeks injunction against Tristar sacking, as OWS issues warning; Della Bosca retains IR portfolio; and ACTU Boys in the Boardroom ad now available.
The ACCI has urged the AFPC to cap any minimum wage increases at lower levels than it granted last year, but does not argue for a specific dollar amount in its submission to the AFPC current pay review.
