Stopping the trade union death spiral?

Recent changes to Australia's industrial relations laws are intended to stop unions membership collapse. Here's an explanation.

If you follow the ‘colour’ of Australia’s unions the most colourful personality is without doubt the head of the construction union, the CFMEU John Setka. His latest ‘spray’ has been the demand to sack the Australian Football League’s new head of umpiring Steve McBurney. Setka has threatened to derail construction of the AFL’s planned new stadium in Tasmania if McBurney isn’t sacked.

Lovely fellow is Johny Setka! This ABC 6min video gives a good background to the issues and the, ‘I stand for the workers’ position of Mr Setka.

Mr Setka, has for a long time headed the CFMEU. His union has now been exposed as deeply involved in what could prove to be the largest wage theft yet seen in Australia. I updated the details of this in early June in Unions stealing from workers? Never!

As a quick summary, coal miners working as casuals through labour hire companies have been denied their casual loadings for a decade or more. The CFMEU has consistently signed off on enterprise agreements that ‘authorised’ the underpayments. One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts has been campaigning for five years to expose this and released a major report in February this year. The Senate passed a motion in early May requiring the government to investigate the underpayments with a view to compensation. Detailed assessments of individual miner’s underpayments so far show amounts underpaid ranging from $99,000 to $121,000.

Photo by Magical Views on Unsplash

It's interesting that the national nurses and teacher unions have now come out condemning John Setka arguing ‘Its not unionism, it’s gangsterism’  And Sally McManus, head of the ACTU the union movements peak body, has come out against “Mr Setka’s personal grudges..”

This leads me to assume that there’s a perception in the union movement that Setka’s ‘colour’ is blackening the union movement’s and probably the Albanese’s government’s political/moral standing. They need to disassociate from Setka/CFMEU to limit reputational damage.

But is there another factor? The evidence of the coal miners wage theft is now stark. And the scale of the wage theft is starting to become more evident as individual miner’s underpayments is being documented. Is the broader union movement and the Albanese Labor government needing to separate themselves from Setka/CFMEU in case the coal miners wage theft becomes a political liability? I would think so!

In covering this Setka/CFMEU current story, I’m giving some background context for the meat of this Substack post.  That is, I want to provide you a conceptual understanding of how the Australian industrial relations system actually works as opposed to how most people think it works. The industrial relations ‘system and the union movement’s role in it operates under the supposed banner of ‘we’re for the workers!’ 

But that is pretty much a lie. In fact, the industrial relations system largely neuters workers’ power rather than enhancing it. I know this is a counter-intuitive proposition. But this fact is, in my view, a substantial reason for why union membership is set to fall below 7 percent of the workforce and below 4 percent of the private sector workforce over the next 5 years or so. Australian unions are heading into ‘death’ territory!

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

Here’s my analysis. (Note the rest of this article is for paid subscribers)