Are Unions Still Useful?

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Are unions in New Zealand (NZ) still useful is a debated issue. Logic suggests that they provide the necessary balance in power between employers and employees so will always be regarded as helpful. Conversely, changes over time mean they are not as valued as NZ’s representational avenues have changed to cope with new characteristics appearing in the workforce. This essay will explain the ideology behind this theory, illustrate evidence that supports it, but also state arguments against it by showing unions changing roles, unionisation levels, and reasons affecting decisions to join or not. It will show that although time has altered aspects of unions that unions in NZ today remain useful to employees in hearing and representing their voice.

NZ’s industrial relations developed by protection of the employment relationship through acts passed by government, particularly the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act (IC&A). This is fundamental to NZ’s employment relations and set the right for trade unions to arrange and negotiate collectively with employers, as well as producing awards, wage rates and handling disputes (Bryson, 2011c).

Unions traditionally were “a continuous association of wage earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the condition of their employment” (Webb & Webb, 1894, as cited in Bryson, 2011b, slide 7). Their function was to campaign for compassionate management procedures, equivalent bargaining power between employers and employees, and for fairness and democracy to be initiated into the workplace (Bryson, 2011a). Union activity at this time tended to focus on nationwide bargaining for industrial groups (Geare, 1983, as cited in Haynes, 2005), with their role seen as wage bargainers and in...

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Department of Labour. (2004). Union membership return report 2010. Retrieved from http://ers.govt.nz/

Haynes, P. (2005). Filling the vacuum? Non-union employee voice in the Auckland hotel industry. Employee Relations, 27(3), 259-271.

Mackey, K. (Ed.). (2008). Managing human resources: Contemporary perspectives in New Zealand. NSW, Australia: McGraw-Hill

New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. (2010). Campaigns and publications. Retrieved from http://union.org.nz/

Tolich, P., & Harcourt, M. (1999). Why do people join unions? A case study of the New Zealand engineering, printing and manufacturing union. New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, 24(1), 63-73.

Wallace, J. (2003). Unions in the 21st century Ireland – Entering the ice age? Industrial News Conference, “No Vision no Future?” (pp. 1-14). Ireland: University of Limerick.

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