A Discussion on Trade Unions and whether Management Should Have the Right to Determine whether They Should Operate within Their Workplace

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A union is an organised group of workers whose aim is to protect their members and improve their employment conditions. The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that in August 2012, 20% of full time employees and 14% of part time employees were members of unions. Although this data shows a decrease in union membership over the last decade or so, the unions are still a very important part of the workplace.
In Australia, it is illegal for an employer to fire a worker for being a member of a union, and they are unable to prevent workers from joining a union (Trade Unions 2012). In the same respect, management cannot force employees to join unions or treat their staff unfairly for belonging to a union (Fair Work Ombudsman 2013).
This essay will focus on the importance of unions in the workplace and will discuss why management should not have the right to determine whether a union should operate in the workplace. This will be done by looking at the role of the union and by looking from the point of view of each of the three employment relations perspectives: unitarism, pluralism and radicalism.
The role of the union
The very first unions emerged during the 19th century during the uprising of the industrial capitalist system. These unions were initially small in size and were formed by workers as a platform to represent and protect their interests in the workplace (Baoill 2011). In Australia, the first groups to be covered by unions were ‘skilled artisan males’ (Bray, Waring & Cooper 2011). Looking forward one hundred or so years and the primary purpose of trade unions remains the same, though they now cover a much larger variety of workers, ‘including white-collar and blue-collar workers, skilled and unskilled workers, workers in bo...

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...ogy and HRM practice’, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 17, no. 7, pp. 1190 – 1208. Available from: Business Source Complete [26 April 2014].

Ross, P & Bamber, GJ 2009, ‘Strategic Choices in Pluralist and Unitarist Employment Relations Regimes: A Study of Australian Telecommunications’, Industrial & Labour Relations Review, vol. 63, no. 1, pp. 24-41. Available from: JSTOR [28 April 2014].

Silverman, J n.d., How Labor Unions Work. Available from: . [3 May 2014].

Trade Unions, 2012. Available from: . [3 May 2014].

Verma, A 2005, ‘What do unions do to the workplace? Union effects on management and HRM policies’, Journal of Labor Research, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 415 – 449. Available from: SpringerLINK [28 April 2014].

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