Australian Trade Unions in the Context of Union Theory

Abstract

Trade union theory has a long history and a considerable quality, but it has rarely seemed to touch on the nature of Australian unions of the 20th century. While the unions of the late 19th century may have been a response to con ventional stimuli, those of the 20th have seemed to arise out of the needs of the industrial relations machinery, rather than to satisfy worker demands. The Australian trade union can be regarded in general as an institution called into existence by a bureaucratic mechanism (the arbitration system) to enhance the functioning of that mechanism. Unions generally have not succeeded in carving out for themselves an industrial role that is independent of the arbitral system, and the efforts they have made in this direction have not been sustained. The trade union dependence on the arbitral system suggests that predictions about union behaviour derived from international experience may be based on quite irrelevant premises.