Compulsory Union Membership Research Articles

Progress and contradictions: New Zealand's new sectoral bargaining framework

8 | International Union Rights | 28/2 FOCUS | A CHANGING POST-PANDEMIC WORLD FOR LABOUR In 2018 I worked with the NZCTU’s legal advisor to co-author a submission to the UN’s Universal Periodic Review of New Zealand, which took place the following year. It was an interesting project to be involved with, because the violations of trade union rights in New Zealand are obviously less severe than many of the situations ICTUR normally responds to, but it was nonetheless an example of a country in which a very strong trade union framework had been dismantled, with sweeping and lasting impacts on the world of work. Does the new sectoral bargaining framework herald an effective tack back to a robust labour rights system? New Zealand remains one of very few countries in the world not to have ratified the most fundamental international instrument on trade union rights, ILO Convention No, 87. Historically, this peculiarity had come about not because of opposition to trade unionism, but conversely because New Zealand believed that its 1930s-era compulsory trade union system was superior to – and would be incompatible with – the post-war liberal trade union rights model of ‘freedom of association’1. The New Zealand Government thus refrained from ratification of the ILO instrument and only ratified the UN’s two core human rights Covenants (the ICCPR and the ICESCR) with formal reservations against the freedom of association principles. But the reservations New Zealand lodged were specifically worded to apply to ‘existing legislative measures’ in 1978, and were intended to protect a compulsory union membership system that ended decades ago. As ICTUR and the New Zealand Trade Union Council wrote in 2018 submissions to the UN Universal Periodic Review, ‘this once principled stance has simply become an embarrassing anachronism’ that ‘sends the wrong message about New Zealand’s commitment to freedom of association and the protection of that right’2. For most of the 20th Century registered trade unions enjoyed monopoly bargaining rights and a system of compulsory unionism, until the dramatic changes wrought by the Employment Contracts Act (ECA) of 1991, which remained in force until 2000. The Act supported individual bargaining and individual contracts rather than collective agreements and curtailed the grounds on which strike action could lawfully be initiated. Membership in NZCTU-affiliated unions halved over the decade. The fall was attributed to the ECA but also widespread privatisation and high unemployment. National bargaining was terminated in several sectors, and by 1993 there had been a 45 percent fall in the number of workers covered by collective agreements. In 1994 the ILO ruled that the ECA breached ILO Conventions 87 and 98, but the Government ignored the ruling. According to the NZCTU the ECA encouraged the growth of ‘poor quality jobs’, with an increase in casual and part-time work and exploitation of vulnerable workers by bad employers. It had also led to a ‘collapse of trust and good will’ in industrial relations. In elections in Nov. 1999 the Labour Party returned to office and introduced the Employment Relations Act (ERA). The ERA retained a focus on individual contracts and a workplace bargaining model, giving registered unions the exclusive right to negotiate collective agreements and introducing a new legislative concept (based on Canadian models) of good faith negotiations in collective bargaining. The NZCTU regarded the Act as only a moderate improvement that ultimately failed in many of its stated objectives. Following the National party’s return to power in 2008 a raft of reforms were introduced, which the NZCTU denounced as an attack on union membership, exercise of union rights, collective bargaining and, therefore, wages and conditions. For all the praise that the country’s current Prime Minster and Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern earned internationally as a ‘liberal beacon’, and ‘the anti-Trump’3, the problems for New Zealand’s workers and unions have as yet remained structurally unchanged since the 1990s. Just this year NZCTU leader Richard Wagstaff reported that ‘at least 30 percent of New Zealand’s workers – over 635,000 people – are in insecure work. We believe it may well cover 50 percent of the workforce. 95,000 workers have no usual work time, 61...

Article 23(4) Trade Union Rights and the United Nations policy of devolution on labour relations

ABSTRACTArticle 23(4) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states ‘Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.’ This article documents the global legislative history of Article 23(4) trade union rights from its original drafting to interpretation by international labour standards. The history includes debates on the fundamental principles of trade union rights, the decision by ECOSOC to ignore a call to establish a permanent UN Commission on Trade Union Rights, the devolution of authority from the United Nations to the International Labour Organization, how ILO international law experts framed trade union rights as a subset of the freedom of association, and the treatment of labour relations policy, including compulsory union membership, that resulted under international human rights norms. The history is discussed as one that confines standards of policy on labour rights in the global political economy and has particular implications for the discourse on labour rights as human rights.

The Labour Relations of New Zealand's Health Reforms

This paper examines factors contributing to the environment within which reform of New Zealnnd's public health care and its industrial relations system occurred. These include radical state sector; health and labour law reforms that marketised the health sector, decentralised bargaining, the ending of compulsory union membership and the elimination of the requirement that employers bargain 'in good faith'. The paper examines the implementation of these changes and their impact on various unions. Domestic service workers have fared poorly, while medical specialists have benefited from the reforms. The impact on nursing and support staff unions has varied according to regional and market pressures for different occupations. Various union strategies and structures are examined. The paper concludes that reform has ended the exceptionalism of labour relations in New Zealand.

The Collapse of Compulsory Unionism? Collective Organization in Highly Unionized British Companies, 1979–1991

AbstractThis paper examines compulsory union membership in 50 highly unionized companies between 1979 and 1991. One hundred per cent membership has collapsed among non‐manuals. Post‐entry 100% membership remains in the majority of manual units, as does the pre‐entry closed shop among craft workers. Fewer written union membership agreements, and more unwritten verbal agreements and unofficial understandings, were evident. This pattern is accounted for by the interplay of four factors: product market competition, managerial indulgency, workplace collective organization and labour turnover.

The Wage Effect of Compulsory Union Membership

This study assesses the wage effect of compulsory membership clauses in union contracts. Previous industry-level studies of union wage effects have used contract coverage as the measure of unionization, that is, the proportion of workers in an industry, both members and nonmembers of unions, who are covered by collective agreements. In the wage equation estimated here, union coverage is disaggregated into its membership and covered-nonmember components. Results for a sample of 54 three-digit manufacturing industries indicate that compulsory membership clauses do enable unions to negotiate significantly greater wage increases. Results from a sample of 21 two-digit industries, however, offer less clear-cut evidence of the wage gains to be had from compulsory union membership.

The Wage Effect of Compulsory Union Membership

The Wage Effect of Compulsory Union Membership

The union wage effect in Canadian manufacturing industries

Data for Canadian manufacturing industries, at the two-digit level, are used to examine the component elements of the union wage effect. The results show that absence of compulsory union membership for all employees in the bargaining unit served by a union does not significantly impair the ability of the union to negotiate wage gains. That is, our results imply that there is little reason for unions to devote much effort to negotiating the stronger forms of union security — union or closed shops. A second implication of our results is that significant bargaining advantages may accrue to unions with an international (U.S.) link, relative to Canadian national unions.

Managerial views on compulsory unionism in New Zealand

The New Zealand industrial relations literature contains a number of propositions concerning the impact or desirability of having compulsory union membership. This paper discusses the propositions, and reports on the response of a sample of 461 New Zealand managers, examining the significance of their attitudes.

The Union Shop: A Legitimate Form of Coercion in a Free-Market Economy

Provides an economic argument for compulsory trade-union membership. Information on the collective properties of bargaining services; Theory of collective or public goods; Arguments for compulsory union membership. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

Union Shop Polls: A Solution to the Right-to-Work Issue

Despite the legal ban on the closed shop, compulsory union membership continues to be a major ideological and political issue. In essence, the author of this brief discussion argues that the choice between the opposed positions on this question should be made by the workers specifically involved. This could be accomplished by reinstating the union shop authorization poll, which was eliminated by the 1951 amendments to the Taft-Hartley Act. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)

Compulsory Union Membership and Public Policy

Notwithstanding the outlawing of the by the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947 (the Taft-Hartley Act), the is not a issue. Indeed, much of the vehement denunciation of this Act has been aimed at the proviso which outlaws the shop. Efforts to legalize again the are being intensified.' Unions want a return to the provisions of the Wagner Act under which the was legal, and they would like unqualified federal legalization of the shop.2 Under a closed shop agreement the employer can hire only members; the union shop agreement requires that the worker join the within a stipulated time period after his employment.

The Union Security Issue

ONE of the earliest demands of American trade unionists was for a closed or union shop. Even before the establishment of collective bargaining procedures the Philadelphia cordwainers attempted to force their employers to employ no one but members of their association. These demands appeared outrageous to employers and to most of the judges before whom unionists were brought on conspiracy charges. In 1842, however, Chief Justice Shaw, of Massachusetts, held that strengthening of union organization was a legitimate objective and that a strike to enforce a closed shop was not unlawful.' While this view has never been adopted in all of the state jurisdictions, the union shop has continued to be an aspiration of most American trade unions. An examination of the 7,000 trade agreements on file with the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1939 shows that more than half of them contain some type of union shop clause. By 1941 it was estimated that approximately 4,000,000 workers were covered by union shop contracts. The arguments currently presented to the National War Labor Board bear a strong family resemblance to those presented in Commonwealth v. Hunt. Employers argue that the union shop is an intolerable abrogation of individual liberty and that in a democratic country every man should be free to decide for himself whether or not he wishes to belong to a union. The unions reply that all workers who enjoy representation by a union and who share in the advantages which the union is able to gain should contribute to its support. They contend that compulsory union membership is no more a violation of individual liberty than compulsory citizenship. Beneath these moralistic arguments lies the indisputable fact that union shop agreements contribute to a union's strength and prestige, and are an indication that it has achieved permanent status in an industry. Employer opposition to the union shop stems largely from apprehension conce ning the consequences of a strengthened and permanent union. Many employers suspect that a secret objective of modern unionism is actual participation in the entrepreneurial function and that the union shop is merely one step toward the achievement of this longrange goal. This view was expressed recently by an employer member of the National War Labor Board: Automatically such a policy leads to union shop, closed shop, control of hiring, and finally, the transfer to others of the rights and obligations of management. 2 When both sides feel that the issue is practically one of survival, compromise becomes very difficult. Particularly in time of national crisis an issue fraught with such high emotional content is dangerous in the extreme.