Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2xdlg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-13T18:39:47.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evaluating the organising model of trade unionism: An Australian perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Alison Barnes  and
Raymond Markey
Alison Barnes*
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, Australia
Raymond Markey
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, Australia
*
Alison Barnes, Department of Marketing and Management, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia. Email: alison.barnes@mq.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To mark the 20th anniversary of the Australian union movement’s Organising Works programme, this article introduces a symposium discussing potential ways forward for unions. It overviews research regarding the challenges of union organising and renewal, both in Australia and internationally. It provides a broad historical perspective on the origins and progress of the grassroots Organising Works agenda initiated by the peak union bodies, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Unions NSW. It explores how trade unions can best generate and sustain their spirit of mobilising and organising, while also ensuring the institutional legitimacy they require to effectively represent workers. Unions have had to manage the tension between two dynamics of trade union growth – the sense of movement involved in mobilising workers, and the institutional stability and legitimacy needed to represent workers. Unions have faced both the need to confront global capital restructuring through their own restructuring, and the need to renew and maintain a strong and democratic community base. To do so, they have built new networks and campaigning approaches, in order to organise an increasingly diverse and insecure workforce and build strong community links.

Keywords

J51Industrial relationslabour relationsrepresentationsocial movementstrade unionsunion organisingunion renewal and revitalisationunion servicing modelunion structuresworker mobilisation
Type
Articles
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 26 , Issue 4: Special Collection: Union Organising and Revitalisation , December 2015 , pp. 513 - 525
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R, Markey, R (1997) How the state influences trade union growth: a comparative analysis of developments in Europe, North America and Australasia. International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations 13(4): 285–303.Google Scholar
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) (1987) Future Strategies for the Trade Union Movement. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: ACTU.Google Scholar
Boxall, P, Haynes, P (1997) Strategy and trade union effectiveness in a neo-liberal environment. British Journal of Industrial Relations 35(4): 567–591.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bramble, T (2008) Trade Unionism in Australia: A History from Flood to Ebb Tide. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briggs, C (1999) The transition and decline of the ACTU during the 1990s: a ‘governing institution’ to a ‘servicing organisation’. New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations 24(3): 257–289.Google Scholar
Brody, D (1980) Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the 20th Century Struggle. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Burgmann, V (1995) Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: The Industrial Workers of the World in Australia. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Costa, M (1997) Union reform: Union strategy and the third wave: Introduction. In: Costa, M, Hearn, M , Reforming Australia’s Unions. Sydney: Federation Press, pp.12–26.Google Scholar
Cooper, R (2002) ‘To organise wherever the necessity exists’: the activities of the Organising Committee of the Labor Council of NSW, 1900–10. Labour History 83: 43–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, R (2003) Peak council organising at work: ACTU strategy 1994–2000. Labour & Industry 14(1): 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, R, Patmore, G (2002) Trade union organising and labour history. Labour History 83: 1–18.Google Scholar
Davis, E (1990) The 1989 ACTU Congress: seeking change within. Journal of Industrial Relations 32(1): 100–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, E (1996) The 1995 ACTU Congress: recruitment and retention. The Economic and Labour Relations Review 7(1): 165–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubovsky, M (2000) We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Farnham, D (2015) The Changing Faces of Employment Relations: Global, Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ferguson, M (1993) Building effective unions. Opening speech to the 1993 ACTU Congress. Melbourne: ACTU Archives.Google Scholar
Flanders, A (1970) Management and Unions: The Theory and Reform of Industrial Relations. 2nd ed. London: Faber.Google Scholar
Griffin, G (2002) Union mergers in Australia: top-down strategic restructuring. Working Paper No.80. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: National Key Centre in Industrial Relations, Monash University.Google Scholar
Griffin, G, Moors, R (2002) Organising Works: Objectives, evolution, outcomes. Working Paper No.78, National Key Centre in Industrial Relations, Monash University.Google Scholar
Griffin, G, Moors, R (2004) The fall and rise of organising in a blue-collar union. The Journal of Industrial Relations 46(1): 39–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinton, J (1983) Labour and Socialism: A History of the British Labour Movement 1867–1974. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books.Google Scholar
Holland, P, Hanley, G (2002) ‘Organising Works’: is it meeting the challenge of declining trade union membership? Working Paper No. 48. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: National Key Centre in Industrial Relations, Monash University.Google Scholar
Hyman, R (2004) The future of trade unions. In: Verma, A, Kochan, TA (eds) Unions in the 21st Century: An International Perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 17–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kjellberg, A (2009) The Swedish Ghent system and trade unions under pressure. Transfer 15(3–4): 481–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lind, J (2007) A Nordic saga? The Ghent system and trade unions. International Journal of Employment Studies 15(1): 49–67.Google Scholar
McDonald, T (2014) Speech to the Organising Works symposium, 20 November. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Trades Hall.Google Scholar
McDonald, T, McDonald, A (1998) Intimate Union: Sharing a Revolutionary Life. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Markey, R (1994) In Case of Oppression: The Life and Times of the Labor Council of New South Wales. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Markey, R (2002) Explaining union mobilisation n the 1880s and early 1900s. Labour History 83: 19–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, R (1994) The ACTU Congress of 1993. Labour History 66: 139–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peetz, D (1998) Unions in a Contrary World: The Future of the Australian Trade Union Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peetz, D, Pocock, B, Houghton, C (2007) Organizers’ Roles Transformed? Australian union organizers and changing union strategy. Journal of Industrial Relations 49(2): 151–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preis, A (1964) Labor’s Giant Step: Twenty Years of the CIO. New York: Pathfinder Press.Google Scholar
Sams, P (1997) Foreword. In: Costa, M, Hearn, M (eds) Reforming Australia’s Unions. Leichhardt, NSW, Australia: The Federation Press, pp. iii.Google Scholar
Sheldon, P (1995) The missing nexus? Union recovery, growth and behaviour during the first decades of arbitration: towards a re-evaluation. Australian Historical Studies 26(104): 415–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, S, Spies-Butcher, B (2010) When labour makes a difference: union mobilization and the 2007 federal election in Australia. British Journal of Industrial Relations 49(Suppl. 2): 306–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar