Union Membership

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31177, 29 September 1966, Page 12

Union Membership

Sir, —Could you please tell me if it is compulsory for a shop assistant to be a member of the Shop Assistants Union? I believe an Act of Parliament was passed in December, 1961, abolishing compulsoiy unionism but then they say they were granted the right to make their own rules and enforce them with court action, is this correct? —Yours etc. INTERESTED. September 23, 1966. [The acting district superintendent of the Department of Labour (Mr A. B. Tuck) replies: “Before the 1961 amendment of the Industrial, Conciliation and Arbitration Act every adult worker bound by an award or industrial agreement was required to be a member of an industrial union—what was commonly called ‘compulsory unionism’. It is now required that all awards and industrial agreements shall contain a clause giving either unqualified preference or qualified preference in relation to union membership. The general retail shop assistants’ award contains an unqualified preference clause which requires that every adult person employed in any position covered by the award is required to be a member of the union as a condition of his employment An unqualified preference clause is inserted if such a provision is unanimously agreed to by both workers’ and employers’ representatives when they negotiate the award or, failing agreement, the matter remains in dispute and goes to the Court of Arbitration for decision. The department will be pleased to supply any further information which the correspondent requires.”]