THE PRESS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1978. Voluntary unions

Press, 9 November 1978, Page 16

THE PRESS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1978. Voluntary unions

In principle, compulsory union membership is undesirable; in practice it has worked reasonably well—a point on which employees and employers generally agree. Any sensible attempt to live by the principle would have to be accompanied by a range of measures to ensure that the country’s industrial relations could work on that new principle. The Government’s persisting with State-run ballots on voluntary union membership and its decision to make two unions voluntary' by executive decree give no impression of being part of such a coherent policy.

The ballots already held should have been taken as a sufficient demonstration that there is no widespread feeling among union members that their unions should be voluntary. The ballots have been a disruptive way of testing union opinion on this point. Towards the end of the last session of Parliament, the Government showed that it was willing to entertain a sensible alternative to holding ballots at the behest of the Minister of Labour. A ballot must now be held if enough members of a union request one. Instead of allowing this promising arrangement to take its course, the Government has abruptly interfered with the awards of two unions.

Although the law provides for this intervention, the timing and circumstances have inevitably given rise to suspicions that the Government’s aim was mainly to gain political advantage. If the action had been prompted by a genuine wish to ensure that members of the unions concerned had an opportunity to express an opinion on the inclusion of an unqualified preference clause in their awards, the Government could easily have let the situation ride until after the election.

The Industrial Relations Act allows that if there is “wilful and substantial failure” by a union to comply with a requirement that it furnish its roll to

allow a ballot to be held, the matter can go to the Industrial Court. The Government was surely unwise to ignore this more reasonable, judicious way of proceeding.

The unions concerned are not entirely blameless. They have pleaded difficulties in supplying their rolls because the membership is large, scattered, and changes rapidly. Still, any union should have been able to furnish the lists sought within the time set down in the act, and the failure in this instance suggests a very disordered state of union affairs. The Government, however, has given the impression that the unions must be publicly punished for their dilatoriness and disorganisation, even though there is little evidence that the union was attempting wilfully to frustrate the holding of a ballot in a reasonable time. Even if the Government believes the unions were being wilfully obstructive rather than incompetent and disorganised, no harm would have been done while waiting until after the General Election to press for ballots. The Government’s step has the one advantage of forcing the union to request a ballot, but this ballot cannot now be conducted before the election with any assurance that it will be a properly considered vote. It may be argued that in as large a union as that of the clerical workers, and in one so dispersed and apparently lacking in organisation, an attempt within the membership to seek a ballot would be impossible. If a ballot is to be held at all it may have to arise from such an action as the Government has taken. However, the way is now open for reluctant members to resign and the compiling of a list of employees qualified to vote will become all the more difficult when many are removed from union rolls. This can hardly be what the Government had in mind when it felt that union opinion should be tested.