Sixty apply for trade union exemption

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 4

Sixty apply for trade union exemption

PA Wellington With compulsory unionism 12 days old, 60 people have applied for exemption from membership of their trade unions.

The figure is of those people who have written to the Union Membership Exemption Tribunal seeking exemption from the membership requirement in the new law.

The tribunal’s secretary must write to the unions giving details of the exemption claims.

Unless the unions object, after 14 days the applicants are given a certificate exempting them from union membership for life. If the union objects, a hearing must be held at which the applicant must argue his or her case. The new law allows exemption where a person has a genuine objection based on conscience or any other deeply held personal conviction.

A fee of $lOO must be paid with each application, although a person seeking an exemption is not required to be a member of the union while his or her case is being considered. The union registrar, Mr John Scott, said that in the past, 180 to 200 applications for exemption were common each year. Under the new law, union membership will be compulsory for the next 18 months, after which each union will have to get majority support of members through a secret ballot to retain compulsory membership. During voluntary unionism, some unions have lost significant numbers of members, but this was mainly through people not joining in industries with high staff turnover. Cases of people actively resigning from unions were far less common. Those people seeking exemption often do so for religious reasons.