THE PRESS THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 1989. Union amalgamations

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 16

THE PRESS THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 1989. Union amalgamations

Whatever reservations might have been harboured about the formation of the Council of Trade Unions, and its apparent domination by many of the same hard-line reactionaries who controlled the council’s predecessors, the council has displayed a refreshing change of union heart on restructuring. The council is advocating firmly the creation of a small number of industry-based unions to replace the present host of occupational unions. The council will not force the strategy on its member unions; but, if the proposal is endorsed by the unions at their conference in September, the council will “work hard to organise unions to implement it.” ; This is a far cry from the stand taken by most union leaders in recent years, though some have recognised merit in consolidation, and in industry unions, subject to the willingness of members to accept the idea. The vice-president of the C.T.U., Ms Angela Foulkes, labels the proposal as a “survival plan”; finally seeing the writing on the wall might have a lot to do with the official change of policy. The policy is no less welcome for that, though it is a shame that the process — estimated by the C.T.U. to require at least five years to accomplish — could not have been begun five years or more ago. The notion has been around for long enough and New Zealand would be better off now if the change had been accomplished already.

The need for such a change, and the value of an industry-based system, has been advocated by the Employers’ Federation for many years. This might account for some of the union opposition. The desirability of the change has been recognised by the Government at least since its White Paper on industrial relations which preceded the 1987 Labour Relations Act. By the time the act was passed, the emphasis on industry-based unions had disappeared, largely at the urging of the union movement. The present horizontal award structure, cutting across diverse employer and industry groupings, was perpetuated. This traditional linkage of occupations, based on the similarity of tasks performed, results in a multiplicity of awards at individual work-places. The strategy now accepted by the leaders of the C.T.U. has as its premise a community of interest among workers engaged by the same employer or in different parts of the same industry. Such a system has much to commend it. It would avoid, for instance, the present occurrences whereby the whole work-force in a large plant can be made idle by a very small group in a separate union, whose

actions are the result of some entirely unrelated event at the other end of the country. Industry unions would be more specific in their aims and their membership than some of the present unions, which must cater for a wide and diverse set of circumstances. Union members could benefit from the change as a result of a better defined relationship between productivity in a particular industry and the ability of the employers to meet wage claims. As envisaged by the C.T.U., the change would result in between 14 and 30 unions embracing the workers now covered by 200 or so separate unions. Obviously this will accelerate the process of amalgamations that has been quietly taking place in the last three years.

In large measure the change has been forced on the union movement. As Ms Foulkes notes, the present union system was structured around a regulated economy; trying to maintain those same structures in a deregulated economy that is undergoing rapid technological change will only create demarcation disputes and leave workers vulnerable. The correctness of Ms Foulkes’s observation is eloquently demonstrated by the present wrangling between waterside workers and harbour board employees. Whether the number of unions can be reduced in five years to the maximum of 30 which the C.T.U. proposes — or, indeed, whether such a reduction in the number of separate unions is feasible — remains to be seen. There is no argument, however, that a marked reduction will be beneficial and is long overdue.

The Government has required many parts of the economy to restructure to meet new conditions. Flexibility and adaptability have become the key words for industries and business. Those who are slower to adapt and the less fit among them have fallen by the wayside. Among the biggest handicaps to the restructuring sought by the Government — and needed by the economy — have been an outmoded union framework and the rigid entrenchment of award relativities that are hard to justify in new circumstances. The C.T.U. now seems prepared to break free not just from these constraints, but from the school of thought that has preserved them. Almost certainly sections of its membership, perhaps large sections, will continue to resist change; but, for the sake of trade unions as well as that of the country, the C.T.U. leaders must be persuasive in their advocacy of industry-based unions and union amalgamation.