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Trade Union Structure and Politics in Australia and New Zealand
Bradon Ellem and Peter Franks*
This thematic and comparative analysis of more than 150 years of unionism in Australasia explores the similarities and differences in the economic and political contexts in which trade unions have sought to define themselves and represent their members. The state and employers have followed a similar path in Australia and New Zealand for much of that time, and in both cases that journey has been to the detriment of unions for the last generation. In this context, unions in the two countries have exhibited very similar patterns of union growth and decline, policy, and lines of inclusion and exclusion. This is not to say that there are no differences between context and unions in these two Tasman countries. The politics of the labour movement and the relationships between unions, peak bodies and political parties have at times been quite different, and different sorts of unions have been the most influential within each labour movement. Overall, however, the similarities between the two movements have been greater than the differences. By the early part of this century, Australian and New Zealand unions faced similar problems as their relationship with the state, the labour market and employers became much more problematic than it had been for most of their history.
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| Today, most union movements in market economies and political democracies, regardless of origins and politics, are in crisis. This is certainly the case in Australia and New Zealand where the collapse from historically high levels of membership has been very striking in the last generation. In both countries, union activists and scholars are seeking lessons from the past and trying to understand how and why the current context appears so different from the long and often rich history that unions have made in the two countries. This article argues that we can learn much about the present crisis from both comparative and historical analyses; this article of course attempts both kinds of analysis. Rather than producing a comparative chronology, we take a thematic approach. |
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We argue that unions must be understood in terms of both context and contingency. As many scholars have long argued, the nature of union purpose cannot simply be read from what unions do: what they do is shaped, often implicitly, by other social forces and by the weight of history.1 In approaching the particular problem of comparative analysis of union history, we build on earlier work, most notably by Bray and Rouillard, which examined Australian and Canadian unions and was similarly attentive to the external factors shaping union development. Drawing on Martin's typology, Bray and Rouillard argued that the union movements in those countries were 'autonomous' union movements, 'dominated by neither the state nor political parties'.2 Nonetheless, relationships with the state and parties were important; indeed, they explained the nature of union history. In broad terms, we accept this characterisation in our trans-Tasman comparison: Australian and New Zealand unions are more alike than many other union movements and the similarities between them are greater than the differences. |
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We add recent work by Hyman to Bray and Rouillard's formulation to show that, although 'autonomous' in Martin's sense, unions in Australian and New Zealand were shaped by the pull of the competing demands of 'market' and 'class'. Unions mainly sought to regulate particular labour markets but necessarily became involved in politics, with the state being a powerful influence on industrial relations and unionism.3 We go on to show that two particular elements must be given great weight in comparing unions in Australia and New Zealand. First, national political structures and internal ideological struggles differed between the countries and were important drivers of difference within and between the two union movements. Second, there are some importance differences in the timing and depth of recent changes in unionism which reflect some differences in state policies and employer orientations. |
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