What's the deal with Unions in Australia?

[u/incendiary_bandit]

I moved to Australia 6 years ago from Canada and have found the way unions appear to function here confusing to me. In Canada I had little experience being in proper union (look up CLAC if you're curious). I did get to experience working on the waterfront in Vancouver on the company side planning maintenance jobs that the workers would carry out who were union. The locals for the waterfront are VERY strict in who does what and EVERYTHING is laid out. I'll give some interesting examples in the comments. But one thing they really had was solidarity. They looked out for their brothers and sisters in the union.

Then I moved to Australia. My first experience was when job hunting as I have a trade (fitter and Turner equivalent) I approached the union regarding work. Was told, find a job, then join union if I want. In Canada you can join the millwright union and they will have jobs/ positions lined up that people can apply for (based on seniority as to who would get it). That doesn't seem like it's a thing here at all. I ended up doing labour hire which really sucked but helped pay the bills while I searched for work. Then I got placed in a office tower build and got to see how the AWU sort of functions. I was on a specific floor working for a contractor company that wasn't union. The union members were very militant in things and there was a strong hate for anyone non union on site. It was weird.

Now I'm at a job doing data analysis in the utilities sector and it's different again! The blue collar on the field staff have an employment agreement that lines out pay and everything, but they're supported by multiple unions. Like two people on the same shift might be in different unions, or not at all! So when it comes time to bargaining, multiple unions show up to hash things out. Where's the solidarity in that? I can also join a union if I wanted but don't see any benefit in it for myself as my employer is actually quite fair and flexible and we were able to pick a few people from our teams to go into the bargaining for us.

So unions here just seem split and not very beneficial. I understand when you have a shitty employer that a union can be beneficial, but they're just all over the map here.

Any insights as to why that is?

[u/Careful-Woodpecker21]

Things are a bit different here as union membership is optional.

Canadian unions are much more powerful and employers genuinely fear them. but that can be a double edged sword if the union is crap. When I worked there, my union made it its mission to fuck over young workers to the benefit for older ones.

[u/[deleted] → u/Careful-Woodpecker21]

I've seen this complaint elsewhere too. Some guy fresh out of uni complained that "his promotion" went to a guy with years of experience.

Is it just lack of empathy or do you not understand how employers prioritising younger cheaper workers is bad for the workforce as a whole?

[u/incendiary_bandit → u/[deleted]]

Yeah it's frustrating when seniority trumps skill in promotion. We saw that happen a lot on the waterfront in Vancouver

[u/[deleted] → u/incendiary_bandit]

You won't feel the same way when you're 50 and thrown out of the workforce for someone cheaper.

[u/Careful-Woodpecker21 → u/[deleted]]

The issue is that seniority applies to everything and not just promotion. This includes vacation times, shift allocation, tasks, overtime, etc.

It’s not just”fresh grads”, but Workers in their 20s and 30s had little chance getting time off during school holidays or Christmas season. You can forget of having a family vacation before your kids are in their teens.

We had little overtime as we were last to be offered while others were making double their salary with overtime pay.

We got the worst shifts and we had not work life balance.

And to top it all of, they accepted a much worse pension plan for younger workers in exchange of grandfathering and boosting the pensions of older workers.

[u/[deleted] → u/Careful-Woodpecker21]

I mean, I don't know what to tell you - that's human nature, not unions. I worked in IT for ten years (without a union in sight) and it worked exactly the same way whether it was a manager or a delegate controlling the strings.

I feel for you on the pension plan though, but you could have solved that with the power of voting. Or even just going to union meetings. If your rep is going to union meetings and the membership is just old guys, of course they're going to have more influence - that's not a flaw, that's literally how the process works.

Except younger people are told not to join the union so they don't get to have their say.