Organizational Union Identity

This chapter explores ‘organisational union identity’ projected by unions that organise within employer defined membership territories. These unions project three forms of organisational identity, namely, ‘organisational union identity’, where the unions such as Advance seek to organise the whole organisation, ‘sub-organisational union identity’, as with Skyshare which organises pilots employed by NetJets and ‘multi-organisational union identity’ where unions including NGSU operate at a group level. The chapter explores the observable characteristics of organisational union identity together with the impact of mergers, membership benefits, affiliations and political alignment. It further recognises that whilst organisational unions were often formed with employer encouragement as part of union avoidance strategies, that many have now progressed to become certified trade unions and some to have merged with more broadly based trade unions. Therefore, given that there would seem to be a ‘direction of travel’ from formation to certification, it is argued that fermenting new organisational unions might perhaps be a route to restoring trade union membership.

Labour economy: do unions really influence sourcing decisions?

Purpose This article aims to uncover the influence employment relations, and more specifically union avoidance has on the decision to outsource road transport. Employment Relations literature often attributes outsourcing decision to decollectivist strategies, minimising the influence unions have in their workplaces or to labour cost reduction objectives. These explanations, however, fail to explain why some firms do not outsource when their sourcing structure incurs greater union involvement or industrial relation. Design/methodology/approach The author examines two case studies. Company A and Company B, while operating in a similar environment, selling similar products and offering a similar home delivery service have adopted different governance structures for their outbound transport function; Company A has integrated while Company B has outsourced. Was union avoidance or transaction cost reductions central to their respective decisions? Findings Company A did not integrate in an effort to circumvent union intervention or reduce costs. Company A’s integration, on the contrary, increased the firm’s dealings with unions, as well as regulatory compliance and transaction costs. Company B’s decision to outsource yielded similar results. While not experiencing an increase in union intervention, the firm failed to reduce the density of unionised labour and by maintaining ownership of delivery vehicles, saw a rise in costs. Originality/value Union avoidance is not an explanatory factor in the sourcing decision, nor is it possible to explain through transaction cost economics. Explication for outcomes lies in value enhancement. Companies are willing to incur higher employment relations and transport costs if the result is higher value capture.

Union-Avoidance Strategies in the Meat Industry in Australia and the United States

The meat industries in the United States and in Australia share a number of common features, including similar economic and industrial development, overlapping ownership patterns, the nature of the work, a trend toward relying on a migrant workforce, and similar management union-avoidance strategies. There are industry differences between the two countries due primarily to the unique labor-relations regulatory system in each country. Australian legislation since the mid-1990s has enabled industry employers to follow more closely the pattern of union avoidance established in the United States, but protections are still found in Australian industry awards and the industrial tribunal. Both countries have witnessed a deunionization of the industry at the cost of declines in workers’ wages and conditions, and worker exploitation is increasingly common due to the neoliberal ideology that influences government policy and legislation and encourages employers to individualize the employment relationship.

Employers Close the Door

This chapter is about employers’ increased resistance to union organizing. It shows how mainstream employers first tried to weaken labor law by uniting in the Labor Law Reform Group. They then stepped up their efforts to bend and break the law, developing and honing a new set of techniques to fight union organizing, promulgated through the vastly expanded “union avoidance” industry. It includes a section on the labor law reform effort of 1978-79.