Post unions

I read somewhere that union participation in Australia is down from 40% in the 1990’s to 20% today. The slide is continuing.

This slide is due to a ‘skilling up’ of the work force together with a perception of unions as old-school thugs and successful media campaigns against unions by all sorts of business-related organisations.

Skilled people in the services industries, that represents 68% of our economy, have the choice of changing jobs if they are unsatisfied with their current conditions.

And yet I cannot help thinking that the absence of collective bargaining will eventually lead to even further disparities in wealth distribution, especially if there is a period of very high unemployment. Business owners simply do not have the strength of character not to take advantage of such a situation.

So what to do??

I personally believe that unions are too one dimensional – their only tool of action is to promote stop work activities. That is just so old school.

A better course of action would be to target the company’s products and services via internet media campaigns. For example:

1. A company is treating its employees badly – either financially or in other terms
2. The staff association (renamed from union) verifies this and funds an internet program, possibly via GetUp, to boycott the company’s products and services
3. The whole purpose of the campaign is to promote the replacement of the board and senior management by hurting the share price of the company – eventually the shareholders will lose confidence in the business leaders and replace them
4. Even the threat of such action will ensure that business leaders act more responsibly

Business has historically sought to make stop work activities illegal. I would love to see them trying to make an internet product boycott campaign illegal. In fact any such laws would be technically impossible to enforce. And if someone doesn’t buy a product there is no act to detect and enforce.

This is devilishly clever. I hope no one reads it.