Top state unionists push ACTU on fees for non-members   

Sydney Morning Herald
January 20, 2023


State unions are banding together to pressure the Australian Council of Trade Unions to debate whether workers who aren’t union members should be compelled to stump up for pay deals negotiated on their behalf as the federal government readies its next round of industrial relations reforms.

The Queensland, South Australian and Tasmanian trades halls have backed calls from the NSW and Victorian peak bodies to scrap a Howard-era ban on unions chasing non-members for bargaining fees.

Calls are growing among union leaders to change a law banning them from charging non-members a fee for pay deals.


Queensland Council of Unions acting general secretary Jacqueline King said she was happy to raise it at the meeting of Australian Council of Trade Union and state and territory union secretaries at the beginning of February as it was a major issue for her state body.

“I’d expect there to be a discussion about it, absolutely,” King told this masthead. “They’re going to have to make a call on it.”

She said the ball would then be in the court of the federal government, which is compiling the next tranche of workplace reforms to be introduced this year.

Victoria Trades Hall Council secretary Luke Hilakari said he would also speak in support of fees for non-members, which some union heads have suggested should be equivalent to a year’s membership.

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An ACTU spokesperson said the peak body did not openly discuss the contents of its meetings when asked whether the matter would be allowed to be debated.

Charging a bargaining fee was outlawed by former Liberal prime minister John Howard – a stance maintained under the Rudd-Gillard governments – after multiple unions tried to insert clauses into their enterprise agreements.



The High Court ruled against a levy in 2004 in a legal challenge brought against the Australian Workers’ Union.

The push has drawn condemnation from the Coalition and business lobby, which have accused the union movement of infringing on principles of freedom of association in a bid to increase historically low membership.

Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Luke Hilakari will support a debate about bargaining service fees at an upcoming meeting of national, state and territory leaders.


ACTU president Michele O’Neil earlier this month signalled her support for revising the laws, saying Australia was unusual internationally by having workplace laws restricting the content of collective agreements.

But when the peak body was pressed on whether it would push to have restrictions on collective agreements loosened, ACTU assistant secretary Scott Connolly said the organisation was focused on using the most recent industrial reforms to win pay rises and improve working conditions.

One of the main features of the government’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay amendments to the Fair Work Act last year is the expansion of multi-employer bargaining, giving workers across greater sections of the economy the ability to band together to bargain for higher pay.

However, United Workers’ Union national secretary Tim Kennedy this month questioned the effectiveness of unions being able to drive those changes with dwindling membership and resources.

King said the reforms placed the onus on unions to negotiate for workers’ rights across various industries.

“It’s placing extra responsibility on unions to be able to secure better outcomes for a wider range of workers,” she said in relation to why bargaining fees were necessary, preferably as part of the next wave of reforms to be introduced by Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke.

Several union bosses, including Kennedy, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union secretary Steve Murphy, Rail, Tram and Bus Union head Mark Diamond, and Health Services Union national president Gerard Hayes, have called for a legal overhaul to allow non-members to be charged a fee.

SA Unions secretary Dale Beasley said he shared the view of his counterparts, adding “we’ve got a big problem in our country where those union members are forced to subsidise their colleagues who aren’t contributors.”

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“In my decade as a union official, the most consistent complaints from members during wage negotiations was that people who contributed nothing to the outcome got to share equally in the reward,” Beasley said.

Unions Tasmania secretary Jessica Munday said the state body “would also be supportive of overturning bans on bargaining fees for non-members”.

Gnads wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2023 at 8:04am:


https://amp.smh.com.au/politics/federal/top-state-unionists-push-actu-on-fees-fo...

Gnads - I'm not happy with you this morning.

What you're REALLY saying is this : If I can't do my job in recruiting more members (mind you I myself command an obscene salary) I should be protected by law so I can go about punishing those who refuse to become members to the tune of $550 per annum???

You do realise that Keating, Rudd and Gillard thought this wasn't right.

So why do YOU think it is?

Especially NOW .... right off the back of an unresolved global pandemic driven recession with rising inflation and rising interest rates?

Been warning yez for years about the true reasons behind the immigration scenario of introducing inimical Third World people here to work.... told yez ages ago that some of those think a Union are the communists and membership will get you shot and dumped on the town tip, and that others simply have no concept of collective bargaining due to the simple fact that they live in small villages where their mental activity is as limited as their horizons... and where, in many cases, they have to keep a constant watch on their neighbours to ensure they do not steal the date patch or whatever and now they need to keep a wary eye open for the black turbans coming for 'heretics' and such...

Such people have no idea of our culture and never will.

Then the public service, in order to cater to their needs which are way and above what yours are - needs to employ some on affirmative action (another component in their oppression here) and thus they are ushered on a red carpet into the hallowed halls of easy work and money for life - undreamt of back in the date fields back home.... (well, when those date palm bolls get rotten - you can't pick very much cotton!) .... via affirmative action and privilege that nobody else ever had here .... until the feminist came along with the same whine ab out their date palm field hand work ...

A British general once described the average Arab, for example, as a guy who lived in a mud hut and maybe held a small garden plot etc, and who was forced to jealously guard it day and night against his rapacious neighbours and any outlanders who might happen along ...  that's one reason they are in their ghettoes, for mutual support, and alsl why their paranoia leads them to claim oppression in a country where they are free to do as they choose when they come from one where they could never go to uni and become a doctor etc in ten lifetimes....

Always was a mistake - always will be.... and now the gene pool and the Australian Link is so diluted that governments like Parrot's Tits and Minns, safely in their ivory towers and fat incomes for life etc, can calmly stand there and talk about handing over whatever they want to the Abos who long ago lost their 'war' against Whites, and KNOW that any dissenting voice will be howled down as racist etc and even attacked physically.

Now you know why they brought all the inimical groups here - so as to reduce the voting and social power of the ordinary folk who once upon a time in Australia would never have countenanced any of this bullshit, but would have said 'earn you way here and earn our respect - we are the sons and daughters of Diggers..."

Captain Caveman wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2023 at 8:40am:


Exactly.

That's the best solution.

I don't want to see people forced to join a union, and you can't make them pay money they don't want to pay.

So, they can just forgo the union-won entitlements.

No sick pay, annual leave, maternity leave, penalty rates, superannuation, LSL, meal breaks, etc.

You can't get any fairer than that.

Frank wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2023 at 11:10am:


The entitlements were won by the unions, not the employers.

And they're granted by the FWC.

All we need is for grappler to start calling them scabs, and we will have gone through the entire repertoire of union recruitment. Again.

Push to have all Unionists offer up their wives, sisters and daughters to provide pussy towards Australian non-unionist workers and their endeavour to provide Australia with a self-sufficient population growth.

Jasin wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2023 at 11:52am:


You know there are female union members too, yeah?