Tenix always seems to be in the news for the wrong reasons, so I wasn’t too surprised to get this message from Eric Lee at Labourstart, with the title above. Eric writes
That’s the question posed by a strike which recently broke out at a Melbourne, Australia-based company called Tenix. After six years of individual contracts and no union, six years which delivered only tiny wage increases, a court-ordered ballot showed that 83% of Tenix workers had decided they wanted union representation. The employer’s reaction was to try to force workers to sign individual contracts — and to refuse to recognize the union. The workers reacted by going out on strike.
We’ve been asked by the Australian Services Union to send a strong message to the management of Tenix, saying that when 83% of your workers tell you they want a union, you really should respect that choice. Please support the campaign by clicking on this link
And spread the word!
John Quiggin 
Why don’t the 83% who want a union stop accepting money from their union-hating employer and take their skills elsewhere? Maybe they like their jobs more than they’d like a union.
Yeah, it’s that simple. Why didn’t they think of that?
It’s naive to expect that Tenix, or any remaining Australian industrial corporations, will recognise the utility of the compromise of workplace control embodied in unionism.
And to argue that there may be a value in work beyond the cash nexus between employer and employee is to indulge in nostalgia.
The anarcho-syndicalists of the early 20th century recognised these facts and attempted to wield industrial muscle by creating One Big Union aimed at mounting general strikes. (The OBU had a brief vogue in Australia after WWI, but was stultified by the conservatism of the AWU which was committed to piecemeal improvements in work condtions within the framework of the Arbitration System.)
This threat thoroughly alarmed employers and governments in Britain and elsewhere. Several concessions, including recognition of unions and loosening of restrictions on their spheres of operation followed. It wasn’t until the Thatcherite reaction of the 1980s that these syndicalist-inspired union victories were reversed.
Despite the continuing accuracy of the syndicalist analysis of the motives of capital, internationalisation of capital and de-industrialisation of first-world economies make a rise of neo-syndicalism very unlikely. Until service industry workers conclude that they are proletarians too expect no challenge to employer domination of the workplace. Perhaps the final removal of the vestiges of the old arbitration system may provoke thoughts along those lines, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it.
Seems that Marx was right when he predicted that “all that is solid melts into air.” He virtually wrote the syllabus for every MBA program in the English-speaking world.
Until service industry workers conclude that they are proletarians too expect no challenge to employer domination of the workplace.
Isn’t that what’s happening at Tenix?
From memory, growth in service industry unions has been reasonably good in the last few years. The problem is that their cardigan-wearing union officials tend to act as a professional association rather than trade unions.
Workers of the world, unite and buy a heap of shares in the company you work for.
The real legacy of the Bill Kelty era at the ACTU was that he saw Reithy’s legislation rather than the opportunity it was.
From the admittedly small qualitative surveys I have seen on this topic Employers who invoke individual contracts usually have a theory X attitude.
I might add this is self defeating in the long run for a company and most Business schools continually teach against it.
One of the most successful and hi-tech industries, the game development industry in America, is seriously re-evaluating work practices and countenancing unionisation following widespread criticism of scheduled 80 hour plus weeks for staff.
The $16 billion game maker Electronic Arts has resolved to start paying overtime to programmers and others, following a series of public floggings last year, and two lawsuits for unpaid overtime. more
Tom Buscaglia, a lawyer specializing in the game industry, says union rules may be the best way of making expensive but necessary changes in working conditions without attracting shareholder lawsuits. He points to the history of animators being unionised at Disney in the 1940’s. “It didn’t turn out to be a monster for Disney, and it forced the bar up for the whole industry,” he said. more
Here’s a link to the first story.
Oh dear, Katz. I thought that that sort of rubbish had been fully discredited – some obviously do still blame others for their own failures.
Nevertheless, the employer should have to negotiate with the union – but only for the 83% that want to join. They shold also be able to negotiate individual contracts with the 17%. The problem is that the 83% then tend to react against the 17%.
Tenix should probably have managed the place a bit better so that the employees did not feel that they need to join a union to get want they feel they deserve from their employer.
AR, clearly you can’t distinguish analysis from polemic. Unlike you, I never used the word “should”, the surest indicator of heart-on-sleeve syndrome.
Just for the record, in the plainest language, I believe that the misreading of circumstances and pusillanimity are the major causes for the invalid condition of labour movements around the world.
In other words, they have nothing and no-one to blame but themselves.
Katz, if you look past AR’s statement of your position you will see his own position is very sound.
Also, you misstated the course of union growth and fading; you entirely omitted the knock on the head to their ideas of social change and the power of their arsenal to effect it, which they experienced after the defeat of the 1926 General Strike in Britain. That was felt around the world.
PML, 1926 swatted syndicalism, not economism.
After 1926 British unions resolved to stop being sharks and to start being leeches.
As to the soundness or otherwise of AR’s position, are you refering to his analysis or his prescription, or both?
As to AR’s prescription, a little kindness probably seldom goes astray.
As to AR’s analysis, yes mean-spiritedness is abroad in this dog-eat-dog world.
Katz,
My “should” there is based on agency theory – if an individual freely chooses another to negotiate on their behalf, whether collectively or individually, then the other party should negotiate with the chosen agent. If they cannot reach agreement, however, then the original contract (presuming one is in place) should be honoured. Otherwise, either party should be free to walk away.
As to the use of the word “should” I do not believe value judgements are something we should shy away from – they should just be explicit.
As to labour contract negotiating style – I believe that showing some kindness and understanding is essential in any labour contract negotiation. To do otherwise is poor management. It is that sort of style that usually causes bitterness and angst and leads to the rise of unionism which is normally in no-one’s best long-term interests. Management that gets unionism inflicted upon it is usually poor.