Enable union competition
Attorney-General Christian Porter’s Ensuring Integrity Bill to place trade unions under increased scrutiny was just defeated in the Senate. The bill has been criticised by the Opposition’s Tony Burke: “What I can say is with this government there is no doubt at all they are putting forward one rule for corporate Australia and a completely different rule for the organisations that represent workers”. That’s hardly comforting words for Leigh Chiavaroli, whose family company West Homes Australia Pty Ltd went out of business thanks to John Setka’s CFMMEU, where 500 jobs were lost. That’s hardly comforting words for other victims of union bullying.
Here’s another idea for industrial relations reform: enable union competition. There is nothing wrong with unions per se. Traditional institutional unionism was once upon a time a key cornerstone of Australia’s long-term prosperity. That is no longer the case, especially as of when traditional unions in Australia were granted a legal monopoly. At present, an institutional union cannot practicably be forced out of business, whether workers they’re meant to represent want their services or not.
Many unions effectively enjoy a legislated monopoly. The Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 precludes the registration of a union representing the same category of worker who can “more conveniently” belong to an already existing union. So if you’re unhappy with the CFMMEU mafia, unfortunately you can’t form and register a new union to compete with them for members. Like any business enjoying a monopoly protected by legislation, unions tend to indulge in bad behaviour, because they have no competition to keep them on the straight and narrow.
The latest monopoly-enabling culprit is the Professional Engineers Registration Act 2019 in Victoria. Unsurprising, Engineers Australia were pleased that the Victorian Parliament effectively legislated its National Engineering Register and other red tape to benefit the organisation. It forces individual engineers to pay an exorbitant registration fee estimated at $6,000 per annum. It would take about 48 hours per annum to register annually, and if you don’t like either, there are fines abound for non-compliance. In a time where we’re encouraging more women into STEM, how is that fair for women engineers on maternity leave?
The ALP and ACTU would hate the idea of someone clean being allowed to start a union that actually represents workers by not financially supporting the ALP. The membership fee for joining such a grassroots organisation would be much less than that of ALP-linked unions. How attractive is that alone?! This new union could easily implement a policy that the John Setkas of the world need not apply for leadership positions. The Registered Organisations Act needs to enable union competition in order to clean up unions in Australia.
Take for example the Nurses Professional Association of QLD, who offer lower fees and don’t make political donations, competing with the QLD Nurses and Midwives Union, a traditional Labor-donating union. Such unregistered employee associations are a workaround at present, but they lack some of the powers of an institutional union. They should be granted equal status under the Registered Organisations Act, because it’s only fair for barriers to entry to be equal under the law.
Of course, this is all great in theory. In order for it to work well in practice, police need to be given real teeth to enforce the rule of law when the CFMMEU and other union mafia muscles in on innocent businesses.