Private Detectives, Blacklists and Company Unions: Anti-Union Employer Strategy & Australian Labour History‪.‬

In November 2002 Labour History published a thematic on union organising. (1) It featured contributions on organising in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and the authors of the diverse group of papers on the process, context and results of union organising, puzzled whether the historical traditions of the labour movement held any promise for sparking a revitalisation of unions in the 2000s. Since that time, the unionisation rate has fallen even further. In August 2007, only 18.9 per cent of Australian workers were unionised, and in the private sector the figure was even lower, at 14 per cent. (2) It was noted in 2002 that the unionisation rate (then 23 per cent) was the lowest experienced by Australian trade unions since the first decade of the twentieth century when the labour movement was recovering from the crushing effects of the 'great strikes' and the depression of the 1890s. (3) The situation looks even bleaker now. On other measures--including the relative circumstances of unions in Australia and abroad--union membership density looks unhealthy. Indeed, it seems that Australia has been a world 'leader' in union density decline over the past 20 years. (4) Scholars seeking to explain declining union membership and power in Australia during the 1990s and 2000s have identified a number of important influences. (5) A critical issue has been the agency of the neo-liberal state and the intersection of state activity with an increasingly anti-union employer ideology and strategy. Throughout the 1990s in the various state and the federal jurisdictions, legislation and policy have undermined union organising, bargaining and representation rights. Individual contracts undercut collectively bargained standards and have limited union 'reach'. This environment has facilitated the development of militant (anti-union) management in Australia. (6) While the state has taken an active role in (anti-) union affairs, employers across a range of industries and sectors have shown considerable capacity to themselves develop and implement strategies aimed at 'decollectivising' employment relations. Sometimes employers have made use of laws and courts, but we have also witnessed the development of more subtle initiatives, embedded in workplace culture and communication, aiming to exclude 'external' parties and regulation. (7) We would argue, along with other Australian observers of industrial relations and politics, that the twin and complimentary processes of employer anti-unionism and an enabling (anti-collective) legislative and policy agenda are the keys to understanding the scale of union decline in Australia during this time. At various points in our history employers have been vociferous in their opposition to unions, but there rarely has been such a 'perfect storm' of neo-liberal anti-union ideology, keen employer anti-unionism and an anti-collective policy framework. (8)