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Personnel Issues

Unions in the workplace

This unit of work addresses aspects related to the following syllabus outcome:

A student:

H1.1 investigates industry through the study of businesses in one focus area

Source: Board of Studies NSW (1999) Stage 6 industrial technology, preliminary and HSC courses. Board of Studies, Sydney

Background

A union is an association of workers, from a similar field of employment, which uses its strength of numbers to initiate changes in working conditions, by bringing areas of concern to the attention of the employer.

Unions developed to protect workers from being exploited by unscrupulous employers who expected long hours of work for low rates of pay.

There is a long history of various industrial disputes and enterprise bargaining that have led to the many minimum award conditions that workers enjoy in a modern work environment.

Many larger industries have well established union representation, for example, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union or the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union.

The representation of the union in the workplace falls to the union representative who is elected by fellow workers. This person monitors workers conditions and ensures that rights and entitlements are maintained.

Activity 1

The Department of Industrial Relations sets the minimum awards and working conditions for employees in the workplace.

Answer the following questions from:
http://www.industrialrelations.nsw.gov.au/rights/employee/union/tradeunion.html

In what areas can unions represent their members?
Apart from individual employers, what other stakeholders do unions deal with?

Answer

Activity 2

Go to: www.wageline.qld.gov.au/glossary/index.html
Define the following terms:

arbitration
awards
conciliation
enterprise agreements
equal employment opportunity
industrial disputeee
redundancy
severance pay

Answer

Activity 3

When disputes arise in the workplace the union intervenes to represent the employees in an industry in negotiations with the employer. If the dispute is not resolved at this level, the matter is referred to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

Go to: http://www.airc.gov.au/ and from the "summary" determine what are the functions of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

Answer