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Archive | Industrial Relations

Who are the real competition for unions?

Conservative crank Gerard Henderson wrote last year that unions “have nothing to fear from external competition”. Apart from demonstrating that he knows relatively little about the new Fair Work Act, which allows for inter-union disputes over membership coverage, the sentiment he expressed, that unions do not face “traditional”, market based competition, is one I’ve heard expressed [...]

Retaining members in public sector unions

Retaining members in public sector unions

University of Warrick academic Jeremy Waddington and UNISON national officer Allan Kerr authored a fascinating article for the Industrial Relations Journal, Membership retention in the public sector. The article examines membership retention in one of the United Kingdom’s largest public sector unions, UNISON, with over 1.3 million members. Waddington and Kerr surveyed 5000 members to [...]

Performance pay for teachers is a terrible idea and here’s why

On 7 February 2007, the then-Federal Education, Science and Training Minister, Julie Bishop, announced that ‘like other professions, teachers should be recognised and rewarded on merit.’ This policy announcement, made despite the Federal Government having no legal authority to set pay or conditions on public schools, was based on the pervasive private sector management practice [...]