Joining a trade union

I now view joining a trade union as a penalty incurred for poor and incompetent workers based on my experiences working for the state government. To a degree, government workers represent the last bastion of union influence and power. Union membership is rapidly declining in power, in no small part due to union management and corruption.

However, there is some value in negotiating wages and conditions collectively, the state government has shown tonot bargain in good faith at times and industrial action is sometimes warranted. I have no issues with unions per se, my issue is how they are run, tactics used and how officials are elected.

Hailing from twenty years of employment in private enterprise, I was used to individual bargaining. I am glad I came from private enterprise to the public sector, I would have not liked to have picked up the work practices of some of my colleagues who have spent their entire working life in the federal and state government workforce. They are just plain lazy holding such a poor work ethic, I don't think they would last long in private enterprise where they are held accountable for productivity.

I now don't have to join a trade union against my will, we have choices. Based on my current and past employment, the people who needed union protection were inefficient, unmotivated and antaganstic towards the job. Being self-motivated, I hated being stood over and supervised closely in a manner that offended my personal work ethic, just hand out the job, leave me alone to get the job done and support me in my endeavors to suceed for the business enterprise.

The sad part is, we need unions, workers need representation - so how did we get to our current state of affairs? Instead, we have union officials interested in building and maintaining their personal power base. There is corruption, lots of it with the worker paying a percentage of his or her wage for union representation. Their union dues go into federal political advertising, slush funds and programs benefitting union officials.

There is no accountability, the union pays no tax, in many cases maintaining poor financial controls and not reporting to a federal body, in short, the books are not audited and union officials have no demands asked of them.

Australian unions are run on the same lines as British unions, that is, militent and seeking confrontation. With just 12% of workers holding union memberships, union management has to ask, what did we do wrong? Ironically, the highest proportion of union memberships is in the education and training sector (my job), public administration and safety.