Very rarely do I despair but my recent experience addressing a conference of industrial relations (IR) specialists made me take to the gin (a depressive in itself I understand!). 

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Dompost Business Column
By Helen Kelly, president, Council of Trade Unions
Published Monday 14 April 2008 [1]

Very rarely do I despair but my recent experience addressing a conference of industrial relations (IR) specialists made me take to the gin (a depressive in itself I understand!).  Billed as New Zealand’s Premier IR Conference, its programme was foreign to the vision of work unions are promoting, and to be fair the type of discussions we now have with business organizations such as Business NZ.  The disjoint between the programme and the future of good IR practice is very concerning to those interested in building a high wage, high skill productive economy, and in fairness it is probably standard fare for this type of conference – but it is time to change!

In the two days of the conference participants included such enlightened topics as:
• containing union access
• how to fire an employee,
• managing “claims” of stress  (but not managing stress itself!)
• a case study of Air NZ IR – employer version only
• dealing with problematic employees,
• using employment agreements to manage risk,
• managing strikes

Only two weeks earlier unions met in Rotorua to discuss the future of work in this country.  We considered how to continue our work contributing to modern workplaces which are productive, high skilled, high wage, decent and fair places to work.  We want to continue to work with business and government together to develop this concept – hopefully reaching agreement on what that workplace will look like, what more is required to achieve it and what the roles of the three parties might be.  We want this discussion to be both informed by, and filter down to the industry and workplace level where workers and employers discuss together what they think is needed from each other to build a modern productive workplace in the future. 

The CTU vision for the Workplace of the Future [2] sees a modern workplace as unionised by trained and competent unionists. It will be productive, have excellent pay and conditions, be a centre of life-long learning, be fair, respectful and high-trust, have strong networks in the industry and be healthy and sustainable.  This vision may ‘scare the horses’ but a closer look at it shows it has mutual obligations and big challenges for unions as well as employers.  

The CTU and its affiliate unions already participate in a large number of tripartite and bipartite initiatives, where unions act as the voice for all workers and are often addressing the full range of economic and social issues.  However each initiative tends to operate in isolation and is not tied into a common, agreed vision of a Workplace (or economy or society) of the Future.  Very often, the initiatives do not explicitly commit to building union participation and voice. While initiatives rely on union members’ involvement and union growth, employer neutrality and recognition of unions are often neither recognised nor promoted in their operation. It is ironic to sit with employers who congratulate the CTU for its commitment and ideas in this area and yet at the same time do their best in their workplaces to “contain union access”.

Equally, unions have our own challenges in our readiness to participate fully in the Workplace of the Future.  Many of our key industries and workplaces are organised by strong unions. The performance of these unions (and the employers in them) will be instrumental in whether or not the workplace is as successful as it could be; research shows good unions add value, poor unions do the opposite – and it’s the same rule with employers.  The trick is in recognising this and building a relationship that ensures good practice occurs, and recognising that workers have a vital interest in the success of their workplace and the economy generally.

The development of an agreed vision for the Workplace of the Future would be a form of social partnership, where the best efforts of all are committed to achieve the best outcomes for all.  If agreement could be reached on what that workplace would look like then strategies developed by the other bodies could be tested against the demands of that modern workplace. Collective bargaining would also take place in this context.

Unions will need to have a commitment to both support the modernisation of the workplace, including the workforce, and to the collective interests of the workers that they represent. Unions will have officials with the capacity to work with members at this level, work with new members, engage at all levels in a constructive way and contribute to the achievement of the agenda. While many unions are already well down this track, building the capacity of unions for the Workplace of the Future will be an important commitment in any agreement.

So we are not sitting still – we know that our economy needs transforming and for that to happen workers’ knowledge and skills need to be harnessed, their commitment gained and investment in workforce training needs to increase.  The challenge I put to those at the IR conference was whether they were ready to change.  Some employers and unions already do have this understanding and I hope they will be the case study at next year’s conference.  I am also hoping I will be back next year running a session titled “encouraging union access.”