Restoring Democracy to the Workplace? An Analysis of Union Membership Patters Before and After the Employment Contracts Act

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of the Employment Contracts Act on trade union membership. Two separate surveys of labour market participants lvere conducted in Dunedin on the eve of the legislation and one year later. The findings demonstrated that for these samples, trade union membership in aggregate was not based on compulsion before the legislation and remained at a similar level a year later. Democracy was not restored to the workplace it was already apparent there. This implies that changes in the industrial relations system had already taken place prior to the legislation and it is suggested that these findings are explicable if the effect of the exigencies of the recession on both parries is taken account of In the ensuing discussion, reasons for the persistence of the same level of union membership after the legislation were considered. It was demonstrated that most members li'anted the union to act as their bargaining agent and felt few pressures regarding their choice of employment contract. In other words, employers did not utilise the provisions of the Act to weaken union membership, at least in the short term.