Over one hundred years ago, the Australian Workers Union (A.W.U) stood at the forefront of the most significant industrial battle in the Australian workplace. It was a fight over "freedom of contract". The pastoralists, the employers in Australia's wool industry, wanted the "freedom" to employ ...

Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 2000, show that the decline in Australian union membership continues, despite the efforts of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), to stop the slide. The ABS reports that trade union membership has dropped to 28 percent of the...

A greater number of jobs available in the service sector, globalisation, and the feminist movements are some of the reason that there has been a steady increase of Australian women entering the workforce. This reality coupled with the dramatic rise in divorce rates over the last few years has seen...

Are Unions in the 21st Century dead? People may tell you that the union movement is dead, or dying, that unions have little relevance in today's society. The numbers of Australian union members has definitely decreased in the past few decades, but does this mean that the end is near? Because ...

A union can be defined as "The condition of being united, the act of uniting, or a conjunction formed by such an act. 2. An association, alliance, or confederation of individuals or groups for a common purpose, esp. political." When talking of the subject of Industrial Relations, the type ...