With the defeat of the federal Labor Government and the consequent end of the Accord, it has almost become the received wisdom to attribute to the Accord the blame for the decline in union membership and union density during the 1980s and the 1990s. The decline in union density has arisen not...

This paper traces the process whereby the apprenticeship system came to be regulated by industrial tribunals during the period 1900 to 1930. It describes how the regulation emerged, the motives that underpinned it, and the wider political debate about the apprenticeship system at the time. It...

This paper uses survey data to look at the union membership by analysing decisions of employees to join and leave (exit) unions when they are in jobs where unions are available and there is freedom of choice on union membership.

This paper investigates nature of apathy in relation to unions, the causes of it and the influence it exerts on union membership. Union apathy was found to have quite different correlates to political apathy. Wheras political apathy is higher among blue collar workers, union apathy was lower...

Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, our research indicates that unobserved heterogeneity substantially biases cross-sectional estimates of union wage effects upward for both males and females. Estimates of the union wage premium for male workers...

I explore the voting patterns of trade union members in Australian elections conducted between 1966 and 2004, and find that on average, 63 percent of trade union members vote for the Australian Labor Party. Despite the fact that union membership declined from around one-half of the workforce in...