Accelerating global economic change reflected in the high degree of capital mobility and integrated global markets has intensified investment competition between states. The union movement reacted through a commitment to strategic unionism and award restructuring. However, the impact of the latter has been limited by the occupationally divided structure of Australian unions. The paper analyses attempts to change this structure through union amalgamations and considers the impact inter-union power struggles, shaped by factional alignments, have had on the process. The paper assesses the organizational problems of conglomerate unionism and evaluates possible counters to likely tendencies.

Recent years have seen Australian unions suffer major membership losses. Unions now represent only 46 per cent of the workforce and less than one third of the private sector workforce. The paper examines union membership trends and analysis the appropriate environment, structures and strategies for addressing union decline.

This paper examines a number of aspects of the economic impact of unions with particular emphasis on the exit/voice model proposed by Freeman and Medoff. It examines the reported effects of unions in quit rates and job tenure; productivity; wage dispersion and merit pay; employment; fringe benefits; technological change and profits.

This paper provides a preliminary review of the effrects of closed shop arrangements on trade unions. In doing os it addresses four hypotheses: whether the closed shop reduces union militancy; whether it leads to poorer services; whether it affects bargaining power; and whether it leads to increased membership.

Plans to restructure the trade union movement have received little critical analysis. The most striking exception to this appeared in the first issue of this journal where Costa and Duffy argued that amalgamation plans were ‘fatally flawed’. This perspective, although drawing out some problems with the ACTU’s program, is itself unsatisfactory because too much of its argument remains implicit and it relies on highly debatable assumptions. Like so much industrial relations debate in Australia, the arguments in and about union strategies are made more difficult because they proceed without reference to theory or history. The main burden of this article is, after a detailed analysis of the Costa and Duffy prescription, to show why this matters and to suggest some areas of detailed research.

Sport has ceased to be an amateur pursuit: it has become a form of employment and subject to many of the legalities and insititutions encompassing employment relations — including unions. This ipaper traces the development of sporting associations, identifies the range of such associations, examines problems which are peculiar to employment in the ‘sports industry’ and future prospects for unions in that industry.

In this paper we argue that Australia’s current economic problems are not just the result of our being at the bottom of the cycle, but rather reflect a longer term decline. The reasons for this decline are located in structural problems relating to the decline of the industrial sector and the increasing unreliability of the export sector. We view industry as the core sector which generates technology and growth. Within the industrial sector, capital goods producing industries are the ‘hot bed’ (so to speak) of structure change and technical progress. Australia has let these industries decline. As a result, traditional remedies in the form of either demand management policies or ‘waiting for the world recovery’ will not be enough. In fact, recent economic policies, rather than being a panacea, have exacerbated the problem.

As in many other countries, the eighties have seen the re-emergence of poverty as a political issue in Australia. Rising unemployment and the increased incidence of sole parenthood have put more children at risk of poverty, a development which has prompted increased policy concern. This paper presents estimates of the incidence and structure of poverty in Australia in 1981–82, 1985–86 and 1989–90, using the poverty standard developed by the Poverty Commission in the seventies. The estimates for 1989–90 are based on data generated from the 1986 Income Distribution Survey by a microsimulation model that allows for trends in demographic change, labour market participation and income during the second half of the eighties. The results indicate that the overall poverty rate has increased from 9.2 per cent in 1981–82 to 12.8 per cent in 1989–90. This is despite the fact that the incomes of many low income groups have increased in real terms, in many cases substantially. The reason for this apparent paradox is that the poverty standard is a relative one, and has thus itself been increased in line with average community incomes. One of the conclusions of the paper is that it may be necessary to reconsider the use of a relative poverty standard when assessing short-run trends in the extent of poverty.