BIG DECREASE

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 123, 21 November 1932, Page 10

BIG DECREASE

UNIONISM IN AUSTRALIA

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY,' 10 th November. During the last few years there has been a big falling off in trade union membership in Australia, and economic conditions are blamed for this. According to the Commonwealth Statistician, the proportion of unionists to the total number of employees is now less than half. Fifty-one per cent, of employed males do not belong- to a union. In the case of women workers the percentage is 64. The- trade union movement reached its peak in 1927. Then, out of 1,267,636 male employees 20 years of age and over, 793,131 belonged to unions.- This figure represented 62.6 per cent. In 1928 the percentage dropped to 60.9. A year later it was 59 4in 1930 56.0, and in 1931 it came down to 49.7. - ' .

The statistician does not show the reason for this falling off, and it is not necessary that he-.should do so. Union membership keeps fairly regular pace with unemployment figures. In 1927, the unions' best year, the percentage of unionists who were unemployed was 7. The figure then began to rise. In 1928 it leapt to 10.8; then to 11.1 in 1929;-to 19.3 in 1930; and to 27.4 in 1931. Much as these percentages rose the unions lost membership. As 1927 was the best year for employment in the decade beginning 1921, so was it the best for trade union membership; and 1931 was the worst, in both respects.

The figures for women employees are somewhat different. Women workers have not been organised to the same extent as men. In their best year of unionism—l.o2S—the percentage of women unionists to the total of women employees was only 41.5, so that 58.5 per cent, were unorganised. From 1928' onward the unorganised proportion increased each year until the figures for 1931 stood at 35.9 per cent, unionists, and 64.1 per cent, unorganised. The membership of employers' organisations has also decreased. Their best year was 1929, when the number of members of association's stood at 135,342. In 1930 this number had dropped to 134,669, and in 1931 to 132 428 This falling off is probably mostly accounted for by the fact that the members concerned have either gone or been forced out of business.

Another thing which can be attributed to the economic crisis is the large drop in the number of industrial disputes during the depression years. Taking 1928 as a fair average year, in which there were 287 disputes, there was a decrease to 259 in the following >r e« and a fairly heavy drop to IS3 in ■U3V. Last year there/was a further decline to 134. The average loss in wages in industrial disputes from 1926 to 1930 inclusive was £2,000,000 a year. In 1931 the amount was only £227,731. Industrial disputes involved 104,604 persons in 1929, compared with 67.667 in 1931.