There I was, a newly appointed officer in the Australian Narcotics Bureau, now merged with the Australian Federal Police. I had been recruited from my previous role as 2IC of the Royal Australian Military Police School.
I was seated in a room with the representative of the union that claimed to represent me; he was trying to get me to join the union. I was reluctant, mainly because I didn’t trust his motives. He claimed we were being underpaid and overworked. I disagreed and told him that I was now getting more than I had been paid in the Army. Additionally I was choosing a career that I loved, and the money was secondary. If I wanted more money I had several alternative career options. We parted without me joining and we remained suspicious of one another from that day on.
Years later I was helping a workplace go through significant culture improvement that also involved shedding ridiculous and outrageous union practices that had rendered that workplace grossly inefficient. Being held hostage by several unions with a warped sense of privilege and rights was retarding their wider community’s economy and change had to occur.
Over a period of about a decade the union stranglehold was greatly diminished, though the sole remaining union unsuccessfully attempted to discredit the CEO and myself. The pathway to removing the unions’ stranglehold was by improving workplace conditions in line with improving performance, productivity and helping the culture to mature effectively.
Since that assignment I have encountered several workplaces across different industry sectors with a range of union interference.
Here’s what I’ve learned about unions:
- There is nothing wrong with having a union presence. They can be a good third party check as to how the overall culture is evolving, conditions being competitive, leadership being effective and empathetic, and performance and productivity being competitive.
- However if leadership doesn’t ensure that the culture evolves, conditions aren’t competitive (not just monetary), and performance and productivity aren’t competitive then unions can become the worst way to cause improvement. That is because union focus is on workers’ rights, pay and conditions and not on improvement in leadership, culture, performance and productivity.
- An immature, disempowered culture is ripe for the worst kind of union interference.
- Once a union has its grip on the workforce, leadership needs to step up and resolve the matter decisively, not by fighting the unions, but by genuinely dealing with the core issues of leadership effectiveness, culture, conditions, performance and productivity.
- Whilst there are many reasonable union leaders and organisers who recognise that there has to be an alignment of these core issues, there are some who are militant, warped and self-interested. They often ensure that “bullies” are present in the workplace to enforce the union view with more timid workers. These bullies need to be removed rapidly, ethically and lawfully in conjunction with remedying the quality of leadership, culture, conditions, performance and productivity.
- The longer leadership tolerates these warped unionists the more precarious the situation becomes. Apart from the cost of lost performance and production, there is a loss of trust and respect for leadership by the talent within the business and then a loss of that talent.
- The presence of a militant union in a business indicates a lack of effective leadership, an immature culture, non-competitive conditions (again this is not just about money), under-performance and diminished productivity.
What are your thoughts on this? What’s been your experience?
