Australian unions and collective bargaining in 2013

Introduction

For unions, 2013 was an election year, with considerable efforts channelled into political activities. Organising and campaigning activities continued, with employment insecurity, gender-based undervaluation and public sector employment, and employees' rights high on the agenda. Union density fell slightly, and industrial action fell by considerably more, especially in the private sector, while wages grew at a slower rate than in the previous year. A September change of Federal government meant, at year's end, unions were confronting a very changed political landscape and one where the political narrative regarding unions was becoming more hostile. In this review, we examine developments in union membership and industrial disputation, major collective bargaining disputes, the election campaign, union campaigning and relations with state governments.

Union membership

In mid-May 2013, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its estimates on union membership for August 2012 (ABS, 2013). In contrast to the rise in the preceding year, these showed a small drop in union density, from 18.4% to 18.2%. Trend estimates (for methodology see Peetz, 2005), which had indicated a small decline the previous year, suggested a continuation of that pattern. In trend terms, the number of union members grew by 5000 but the number of employees grew by 93,000.

The idea of unions being mainly for men was increasingly obsolete, with trend density amongst women rising slightly to 18.7%, while falling slightly for men to 17.8%. Women's higher density reflected the effect of their higher share of public sector employment, more than offsetting the effect of women's over-representation amongst casual employees. Soon a majority of unionists will be women.

The composition of the union movement is changing in other significant ways. In 1996, professionals accounted for only 20% of trade union members. By 2012, they accounted for 31% and were, by far, the biggest occupational group amongst trade unionists (next were ‘Technicians and trades workers’ and ‘Community and personal service workers’, both with 13%). The biggest factor in the growth of professionals was the increase in the number of education and health professionals, whose combined share of unionists expanded from 14% in 1996 to 24% in 2012. (We use original rather than trend figures, because the ABS changed occupational and industry classifications in 2006–2007.) At the same time, the combined share of labourers, plant operators and drivers has fallen from around 27% to 21%. White-collar unionists now out-number blue-collar unionists by two to one.

At an industry level, the share of unionists employed in health and related areas has doubled, from 11% in 1996 to 22% in 2012. It is now the largest group. Education's share has also grown, albeit less spectacularly, from 13% to 17.5%. Manufacturing, which accounted for around 18% of unionists in 1996, now accounts for only 9%. Over this period, the proportion of unionists accounted for by mining and construction grew slightly, while drops were recorded amongst those from finance and insurance, wholesale trade, retail trade and accommodation and food.

In 1990, only around 13% of unionists were part-time workers; this figure had risen to 24% by 2012. The other big shift has been the drop in male public sector unionist numbers – these accounted for 27% of unionists in 1992, but just 16% in 2012. Only partly offsetting this, female public sector unionists' share of total unionists grew from 19% to 25%, while female private sector unionists grew from 20% to 24%. As a share of total unionists, male private sector unionists were fairly stable, but this disguises the shift away from male-dominated manufacturing.

These changes in composition are important for union policy and strategy. Many of what once were considered the ‘heartlands’ of unionism are no longer so.

Industrial disputation

There was a notable drop – 60% – in the number of working days lost through industrial disputes between 2012 and 2013. The number of recorded disputes grew slightly (by 7%), but on average they involved fewer employees and were shorter. With only 12.6 working days lost per thousand employees over the year to September 2013, the rate of disputation was the second lowest in a century. Over the full period of the Fair Work (FW) Act from commencement in 2009 to September 2013, the rate of working days lost per thousand employees was 57% less than that average over the 12 years of the Workplace Relations Act.

Strike volumes fell in each industry grouping other than metals manufacturing, where days lost doubled, but it accounted for only 9% of all days lost. A majority (51%) of days lost were in the largely public sector industry grouping ‘Education, health and community services’, up slightly from 46% a year earlier, though even here dispute volume fell by half compared to the preceding year.

One notable pattern was that, increasingly, strike action centred around the negotiation of enterprise agreements, where it is legal provided procedural requirements for bargaining periods are satisfied. (ABS data do not directly identify strikes during approved bargaining periods, so enterprise bargaining issues are the closest proxy we have.) In the year to September quarter 2013, days lost through enterprise bargaining disputes were down by 41% compared to the preceding year to September 2012, while days lost through disputes over non-enterprise bargaining issues were down by 54%. By the year to June 2012, disputes over enterprise bargaining accounted for 81% of days lost where a cause was identified. While to some this may seem unremarkable – are not all strikes meant to be about enterprise bargaining? – under the Workplace Relations Act period for which we have data (March 2003–June 2009), roughly half of strike action seemed ‘illegal’: only 51% of working days lost then were over identified enterprise bargaining disputes.

Another long-standing characteristic of Australian dispute patterns was evident – that strikes are deployed for a fixed term during negotiation, to signal unions' strength and intentions, rather than persisting indefinitely until a dispute is settled (unlike, for example, the USA). Some 83% of working days lost in the year to September 2013 were in strikes with a pre-determined return to work or where work was resumed without negotiation. Intervention by federal or state tribunals brought strikes to an end in only 6% of cases, and negotiation without third parties did so in only 10%. A majority (59%) of strikes still lasted for one day or less, similar to the proportion under the Workplace Relations Act (58%), and this was despite legal changes that penalised workers engaged in stop-works shorter than four hours.

Strikes over wages increased – from 18% of days lost (with an identified cause) in the year to September 2012 to 32% in the year to September 2013 – but this was in the context of an easing in wages growth (discussed elsewhere in this volume), suggesting that many wage disputes were defensive in nature, rather than fights over increasingly ‘excessive’ wage claims.

Collective bargaining

Some 2.6 million employees were covered by current federal enterprise agreements by the end of 2013, fairly similar to the average over the preceding three years. In several industries, bargaining coverage was at or near its highest recorded (professional, scientific and technical services; health and community services; other services) while in metals and manufacturing, it was at its lowest for seven years.

Over 2013, prospective average annualised wage increases (AAWI) through collective agreements were 3.5% in new agreements. Most industries were fairly close to this with the upper and lower extremes occupied by construction (almost 5%) and retail trade, information media and telecommunications and other services (around 3%). Current agreements as of the end of December averaged 3.7% AAWI. By contrast, the fixed-weight wage price index (WPI) of the ABS, which included employees not on collective agreements, showed wage costs rose by just 2.5% through 2013. Wages growth has declined in both current agreements and the WPI but by a larger amount in the latter, probably most reflecting a greater wage slowdown amongst workers on individual arrangements. Both measures showed their lowest growth in over a decade – for the WPI, since the index started in 1998.

Bargaining in coal mining was limited as a number of major agreements had already been finalised (Bailey and Peetz, 2013; Brigden, 2012). Coal's share of disputes dropped from 11% to an unspecified small percentage. There were, however, tensions at the traditionally militant mining town of Collinsville in Queensland's Bowen Basin, following the merger/takeover of former mine owner Xstrata by Swiss commodity trader Glencore in the context of an industry downturn. In a move reminiscent of disputes from the 1990s on the waterfront and at the Queensland coal site of Gordonstone, where employers had sought to reshape employment relations through corporate restructuring, the company sacked the workforce employed by former contractor Thiess, saying it would reopen the mine with a new workforce in several months (Ker, 2013; Walker, 2013). The company imagined it could persuade the Fair Work Commission that this coal mine, operating since 1922, was a greenfield site at which it could introduce unspecified, flexible work practices. The mining and energy division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Workers' Union (CFMEU) planned court action the moment the mine reopened which, by the end of the year, had not yet happened.

In air transport, events continued to play out as a result of the 2011 grounding and lockout of the Qantas fleet (Bailey and Peetz, 2013; Brigden, 2012). Analysts explored Qantas's ‘engineered’ arbitrated outcome in the 2011–2012 dispute, noting that it ‘may yet come to be seen as an important turning point in the contest between job security and labour flexibility’ and that it reinforced tribunals' traditional defence of managerial prerogative ‘unless some unfairness to employees is demonstrated’ (Forsyth and Stewart, 2013: 830, 825). As 2013 proceeded, various Qantas agreements were finalised, covering international cabin crew staff (a pay increase of 14% over 3.5 years, with a cap on the employment of offshore workers), aircraft maintenance engineers (3% per annum increases, with classification structure changes delivering additional rises) and clerical staff (containing commitments around job security, a national rostering committee and 50/52 annual leave) (Workplace Express, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c, 2013d). The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association unsuccessfully challenged the second of those agreements before the Fair Work Commission (FWC), ¹ amid concerns it allowed less-skilled staff to carry out work formerly done by licensed engineers (Workplace Express, 2013b). In November and December, Qantas announced it would shed 1000 jobs after losses of $250–300m in the previous six months (Packham and Creedy, 2013).

The 2012–2013 bargaining round in universities was as drawn-out as the 2009–2010 process (Brigden, 2011). Only six of 38 universities had settled by year's end, including a management-initiated non-union agreement at Charles Sturt University (McCulloch, 2013). Seven days' industrial action occurred at the University of Sydney. National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) bans on issuing exam results – a key element of its industrial armoury – were disallowed in August when the FWC found that bans at two Victorian universities endangered student welfare ² (Workplace Express, 2013e), suggesting that even in relatively unionised sectors with co-ordinated bargaining, meaningful industrial action could be curtailed by narrow legal interpretations. Management strategy seemingly involved prolonged negotiation to wear down unions, and took advantage of a worsening budgetary context. Early settlements were at or above 4% per annum, but later rises averaged 3%, which the NTEU blamed on funding cuts by the former Australian Labor Party (ALP) government (McCulloch, 2013).

Automotive industrial relations were unstable in 2012. Unions and members were hit hard by two large manufacturers announcing closures. Ford in May revealed it would cease Australian manufacturing in late 2016, directly affecting 1200 workers and with flow-on effects throughout the components sector (Bleby, 2013). Holden negotiated a three-year wages freeze and work practice changes such as faster turnaround on overtime shifts and shorter lunch breaks (Lucas, 2013a) then, in December, foreshadowed closing Australian manufacturing operations by the end of 2017, directly affecting nearly 3000 workers (Kenny and Lucas, 2013a). The remaining large manufacturer, Toyota, sought to reduce conditions, but its initial efforts were found to contravene the FW Act (Cresswell, 2013).

In the retail sector, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) and other unions finally concluded agreements covering grocery retailer Aldi's stores and distribution centres in eastern states. ³ Operating in Australia since 2001, Aldi previously refused to bargain with unions (Lynch et al., 2011). As recent proposed agreements had not met legal requirements, these depended on company undertakings regarding averaging leave payments. The SDA in August concluded a four-year replacement agreement with fast food giant McDonald's, ⁴ claiming union membership amongst the mostly young workforce had more than doubled in 12 months, to 12,000-plus (Workplace Express, 2013f). In hospitality, Sydney's Star Casino's employees twice voted down a draft agreement before agreeing to a revision with a sign-on bonus. ⁵

In construction – which accounted for 23% of days lost, compared to the 25% during the period of the combined operation of the Building Industry Task Force and the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) – Hunter Valley coal infrastructure projects were lauded by the FWC as a model ‘of what can be achieved by the active and co-operative application of a sound industrial agreement’, and by Newcastle University Professor Mark Bray as a model of ‘coordination, representation and consultation … deserv[ing] national recognition’ (Workplace Express, 2013g).

In sum, collective bargaining was less volatile in 2013, reflected in industrial action figures, while agreement coverage was fairly stable.

Union campaigns

While election campaigning (see next section) was in the front of union minds in 2013, issues-based campaigning continued, particularly in the services sector. Three campaigns were noteworthy. An FWC equal pay case in the childcare sector, initiated by unions led by United Voice and supported by its Big Steps campaign (http://bigsteps.org.au), was set to resume hearings in early 2014. However, the former government's promised $300m wages boost was rescinded by the new government, which demanded childcare centres return more than $60 already earmarked for pay rises (Swan and Hall, 2013). The future was likewise unclear in the aged care sector, where the new government announced that increases to aged care funding promised by the ALP government to boost wages would be used in a more ‘targeted’ way (Norman, 2013). (For further details about both campaigns, see Charlesworth and Macdonald, 2014).

The SDA in March initiated a long-anticipated campaign to remove ‘junior’ rates (initially, at age 20) for retail workers. With a dedicated website (http://100percentpay.com.au) and 30,000 supporters by year's end, the campaign complemented the SDA's FWC application. Unions needed to develop strategies for youth (Bailey et al., 2010) and women (Charlesworth and Macdonald, this issue). But given political developments, and limits to the FWC's capacity to achieve equal remuneration for many in the workforce (Healy and Kidd, 2013), such cases could not set aside unions' need for continuing campaigning and mobilising (see Burchielli et al., 2013).

Unions and the federal election

In an election year, with the federal ALP precariously in power, much union activity was devoted to politics. Speeches by Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Dave Oliver and president Ged Kearney set the tone (e.g. Kearney, 2013; Oliver, 2013), focusing on the Coalition's credentials on industrial relations and fairness, industry policy (especially in the automotive industry), temporary migrant labour, skills development, public sector job cuts, union rights to bargain and campaign, penalty rates and job insecurity. Oliver (2013) conceded that, after successful campaigning for the 2007 election (Ellem, 2013a), the union movement had switched to a transactional focus. The ACTU launched two rounds of television advertising (Kearney, 2013). The NTEU, usually non-party political, spent $1m on advertising supporting Greens and key lower house candidates, to protest ALP university cuts and prevent the Coalition winning control of both houses of parliament (Rea, 2013). In all, however, the Coalition's strategy ‘of keeping industrial relations off the front pages of newspapers during the campaign’ and only putting new legislation ‘on the table after the election, not before’ (ABC, 2013a; Kenny and Lucas, 2013b) minimised discussion. By year's end, with the ALP losing 17 seats and government, former Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd had both left Parliament, enabling the ALP to rebuild following a long period of infighting. Bill Shorten, a former secretary of the Australian Workers Union (AWU), won ALP leadership.

Other post-election developments included new laws regarding offshore construction, repudiation of the former government's plans to financially support wage increases for aged care and child care workers (mentioned earlier), and legal amendments regarding greenfields agreements and right of entry. The new year promised to be challenging, with the foreshadowed resurrection of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) (see later), the likely disbandment of the new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (Abetz, 2013), Productivity Commission inquiries into the FW system and aged care, a Modern Awards review set to once again debate penalty rates, and a new Minister for Employment who had been deeply involved in WorkChoices (being responsible for its advertising and its carriage in the Senate). The government made industrial relations one of three areas of focus in a 2014 Australian Law Reform Commission review of legislative infringements of ‘traditional freedoms’ (Brandis, 2013), with the terms of reference particularly aimed at work rights and union activity. Political considerations will determine how far the potential for legislative action against unions is taken.

The public sector

As predicted in last year's review, conservative state governments – led by Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) – continued to take tough stances against public sector employees regarding pay and industrial rights.

A welter of legislation emanated from Queensland in the wake of extensive redundancies (Brace, 2013). In October, Queensland unions launched a High Court challenge – to be heard in 2014 – to legislation requiring members to vote on proposed union spending over $10,000 for ‘political purposes’ and demanding public release of credit card statements (Orr, 2013). The legislation was applied much less rigorously to employer bodies (Vogler et al., 2013). The Queensland Nurses Union then found itself subject to repeated contact by government inspectors, searching relentlessly for alleged breaches of the governance rules. Other state-registered unions expect similar intrusions.

Further legislation claiming to ‘harmonise’ that state's industrial relations laws with the FW Act contained, amongst others, provisions excluding some employees (particularly medical practitioners) from collective agreements or awards, thus forcing them onto individual contracts (Australian Medical Association Queensland (AMAQ), 2013), and capping redundancy entitlements (Brennan, 2013). WorkCover legislation restricting common law claims was guillotined (passed without additional debate) just two days after being introduced (Brennan, 2013). The government also amended safety legislation, requiring unions to give 24 hours' notice regarding investigation of alleged safety breaches (Workplace Express, 2013h). In May 2013, a Supreme Court challenge by public sector unions to the government's 2012 job cutbacks failed. ⁶ In June, the AWU lost a High Court challenge to the constitutionality of legislation removing job security provisions from Queensland public sector agreements. ⁷ After extensive litigation, Queensland public servants – who had not had a pay rise since mid-2011 – were in December granted rises (three of 2.2% over two years) administratively by the Newman government, with arbitration still pending. ⁸

Similar events unfolded in New South Wales. Unions had a victory with a High Court decision that the O'Farrell government's broad-ranging proposed political donation laws were unconstitutional in limiting political communication. ⁹ With parallels again to Queensland, an ongoing war over NSW government wages policy re-erupted in September. The government, saying it could only afford 2.27%, discounted its earlier 2.5% salary rise cap by the small July increase in the federal superannuation guarantee levy. A decision from the NSW Industrial Relations Commission was pending at year's end. ¹⁰

In Victoria, after further strikes in February reinforced 2012 industrial action (Bailey and Peetz, 2013), the Victorian schools sector reached agreement in April when the new State Premier intervened. The government withdrew its demand for performance pay and agreed to at least 16% increases for teachers and 12% for support staff over the three-year agreement (Topsfield and Preiss, 2013). After initially rejecting it, Northern Territory public sector workers narrowly voted up an agreement that delivered 12% over four years and assurances on job security and abandoned planned severance pay reductions (Thompson, 2013).

Unions covering workers in the Federal public sector were braced for changes that threatened to erode gains (documented by Roles and O'Donnell, 2013) under the FW Act. The new Coalition government's National Commission of Audit was due to report early in 2014, with a number of commentators and unions sceptical regarding its independence and warning about current and proposed staff reductions (e.g. Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), 2013; Quiggin, 2013).

It is increasingly apparent that in Australia, like other Anglophone countries, public sector unions are being scapegoated (Fairbrother et al., 2012; McCartin, 2013) and forced to adopt ‘defensive, reactive’ positions amidst a revival of employer unilateralism (Bach and Bordogna, 2013: 292, 291). Sustained and united campaigning (as in the Victorian education sector) can win victories, but unions faced determined and possibly escalating efforts by governments to curb union and worker rights and freedom of expression.

Unions in the courts and tribunals

In some industries, key developments were not in workplaces but in courts and tribunals. In the construction sector, action shifted from on-the-job in 2012 (Bailey and Peetz, 2013) to the courts, particularly in Victoria and Queensland. In Victoria, in March, the Supreme Court extended 2012 injunctions against union bans – related to ongoing disputation at the Myer Emporium site – on delivering concrete to Grocon sites. It followed a decision that the union engaged in ‘intimidation’ and induced breaches of contract regarding sub-contractors (Workplace Express, 2013i). Subsequently, in May, Grocon was successful with contempt of court changes regarding alleged union pressure for employment of union-nominated shop stewards at Myer and another site. ¹¹ The decision in another contempt case, initiated by contractor Boral (with the Victorian government as party) regarding CFMEU blockades of the Regional Rail Link site, was pending at year's end. ¹²

The aftermath of 2012 events in Queensland construction likewise played out in the courts. An August 2012 FW Australia order against the CFMEU and the CEPU regarding a nine-week period of industrial action (largely over contractor site rates) at the Queensland Children's Hospital site was upheld by a January full bench ¹³ but subsequently overturned by the Federal Court. ¹⁴ A ‘community picket’ led by Bob Carnegie in 2012 became the subject of criminal contempt charges, launched in February by construction company Abigroup. The case was dismissed in August, as the relevant order was not ‘clear and unambiguous’. ¹⁵ In August, the CFMEU and CEPU were fined by the Federal Court for ‘unlawful’ conduct, dating back to 2010 events ¹⁶ including a case initiated under the repealed Building and Construction Industry Improvement (BCII) Act.

Elsewhere, the CFMEU in November faced charges on right of entry breaches at four Adelaide Lend Lease sites, connected with allegations of union pressure for employment of full-time non-working shop stewards. ¹⁷ A senior FWC member took the unusual step of initiating a review of the CFMEU's right of entry practices (Workplace Express, 2013j). In September, the Federal Court fined 117 West Australian CFMEU members – as opposed to the union itself – more than $1m regarding strike action in 2008 against CBI Contractors (over severance pay) on Woodside's Burrup Peninsula gas project. The court found it breached the repealed BCII Act and contravened a Commission return-to-work order. ¹⁸ The union had long settled the case with CBI, but the ABCC continued the action.

Construction workers in July walked off a McDonald's construction site in Victoria's Dandenongs, citing solidarity with community protestors' ‘Burger Off’ campaign against the new fast food outlet and concerns about safety (Rintoul, 2013). The Victorian Supreme Court issued an injunction against picketers in September, ¹⁹ in a case potentially raising precedents about the involvement of community members in industrial campaigns.

Industrial action overall in construction dropped in 2013, but at year's end the new government was set to make the industry an ideological and legislative battleground once more, despite extensive critique of its claim that the ABCC had delivered significant productivity benefits for consumers (Allan et al., 2010; Martin, 2013). The government in November introduced the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 to re-establish the ABCC – abolished by the ALP in 2012 (Lucas, 2013b) – but with even more extensive reach and powers than previously, including offshore construction, transport and supply of goods to building sites, and picketing (House of Representatives, 2013) as well as retrospective application. Passage looks unlikely before July 2014.

The legal arena produced some more beneficial developments for unions in the resources sector, where events also tended to take place in the courts rather than on site. In January, the AWU gained an FWC majority support determination enabling it to bargain at Rio Tinto's Bell Bay Aluminium smelter in Tasmania, ²⁰ a site decollectivised nearly 20 years ago (Peetz, 2002). Equally surprising, given historical animosities, was a bid announced in May to recollectivise the Pilbara in Western Australia (Hannan, 2013) – for nearly three decades the site of inter-union bickering and individual contracts. CFMEU president Tony Maher suggested that, together, the unions could ‘eat [the Rio] elephant one bite at a time’ (Workplace Express, 2013k). Despite previous failed attempts, including the 2003 ACTU-sponsored attempt to create the Pilbara Mine Workers Union (Ellem, 2004), this move builds on the CFMEU-negotiated 2011 collective agreement for train workers (Ellem, 2013b) and the AWU's decade-long alliance with the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) to jointly organise offshore oil and gas (Workplace Express, 2013k). Alliances such as that of the AWU and MUA's represent a new form of inter-union collaboration to build union power (Brigden and Kaine, 2013).

In a blow to unions, however, and indicative of complexities thrown up by globalisation, the Federal Court ruled that the FW Act lacked jurisdiction to cover Filipino construction workers employed on an offshore drilling platform within Australia's economic zone. This allowed an Australian labour hire company to continue paying workers less than a quarter of what it received from the principal contractor for their services. ²¹ A new Migration Amendment Offshore Resources Activity Act, which became law in June (Timebase, 2013), reversed the effects of that Federal Court decision. In offshore oil and gas, the MUA was negotiating with a number of vessel operators and labour hire providers, with employment and training of Australian workers key claims. Secret ballot applications were made to the FWC as negotiations proceeded (Skulley and McDonald-Smith, 2013).

Two union victories concerned the CFMEU and BHP Coal. One involved the company's ‘adverse actions’ against a worker for holding up a ‘scab’ sign during a 2012 Bowen Basin dispute, ²² and the other its actions against two officials of the Peak Downs Lodge sacked during a 2011 dispute. ²³ In another case involving BHP's Peak Downs operations, the CFMEU was found by the Federal Court to have engaged in adverse action by advising members to limit overtime. ²⁴ A separate case between the CFMEU and construction contractor Mammoet Australia (that went to the High Court in August), relating to Woodside's Pluto natural gas project, saw the contractor fined for removing accommodation from four striking workers in 2010. ²⁵ Employer bodies responded critically (e.g. Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA), 2013).

Union governance

The Health Services Union (HSU) saga continued, relating to alleged illegalities not by unions themselves but by a small number of officials. The HSU was back in the union fold in June, in the wake of the NSW branch being placed into administration by the Federal Court in 2012 and suspended from Unions NSW's ranks (ABC, 2013b). In October, former president Michael Williamson pleaded guilty to charges involving defrauding the union of more than $1m, while the union pursued civil action against two other officials (McClymont, 2013). In December, fraud hearings commenced against former HSU secretary and now-defeated MP Craig Thomson (Cooper, 2013). Events dating back to 1992 regarding the alleged use of AWU funds, especially the claimed role of then-solicitor Julia Gillard in advising the union, excited much interest in sections of the media (Akerman, 2013). No charges had been laid against anyone by year's end, but a ‘judicial inquiry’ was promised by the new Coalition government. Bolstered by these developments and reports of other unions' ‘slush funds’ (Schneiders and Millar, 2013), the new government moved towards new legislation directing union governance and, more importantly, a new body to oversee it, notwithstanding a tightening of rules in 2012 by the ALP (Bailey and Peetz, 2013). The ALP and Greens in the Senate combined to refer the relevant Bill to an inquiry. The government also foreshadowed a royal commission on union activities (Schneiders and Millar, 2013).

Conclusion

The year commenced with measured, limited reforms to the FW Act initiated by the former government, union inputs into public policy such as new legislation on gender equality and bullying, and on issues like apprentice wages, parental leave, social security, migrant visas and the minerals resource rent tax (ACTU, 2013) as well as some creative campaigning. A lengthy election campaign took up much union energy, as did many cases in the tribunals and courts.

The last three months of 2013 were a veritable switchback ride for unions. To challenge the various curbs on union and worker voice (see Bogg et al., 2013) posed by the incoming government's seeming attempt to achieve ‘death by inquiry’ early in its first term of office (presumably followed by extensive legislative change in its second, and maybe in its first), unions will need a strong mix of defensive and proactive approaches, balancing the need to respond at public policy level on many fronts with sustained campaigning and organising. If unions thought that 2013 was challenging, 2014 looks set to take them to a new level of difficulty.