[Muanet] Union ranks swell by 70,000: ABS

[Chris Latham]

Union ranks swell by 70,000: ABS
From: AAP 
March 28, 2006 


THE number of trade union members rose by 70,000 in the 12 months before
the Federal Government gained control of the Senate, figures show.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said there was a four per cent jump
in union membership between August 2004 and August 2005, with the total
number of members reaching 1.9 million. 

The last time there were more than two million union members was back in
1998. 

Despite the increase, as a proportion of the workforce, unions actually
went backward. 

Union members made up 22.7 per cent of the workforce in 2004. This fell
to 22.4 per cent 12 months on. 

Men are more likely to be union members than women. More than one
million men are card-carrying members, while 841,000 are women. 

Tasmania is the nation's most unionised state, with almost 26 per cent
of workers members of a union. 

The Northern Territory has the lowest union membership rate of just 18.3
per cent. 

The education industry is the most unionised, with 43 per cent of the
sector's 690,000 workers union members. 

Low union sectors include agriculture (5.7 per cent), transport and
storage (7.2 per cent), property and business services (6.9 per cent)
and wholesale trade (9.2 per cent). 

Full-time workers (24.8 per cent) are more likely to be union members
than their part-time counterparts (16.7 per cent). 

Forty-seven per cent of public sector workers are union members, while
just 17 per cent of those in the private sector have links to unions. 

Around a third of people earning between $1000 and $1400 a week are
union members. But people earning less than $600 are much less likely to
be members. 

The bureau, in a report on benefits of workers, found a majority of
people earning more than $1000 a week were likely to have access to
maternity or paternity leave. 

People earning between $1200 and $1400 a week were the best off in terms
of access to leave entitlements, with just 5.6 per cent of workers in
this group without sick, holiday, long service, maternity or paternity
leave. 

Eighty per cent of people earning less than $200 a week had no leave
entitlements, while 46 per cent of those earning between $200 and $400 a
week were also without access to leave of any type. 

Fifty-seven per cent of accommodation, cafe and restaurant workers did
not have access to any type of leave, while just 4.3 per cent of
government administration and defence workers were without leave
entitlements. 

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