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<h1><tt><b><font size=3 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>Union ranks swell by 70,000: ABS</span></font></b></tt><font
size=3 face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans"'><br>
<tt><font face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>From: AAP </span></font></tt><br>
<tt><font face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>March 28,
2006 </span></font></tt></span></font></h1>
<p class=MsoNormal><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>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.</span></font></tt></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>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. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>The last time there were more than two million union
members was back in 1998. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>Despite the increase, as a proportion of the
workforce, unions actually went backward. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>Union members made up 22.7 per cent of the workforce
in 2004. This fell to 22.4 per cent 12 months on. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>Men are more likely to be union members than women.
More than one million men are card-carrying members, while 841,000 are women. </span></font></tt></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>Tasmania</span></font></tt><tt><font
size=2 face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>
is the nation's most unionised state, with almost 26 per cent of workers
members of a union. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>The </span></font></tt><tt><font size=2
face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>Northern
Territory</span></font></tt><tt><font size=2 face="Lucida Sans"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans"'> has the lowest union
membership rate of just 18.3 per cent. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>The education industry is the most unionised, with
43 per cent of the sector's 690,000 workers union members. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>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). </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>Full-time workers (24.8 per cent) are more likely to
be union members than their part-time counterparts (16.7 per cent). </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>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. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>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. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>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. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>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. </span></font></tt></p>
<p><tt><font size=2 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>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. </span></font></tt></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><tt><font size=3 color=black face="Lucida Sans"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Sans"'>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.</span></font></tt> </p>
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