Dinosaur unions shown up by pro-worker breakaway associations

Nurses need professional indemnity insurance, legal backup and help with bargaining. It is these and other services that should be offered in competition to existing unions.

Dinosaur unions are motivated not to do “good” but to ensure that workplace culture is eroded. NPAQ is discovering workplace arrangements that the union has agreed to that are unfair and remain a constant irritation for the employees.

Unfortunately, most members do not see the union complicity in these “bad” arrangements and just blame management. Management is not blameless but it is used to playing tag with the same old union players.

Dinosaur unions have perverse incentives to never fix problems, to never deliver good wage negotiation outcomes and never set up arrangements that will prevent problems in the future.

For the first time alternative employee organisations are getting involved in negotiating enterprise bargaining agreements.

The goal of alternative unions, associations of like-minded employees that wish to buy representation services, is to remove ideology from the remuneration package and let nurses, and ambulance workers, and in time any worker, decide how they should receive their remuneration; for example, the right to cash up holiday pay and sick leave.

ALP, Green and independent senators who voted against the reinstatement of the Australian Building and Construction Commission voted to prolong corruption. They should be ashamed.

The commission should note that alternative associations may also play their part to stamp out corruption.