My hesitancy about attending a union meeting made me feel ashamed

Question:

A while ago, a colleague told me they were attending a union meeting within the building I work in and encouraged me to attend.

I was hesitant. At the time I couldn’t understand why. I felt very strange about my own reluctance, because I would consider myself a person interested in worker rights. I have also been in a union (although not at the moment) and the meeting topic was relevant to my work life.

On reflection, I realise I was worried about what my manager and other colleagues would think – and how they would respond. I think of it as being like a child worried about getting in trouble from the adults. I didn’t attend, and now I feel ashamed. Should I?

Answer:

I asked Bradon Ellem, a professor of employment relations at the University of Sydney Business School, about your question. His response was thorough, illuminating, and I hope really helpful, so I’ll pass it on in full:

“There’s obviously a series of structural, organisational and, in the broadest sense, political components to the ‘hesitancy’ that your inquirer mentions.

“In other words, I’d ask: what’s the wider frame that might bring an individual’s psychology into a response. What I mean by that is there has been a generation-long shift in most global north countries driven by governments and employers away from union recognition and collective bargaining to marginalising organised labour in favour of more individualised arrangements – or, to call a spade a spade, managerial prerogative.

“That’s not a mere anodyne preference among employer lobby groups but an active undoing through legislative change of the once ‘normal’ role of unions in workplaces, as parties to the making of labour standards and enforcers of them. The Fair Work Act didn’t really put a dent in that.