The Decline of Trade Union Membership in Australia - Annotated Bibliography Example

The Decline of Trade Union Membership in Australia Author Affiliation Date Introduction The topic that I have selected is “ the decline trade union membership in Australia”. In the twentieth century, trade unions were the important actor in the labor market and political arena of Australia. At that time, labor movements were strong and influential. Now, in twenty first century the trade union membership is declining day by day and many researchers argue that “organized labor seems headed for extinction”[Cla12]. The power and influence of trade union depend on their ability to attract and nurture new members but now unionism is declining. The weakness of some labor movement and their unjustified demands are some apparent causes behind the falling membership of the trade union members. It also raises many concerns and question on the capacity of the trade union membership and on the future of the trade union membership in Australia and many other countries where the trade union membership is declining rapidly. Thus, I have selected four articles that are relevant to my selected and topic and done Annotated bibliography to understand and analyzed all of the articles thoroughly. All four articles give a different perspective on my selected topic. The annotated bibliography of all the four articles is discussed below: Annotated bibliography of Journal Article 1 Benson, J. & Brown, M., 2010. Employee voice: does union membership matter? Human Resource Management Journal, 20(1), pp. 80-99. In this article[Ben10] “Employee voice: does union membership matter?” the importance of union membership has been discussed. The author explains the union membership is the only way through which an employee can express his thoughts, feelings and grievances. The union membership is an employee voice. Moreover, it has also been used by the employee for giving his suggestions and opinions of the management of the organization. In addition the author has also explained other non-union voice mechanism and negative impacts of union membership in various organizational levels. I have selected this article because it covers a different perspective of the same topic. The aim of the research is to find the positive as well as the negative impacts of both union and non-union membership of the organization. The research methodology that has been selected for conducting the research is quantitative approach. The research was carried by the scientific research organization. The sample of 2949 public employees has been selected. The interpretation was based on the factor analysis method. Different employees and their perception, of union voice have been analyzed with the help various variable that have been set by the researcher. The research focus on the voice mechanism of the employee to understand the perception of the different employees about the management of the organization. Moreover, the author also tried to explain the contribution and impact of union member on the employee perception of voice. In such a way it covers the impacts of employees voice and the importance of union membership in the organization. The research is very useful and relevant to my research topic as well. As, my research topic is “decline of trade union membership in Australia”, this research article not only explains the declining of union membership, but also discuss the other new direct non-union voice mechanism that recently has been introduced in the various organizations. The new non-union voice mechanism is the important technique that is used to understand the perception advice on the different level of organization. Thus, this article will not provide a basis for my research topic, but it gives useful supplementary information. The one of the biggest limitation of this research it limits is data gathering to only one organization just to cover the members of the same trade union. The sample can be chosen from a variety of organizations, it can be public or private as well. The limiting data gathering has narrowed the scope of the research. Different samples of the employees of different organization can provide more accurate results than to limit the data sampling to one organization. The conclusion that has been drawn by the Author is that the union has some negative impacts on the employee perception of voice but only at the organizational level. These results are based on the findings of one organization. Moreover, it has also concluded that the employee voice is an alternative mechanism for the trade union and this mechanism is of great importance at various organizational levels. Thus, this article does not provide the basis of my research topic. It can only helpful as a supplementary knowledge, but at the same time it provides a new concept of employees’ voice. The employee voice mechanism can be used as the alternative option among the non-union members of the employee and also helpful where the trend of a trade union is declining in the country like Australia. Annotated bibliography of Journal Article 2 Pyman, A., 2015. Unmet Demand for Union Membership in Australia. Journal of Industrial Relations, 51(1), p. 5–24. In the article[APy15] “unmet demand for union membership in Australia” gives the detailed analysis on the unmet demand for union membership in Australia and by using the Australian Worker Representation and Participation Survey draws the significance of the demand for union membership in the workplaces or organization. The Author has used quantitative research methodology and selected survey to collect the data for the research. More than one thousand employees were surveyed. The technique that has been used by the author of conducting the survey was computer assisted telephone interviewing. The respondents were selected randomly, but all were potential respondents that can give authentic information to the researcher. The scope of the research is very wide. It elaborates different workplace climate and their demand for union membership moreover also explains workers’ attitudes to unions. Similarly, not only discussing the need for union membership, but also estimate the gap and potential requirements for union membership in Australia. The article very well explains the demand for union membership which is very relevant to my research topic “The decline of trade union membership in Australia”. The article tells that employees who are non-union member of the workplace will join the union membership whenever they get the opportunity or chance to join the membership. Thus, the article shows the relevancy to my selected research topic. It gives the idea that the opportunities may decrease so the decline has occurred in trade union membership in Australia. The research article has a broad scope, but at the same time it has limitations as well. The biggest limitation of the research is it has only used survey of the randomly selected respondents on telephone call for collecting the data for the discussion and findings. It ignores other important techniques of data gathering like a face to face interview of the respondents. There are enough chances of producing biased results in the end if the researcher only relies on the telephone survey. So, the results may not be valid and accurate if a research use only one research methodology. The research article concludes that there is an enough demand and potential of union membership in Australian workforce and many non-union member want to join the union as the member. The percentage of potential to join a union vary from 28 to 32 which shows the inclination of the employees towards union membership in Australia. Thus, overall the article is very relevant to my research as it gives some contradictory argument and its findings provide the strong basis of the potential demand of the union membership. It is also significant because it also explains different nature of workplaces and attitude of employees towards joining the unions. The article gives the practical implications of union renewal and the legislative environment that is helpful for my research topic in understanding the legal basis of my selected topic. So, overall it is overall well-explained and relevant research article on my selected research topic. Annotated bibliography of Journal Article 3 Waddoups, C., 2005. Trade Union Decline and union wage effects in Australia. A Journal of Economy and Society, 44(4), pp. 607-24 In this article give[CWa05] review on the trend of trade union decline and union wage effects in Australia. The research article explains that the union density is declining in Australia day by day and as a result of this decline the wages of union or non-union workers have also effected. Moreover, Author also gives account and examples of previous research in which it has been analyzed that the trade union can have a strong influence on the wage deferential but as the trend of union membership has decreased the wage differential is not a matter of concern in many industries because of industrial relations reforms. The research methodology that has been chosen for conducting the research is empirical methodology. The empirical models has been designed by the Researcher in which he has used the data of the Australian bureau of statistic. To find the density of all the workers in Australia the researcher analyzed the trend of nine years, which shows the clear decline in the union density in Australia. Moreover, not only trend has been considered but also analyzed the union densities of various industries. The list of industries includes various big industries of Australia like agriculture, mining, manufacturing, construction and many other. In total there were almost 18 industries have been covered by the Author. Moreover, with the empirical model the surveys of education and training of Australian bureau of statistics of 3 intervals also considered to understand the current trend of wage with the declining trend of union trade. The focus of the whole research on the two different but relevant things that are declining union trade and the trend of the wage differential in various industries. The research not only covers the trend trade union and wage differential of a few industries, but it focuses on all big industries of Australia that broaden the perspective of this research. It is one of the most relevant and useful articles to my research topic because it directly explains my main idea which is declining of union trade membership in Australia. It gives a detailed research foundation for my topic of research. Moreover, it also elaborates the effects of trade union on wage deferential of different industries that will help me in understanding the causes and effects of my research topic. The biggest limitation of the research article ignores the qualitative methodology. All the argument is based on the statistics and their interpretation the previous researches and their account is missing in the discussion and findings section. At the end, the author concluded that the trend of a trade union is declining very rapidly and now there are very meager impacts of trade union on the wages of the employees in various big industries of Australia. It has been proven with the help of statistics. The main reason for this decline is industrial relations reforms. This article is a true basis of my research, it gives a detailed analysis on union trade trends and it’s declining. The industrial relations reforms that have been discussed in the research are very useful for my research topic. As, these reforms can prove the main reason behind the decline of trade union membership in Australia which provides the basis of my research topic. Annotated bibliography of Journal Article 4 Wilson, S. & Spies-Butcher, B., 2011. When Labor Makes a Difference: Union Mobilization and the 2007 Federal Election in Australia. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 1(7), pp. 1007-1080. In this article[Wil11] the influence of trade unions on industrial relation and politics has been discussed. The article explains that how the trade union weaken its hold and influence. Such a decline raises many questions on the capacity and potential of trade union members on formulating policies for the industry. Moreover, the article also discusses union mobilization and 2007 federal elections to explain the importance of mobilization of trade union policies with changing needs and circumstances. The research article is based on two basic aims that are; first is to present detailed analysis of “Your right campaign at work” and its impacts on 2007 election results. The research methodology that has been chosen for conducting the research is qualitative. All the arguments are based literature analysis that includes various sources, primary and secondary resources. The research focuses on the influence of union. The Author has concentrated on the political impacts of unions by discussing the results of election 2007. He explains that the union members cannot only maintain their influence on the industrial policies and strategies, but they can easily have an influence on the politics. The analysis on right at works campaign was one of the important evidence of assessing the influence of union on politics. This research article is very useful to my research topic. It is relevant to my research topic as well. As, the article explains the declining of the trade union, but at the same discuss the mobilizing technique and gives the example of the 2007 election campaign that provides the various suggestions for my research topic. The main limitation of this article is it does not explain the scope of future research on the same topic. Moreover, the research is based on the qualitative research methodology because all the discussion and findings were based on the previous studies and literature. The research question is of explanatory type that is why the Author is only using a qualitative approach, but at the same time it has ignored the future aspects and cover more the historical perspective on the topic. Thus, the author concluded its discussion with the comment on the impact of union on politics and elaborates that the success of the labor party in 2007 is totally based on the labor party revitalizing strategy that was the need of the time and such a strategy mobilize the labor party movement and its spirit and became the sole reason behind the success of the labor party in 2007 elections. So, the main focus of the article is on the reforms and the need of revitalizing union labor efforts and spirit. As, with the time the trend of a trade union is declining it can be only revived by the efforts of labor party members that the labor party had achieved in 2007 by their new and attractive campaign of “your right at work”. The article gives a detail basis about the suggestions and recommendations that I can use in my research topic, so over all it is relevant and useful research article. Conclusion To sum up, it can be concluded that all the articles that have been selected for the annotated bibliography highlights the main issue which is declining of the trade union membership in Australia. All the research articles are explaining the same thing, but with different perspectives and by using different research methodology. The similarities that I have found in all the four articles all discuss the declining of union membership and at the same time all suggest various alternative ways to revitalize the spirit of trade unions. Moreover, all elaborate that trade union is a great power of employees if it has been used with effective strategies and policies. On the other hand, all the research articles have chosen different research methodology for carrying out their research. Thus, all articles have valid and well-structured arguments on the basis of their research type. References Cla12: , (Schnabel, 2012), Ben10: , (Benson & Brown, 2010), APy15: , (A.Pyman, 2015), CWa05: , (C.Waddoups, 2005), Wil11: , (Wilson & Spies-Butcher, 2011), Read More