Blog sites, news sites, opinion pages of newspapers, talk back radio and polls highlight the overwhelming public opposition to Howard’s Industrial Relations Laws. His ‘work choices’ advertising campaign has been vehemently criticised for using millions of dollars of tax payers money for propaganda. What’s more, the producers of the advertising campaign have been accused of misleading the people who appeared in the advertisements. The Age article ‘Hairdresser was misled on IR advert’ is the story of one young woman who appeared in the advertisements without realising they were to promote Howard’s new changes.

Another Age article, ‘IR changes are despicable attack’, reports that Bob Hawke has attacked the planned changes, describing them as wrong, unfair, un-Australian and immoral. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) have organised a counter campaign ‘your rights at work’ and as part of this. We’ll be filming the national day of action (November 15, 2005), in Melbourne for a documentary I’m producing about the current Industrial Relations climate.

Not only do the proposed changes threaten the working conditions of employees but the very foundation of unions. Political, cultural and global shifts are changing the nature of work. Occurring simultaneously, is a trend of decreasing membership and participation in unions, particularly amongst young people. Most of my Australian friends who are young, educated, upwardly mobile are not engaged with the debate or members of unions. Perhaps this is because the issues are, to a large extent, outside our realm of experience. We haven’t had the fight that previous generations have had for fair working conditions. Consequently, some young people don’t know what a union is and others simply don’t care.

There has also been a significant shift from community to individual values and a culture where individual wealth and interest has become more important than that of the community. This has been reflected in government policy of privatising essential services such as health, education and telecommunications.

Given the current climate I believe that the survival of unions hinges on their ability to adapt to a work culture that is complex and global. This is critical if they are to become relevant to young Australians. Even the name ‘trade union’ no longer has relevance. Trade unions represent a diverse workforce. We no longer live in a culture where people are either blue collar or white collar and we haven’t for a long time. The days of militant trade unions are long gone.