What does the average Australian think about unions today??

Hi everyone and welcome to my first blogpost! Based on the passionate discussion over the current relevance of unions in this weeks tute, I decided to do some research and trawl through numerous articles!! I thought it would br interesting to see what the general consensus over the feelings towards unions today is to the average working man, woman and everyone else in between. Surprise surprise there are mixed feelings, but for the most part the answer is the same... Unions have changed dramatically over the last 30years, membership is down and many employees are thinking twice about opting for a union membership. To not bore you, I have only chosen 2 major articles to discuss in this blog post. According to a Sydney morning herald article titled 'state of the unions: industrial muscle in 2011' only 18% of 9.8 million Australian workers opted to be trade union members in 2011, further supporting the idea that Australian's are now more than ever, free to exercise their right of whether to join, not to join, or look in search of other alternatives to getting what they want in the workplace. Another article titled the 'unions will be back working for you again' from the daily telegraph also acknowledged that workers are choosing to use their own voice than a unions voice as they would rather fight their own battles than rely on a militant, outdated and controversially governed union body. But now for my opinion, I agree that the relevance of unions has changed as i believe unions have not changed with the times/ society as much as they have needed to to maintain membership numbers and support. However a unions relevance is particular to each individual. If every Australian has the right to choose where they shop, choose where they holiday and work... Why shouldn't they have the right to choose who represents their workplace interests or fight their own battles if they wish? After all, isn't it good to try new things instead of doing what we've always done?

Something to think about.......

Thanks for reading- Lauren :)