It is time for a reformation in the entire union movement

Like many insurance policies, the comfort that one's membership has afforded over the many years one diligently pays one's annual dues can be shattered when a call is made on the service. A union has limited resources. If a case cannot be wrapped up quickly, then the union representative moves on to another case. As involving one's union automatically labels the employee as hostile to management, once the union rep moves to another case, the employee is a sitting duck for a vindictive management's terror campaign. Skilled workers are vulnerable to grubby tactics because the complexity of their jobs offers management opportunities to invent problems that no union can protect its member from. A devilish plot incrementally unwound so the target cooks slowly will drive the unwanted body to resignation.

If we could get around this distortion with some form of local arrangement, then the union's value can be mainly restricted to global issues - such as nursing levels in hospitals. Why not a dozen or so elected staff members drawn from all over the institution (e.g. a hospital) adjudicate on an individual's grievance? Currently the local union representative in a hospital of 500 staff could be the gardener's apprentice. The local 'people's court' is not pie-in-the-sky. It is the only way to go. The union can then back-up the adjudicators with legal advice.

In the special case of public hospitals (which is were my working experience lies) there would be no need for a union to get involved in global issues if the area executives collectively stood up against the state government's funding policy. There is something unintelligent about disagreements which involve lawyers and courts and cases dragging on over two or three years when neither side is intentionally attempting to cheat the other.

Mostly parliamentarians, public employers and their employees perform their jobs in good faith. When there is a grievance it would be due to a failure to appreciate the other side's perspective - and which should therefore, be resolved with an emotion-free discussion. The dispute is evidence of an immature situation. The strike is evidence of an absurdly immature situation.

We can thank the early union movement for the working conditions we now have. However, there are many institutions whose modus operandi we accept without questioning their real on-the-ground value in the 21st century - simply because they have always been there and doing that.