Outsourcing Trade Union
Recruitment: A new model for
rejuvenation
SANDRA COCKFIELD AND PETER HOLLAND
(MONASH UNIVERSITY)
Union decline
—  Do you union strategies matter?
¡  Internal and external causes
—  Unmet demand
—  Oesch (2012) – 2 strategies
1.  Retention
2.  Recruitment – preferred strategy because unions have more
control over inflows than outflows
—  Emphasis on organising over recruiting
Work Partners
—  Recruitment service for unions, charities and business
—  Fee = 1 year of membership fees per member recruited
—  Recruiters focus on the benefits of being in a union
—  Face-to-face conservations
¡
‘You have to have an authentic conversation. You know, eyeball to
eyeball, about the benefits that are there. So you have to wear out a
lot of shoe leather, you know, talking to people. That’s the key thing
that you can never do enough of, essentially’ (Stuart McGill)
—  Based on ‘chugging’ – charity mugging
—  Dedicated recruitment strategy – decoupled from
organising
Successes
—  Australian Education Union
¡  Increased TAFE membership by 67% in 2 years
¡  Overall, 7000 new members in schools, TAFEs and early
childhood centres over 2 years
—  Australian Manufacturing Workers Union
¡  Recruited enough members in K-Mark Autos to run an
enterprise bargaining campaign
Outsourcing
—  Contracting out a function, either previously
performed internally or where there is a new need, to
an independent organisation
—  Economic rationale:
Reduce costs – redirect labour costs from high-wage labour
markets to low-wage labour markets
¡  Transferring risks to contractors while enabling the principle
to retain control over the service (ie. transfer the responsibility
of employee relations to a third party)
¡  Focus on core business
¡  Lack of in-house resource
¡  Increased flexibility
¡
Working for Work Partners
Conditions
Scandal
—  Causal employment on
—  Off-shore call centre in
common law contract
—  Base rate + bonus for
each person recruited +
further bonus if members
stays longer than 3
months
—  High churn rate
—  Regular motivation,
training and mentoring
for staff
—
—
—
—
Philippines planned
Failure to pay superannuation
and other entitlements to staff
Slow to negotiate workplace
agreement with NUW
5 months after scandal broke,
Work Partners ceased to
operate, and workers owed
money
Several new companies
registered by McGill or
associates
Outsourcing Concerns
Jeff Lawrence (former ACTU Secretary)
—  As a matter of principle, unions could not have
ongoing commercial relationships with an employer
which does not pay workers their basic entitlements
(The Australian, 2011)
Tony Sheldon (National Secretary, TWU)
—  Union should set a higher standard when it comes to
employment contracts in outsourcing (The
Australian, 2011)
Response
—  Unions reassessed relationship with Work Partners
¡  Reluctance to disassociate
¡  Sought assurances from Work Partners that staff would be
paid appropriate and union contract negotiated
¡  Resigned with new companies
—  ACTU has established ‘in house’ recruitment team to
provide direct recruitment services to individual
unions
Outsourcing Concerns
Paul Howes (National Secretary, AWU)
—  ‘A union isn’t something you sell. It’s not steak knives,
it’s not Union Shopper, it’s not discounted home loans. It
is an industrial organisation made up of working people
collectively organising to get a better outcome
collectively. It’s a whole notion of what it is to be a union,
so my issue with professional salespeople is that you’re
actually diluting what it is to be a union.’ (7.30 Report,
2010)
—  ‘We don’t use them. We are not going to use them as we
don’t think you can outsource core union work’ (The
Australian, 2011)
Response
—  It’s not outsourcing
¡  Work Partners supplemented existing union recruitment
—  Unions already outsource legal advice and call centre
work. What is different about recruitment?
NTEU
—  Represents academic and non-academic staff in
universities as well as administrative staff in TAFE
and adult education
—  Membership in decline – particularly academic
membership
—  Recruitment strategy has been linked to organising
approach
Development of delegate structures
¡  Campaigning around workplace issues and enterprise
bargaining
¡
—  Limited recruitment training
NTEU and Work Partners
—  Work Partner Trial July 2011
¡
¡
¡
Immediate results
Some concerns about the focus of Work Partners recruiters
NTEU not seen as ‘easy’ by Work Partners recruiters
—  Established NTEU Growth Team after Work Partners
collapses
¡
¡
¡
Employed three former Work Partner recruiters
Changed the script – less emphasis on Union Shopper
Recruiters had more contact with the branch
—  Net growth of 1000 members in Victoria since July 2011.
Would have been net decline of 39 members without
Work Partners or Growth team
—  Variability in success across branches
¡
Extent of contact and integration with local branch
Growth Team Recruitment
Oct 2011 – May 2012
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Oct 2011 (3
days)
Nov 2011
Dec 2011
Jan 2012
Feb 2012
Mar 2012
Apr 2012
May 2012 (21
days)
Branch Recruitment, 27 October 2011 - 21 May 2012
1000
900
800
700
600
Growth Team Ons
500
All Other Ons
400
300
200
100
0
A
VIC ALL
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
ALL
Changes in Branch Membership, Nov-­‐May, 2010-­‐11 & 2011-­‐12 350 300 250 200 Ons 2010-­‐11 150 Offs 2010-­‐11 Change for 2010-­‐11 100 All Ons 2011-­‐12 Offs 2011-­‐12 50 Change for 2011-­‐2012 0 -­‐50 -­‐100 -­‐150 A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
Changes in Branch Membership, Nov-­‐May, 2010-­‐11 & 2011-­‐12 (Growth Team Ons excluded) 300 250 200 150 Ons 2010-­‐11 Offs 2010-­‐11 100 Change for 2010-­‐11 Ons 2011-­‐12 w/o Growth team 50 Offs 2011-­‐12 Change for 2011-­‐2012 0 -­‐50 A
-­‐100 -­‐150 B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
Categories recruited by the Growth Team 80,00% 70,00% 60,00% 50,00% Casual Full-­‐Cme 40,00% Part-­‐Cme members who have since leI 30,00% 20,00% 10,00% 0,00% H
A
E
I
C
D
B
F
Member category as % of all "Ons"
70,00%
60,00%
50,00%
40,00%
30,00%
20,00%
10,00%
0,00%
Growth Team
Other "Ons"
Casual
Full-time
Part-time
members who
have since left
Classification Levels as % of all "Ons"
30,00%
25,00%
20,00%
15,00%
10,00%
5,00%
0,00%
Growth Team
Other "Ons"
Age Groups as % of all "Ons"
35,00%
30,00%
25,00%
20,00%
Growth Team
Other "Ons"
15,00%
10,00%
5,00%
0,00%
20-30
30-40
40-50
50-60
60+
Not known
Academic / General by sex as % of "ons", 27 Oct
2011 - 21 May 2012
40,00%
35,00%
30,00%
25,00%
Growth team
20,00%
Other "Ons"
15,00%
10,00%
5,00%
0,00%
Academic - female
Academic - male
General - female
General - Male
Despite success, there are some concerns…
—  In-house model unsustainable financially in the
medium to long-term
—  Concern that the success of the Growth Team will
plateau over time
—  Fit between recruitment and organising and
campaigning
—  Options for future include a return to outsourcing to
provide more flexibility
Branch Recruitment, 27 October 2011 - 21 May 2012
1000
900
800
700
600
Growth Team Ons
500
All Other Ons
400
300
200
100
0
Deakin
Swinburne Monash
RMIT
La Trobe
VU
ACU
Ballarat Melbourne
All Vic
Changes in Branch Membership, Nov-May, 2010-11 &
2011-12
350
300
250
200
Ons 2010-11
150
Offs 2010-11
Change for 2010-11
100
All Ons 2011-12
Offs 2011-12
50
Change for 2011-2012
0
Deakin
-50
-100
-150
Swinburne
Monash
RMIT
La Trobe
VU
ACU
Ballarat
Melbourne
Changes in Branch Membership, Nov-May, 2010-11 & 2011-12
(Growth Team Ons excluded)
300
250
200
150
Ons 2010-11
Offs 2010-11
100
Change for 2010-11
Ons 2011-12 w/o Growth team
50
Offs 2011-12
Change for 2011-2012
0
Deakin
-50
-100
-150
Swinburne
Monash
RMIT
La Trobe
VU
ACU
Ballarat
Melbourne
Categories recruited by the Growth Team
80,00%
70,00%
60,00%
50,00%
Casual
Full-time
40,00%
Part-time
30,00%
members who have since left
20,00%
10,00%
0,00%
Ballarat
Deakin
La Trobe Melbourne
Monash
RMIT
Swin
VU