Case Study: Readings Cinemas
The following case study seeks to illustrate a practical example of the likely impacts of reduced union access rights, and to allow the analytical framework to be viewed in an applied rather than theoretical setting
Background:
The Cinema industry, as with much of the service sector, was deunionised after the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act 1991.
As such, many of the workers in the industry, who are predominantly young, have no experience of unions.
Readings Cinemas in Courtney Place in Wellington, were opened in 2002, and employed no union members. All workers were paid the minimum wage of $8.50 for over 18 year olds, or $6.80 for under 18 year olds.
Union Involvement:
The Unite Union first entered the site in December 2003, recruiting 59 members on the first weekend. Within a year, 95% of staff belonged to the union. Most workers joined the first time they were asked.
This result is explained by the “representation gap”, the number of workers in a non-unionised workplace, who would join a union if one were available. Haynes records this gap as 50.3% of workers aged under 30. The results at Readings Cinemas suggest that even more workers will actually join once they recognize the benefits of joining.
This result strongly suggests that union access gives workers information which they find useful, as the level of union membership went from 0 to 95% within a year of information on unions being provided by union officials. Once information on unions was available, practically all workers joined. This strongly suggests that the previous lack of information about unions was a crucial factor in workers not having previously joined.
Union Action and Bargaining:
By October 2004, the union had undertaken a series of escalating actions at the site, and had successfully negotiated a Collective Employment Agreement (CEA). The CEA provided for pay rates for under 18 year olds to move to adult rates after 260 hours of work, and for adult rates to move from $8.50 to between $9.20 and $9.90.
This demonstrates the impact of class inequality of power on bargaining outcomes.
Prior to the entry of the union, Readings Cinemas paid all staff members the minimum wage, and refused to increase this under any circumstances, even in cases where individual staff members had the support of New Zealand management in seeking increased wages from Readings Cinemas Australian owners.
This demonstrates that staff had practically no power to individually negotiate with the employer, while the employer had the power to set wages, limited only by statutory minimum wage levels. This can effectively seen as an example of inequality between two classes, workers and employers, which can be partially remedied by allowing workers to join a union to more effectively negotiate pay and conditions.
Once union officials entered the site, substantially improved pay rates were negotiated within a year, after a programme of industrial action.
Summary:
Union access rights were crucial in this example. Even though workers were obviously keen to join, there was no union in the site until union officials from outside the site physically visited the site, and recruited members. Even though recruitment was often easy, only requiring one conversation, it still required a visit by a union official.
If the changes had been in place in 2003/2004, it is possible that the union would never have been able to access the site, as it may have been denied access by the employer.
Without any existing members at the site, it may have been difficult for the union to justify devoting resources to any legal challenge relating to the site. Also, if union officials had to seek consent before each visit, the employer may have been able to either delay, restrict or hinder access, or have managers persuade workers not to join.
Indeed, it is Grace Millar’s view that the union’s entry to the Readings Cinemas site would have proven impossible, as the employer would likely have denied or restricted access to the site.
This underlines the importance of union access rights to sites which have no previous union presence.