Bosses lacking the right tonic

Very rarely do I despair, but my recent experience addressing a conference of industrial relations specialists made me take to the gin (a depressive in itself, I understand).

It was billed as New Zealand's premier industrial relations conference, but its programme was foreign to the vision of work that unions are promoting and, to be fair, to the type of discussions we have with organisations such as Business NZ.

The contrast between the programme and the future of good industrial relations practice is of great concern to those interested in building a high-wage, high- skill, productive economy. It is probably standard fare for this type of conference – but it is time to change.

The two days of the conference included such enlightened topics as:

* Containing union access.

* How to fire an employee.

* Managing "claims" of stress (but not managing stress itself).

* A case study of Air New Zealand industrial relations – employer version only, dealing with difficult employees.

* Using employment agreements to manage risk.

* Managing strikes.

Only two weeks earlier unions met in Rotorua to discuss the future of work. We considered how to maintain our contribution to modern workplaces that are productive, high-skilled, high-wage, decent and fair places to work.

We want to continue to work with business and government to develop this concept – hopefully reaching agreement on what that workplace will look like, what more is required to achieve it and what the roles of the three parties might be.

We want this discussion to be both informed by, and filter down to, the industry and workplace level where workers and employers discuss what is needed from each other to build a productive workplace.

The Council of Trade Unions' vision for the workplace of the future is a modern workplace unionised by trained and competent unionists. It will be productive, have excellent pay and conditions, be a centre of life-long learning, be fair, respectful and high-trust, have strong networks in the industry and be healthy and sustainable. This vision may "scare the horses" but a closer look shows it has mutual obligations and big challenges for unions as well as employers.

The CTU and its affiliate unions already participate in a large number of tripartite and bipartite initiatives, in which unions act as the voice for all workers and are often addressing the full range of economic and social issues.

However, each initiative tends to operate in isolation and is not tied into a common, agreed vision of a workplace (or economy or society) of the future. Often, the initiatives do not explicitly commit to building union participation and voice. Though initiatives rely on union members' involvement and union growth, employer neutrality and recognition of unions are often not promoted in their operation. It is ironic to sit with employers who congratulate the CTU for its commitment and ideas in this area and yet do their best in their workplaces to "contain union access".

Equally, unions have our own challenges in our readiness to participate fully in the workplace of the future. Many of our key industries and workplaces are organised by strong unions. The performance of these unions (and the employees in them) will be instrumental in whether or not the workplace is as successful as it could be; research shows good unions add value, poor unions do the opposite – and it's the same rule with employers. The trick is in building a relationship that ensures good practice, and recognising that workers have a vital interest in the success of their workplace and the economy generally.

The development of an agreed vision for the workplace of the future would be a form of social partnership, whereby the best efforts of all are committed to achieve the best outcomes for all. If agreement could be reached on what that workplace would look like then strategies developed by the other bodies could be tested against the demands of that modern workplace. Collective bargaining would also take place in this context.

Unions will need to have a commitment both to support the modernisation of the workplace, including the workforce, and to the collective interests of the workers that they represent. Unions will have officials with the capacity to work with members at this level, work with new members, engage at all levels in a constructive way and contribute to the achievement of the agenda. Though many unions are already well down this track, building the capacity of unions for the workplace of the future will be an important commitment in any agreement.

So we are not sitting still – we know that our economy needs transforming and for that to happen workers' knowledge and skills need to be harnessed, their commitment gained and investment in workforce training increased. The challenge I put to those at the industrial relations conference was whether they were ready to change.

* Helen Kelly is president of the Council of Trade Unions

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