On NRT: Eating Labour's lunch - https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2026/07/eating-labours-lunch.html
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Boosts
"Union membership dropped to about 20% after National's Employment Contracts Act, and has never really recovered."
"The core of the Clark government's industrial relations policy was 'give unions the tools, and let them fight and win gains for themselves'. That worked quite well."
@norightturnnz, 2026
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2026/07/eating-labours-lunch.html
Pick one. The Clark regime did sod all to support unions. They didn't even repeal the Nats anti-strike laws, and unions gained very little ground during or since.
(1/?)
Resides, the unions that survived the ECA were mostly professional associations like the PSA, and those covering doctors, nurses, teachers etc. They're essentially specialist employment law firms, and by their own admission, completely unable to do working class organising in a mostly casualized workforce.
Unite was a notable exception under Matt McCarten and Mike Treen, but since then it seems to have been taken over by CTU types and mostly defanged.
(2/?)
Rebuilding fighting unions can't depend on CTU affiliates. It requires a new, from-scratch approach, more like the one that built those legacy unions in the first place. One that meets workers where we are, and is designed around supplying the things we need (as well as employment lawyers).
I'm envisioning something complementary to the CTU and its affiliates, *not* setting up in competition/ opposition. But Unite's early days offer a more effective model than anything I see them doing.
(3/3)
"New employees would automatically be enrolled in a 'default union', but would be able to opt out."
@norightturnnz, 2026
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2026/07/eating-labours-lunch.html
This is how student union membership used to work.
The right hated it, because it gave students independent and well-resourced bodies to lobby in their collective interests. They smeared it as "compulsory unionism", and sadly, its defenders let that phrase frame the debate, instead of insisting on calling it *universal*.
