Running to Stand Still: New Zealand Service Sector Trade Union Responses to the Employment Contracts Act 1991

Abstract

This thesis examines the responses of three New Zealand trade unions to the Employment Contracts Act 1991 (ECA). It focuses on the low-wage service sector and on union strategies developed between 1990 to 1995. Data was derived from personal interviews, union documents, and observation of union meetings. The study explored union and union officials' behaviour in a time of crisis. Analysis centred on the extent to which unions adopted three key strategies for survival: union mergers, reform of organising and recruitment methods, and enhanced planning practices. The researcher sought to delineate the factors that cause unions operating in a similar labour market environment to choose different and cognate strategies. The research findings were consistent with those of Undy et al (1981) and Lange et al (1982), who argued that union volition determined the form of union responses to external change. While union strategic responses were shaped by external forces, each organisation was also able to control their own destiny. The form of strategic responses and directions chosen, and the extent to which new and different strategies were formed, were each shaped by internally-derived factors such as the influence of past and present leadership ideologies, union cultures and structures, and, to a lesser extent, union stakeholder coalitions. Other related determinants included strategic traditions, leadership change, and the absence or presence of organizational "constructive tension" or internal self-criticism. The values of leaders at each level of the union were found to be the main influence over whether unions reformed planning and organising practices in response to legislative change. The study found that unions were more likely to choose mergers as a strategy for survival than they were to choose reform of organising practices. When it did occur, organising reform was driven by a perception of crisis and an organisational climate of innovation, and was strongly tied to union cultures and traditions. With several exceptions, the unions studied did not respond to increased environmental uncertainty stemming from the ECA by upgrading strategy development and planning processes. Only one of the three unions in this study developed markedly different and new organisational strategies in response to the ECA, and in this union, traditional cultures blocked change. In general, officials preferred the status quo over organizational change. Consistent with the "incremental" school of strategy writers, unions were more inclined to make incremental changes to past strategies than develop new or fundamentally different strategies in response to external shocks.