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Trade union membership in the manufacturing industry has been falling steadily for some years. Despite a small increase in the number of trade union members, the proportion of employees with trade union membership has decreased from a little over 50% in the mid 1980s to a little over 30% in 2000. This represents a fall in union membership of around 200,000 manufacturing employees over that period.

From 1999 to 2000 the numbers of manufacturing employees with union membership rose slightly (by 1.5%). Nevertheless, the proportion of manufacturing employees with union membership fell from 32.8% to 31.1% (table 19.13). The manufacturing industry continues to have a higher rate of union membership than the average for all industries. In percentage terms, union membership in all industries has followed a downward trend similar to that in manufacturing.

Table 19.14 shows that, while 37% of permanent manufacturing employees belonged to a trade union in 2000, only 10% of casual manufacturing employees were union members. Membership rates for permanent female employees (28%) and casual female employees (7%) each remained significantly lower than for corresponding male employees.

	Manufacturing			All industries
Period	Trade union members ’000	Proportion of total employment %		Trade union members ’000	Proportion of total employment %
1990(a)	520.9	46.1		2,659.6	40.5
1992	455.3	44.4		2,508.8	39.6
1994	421.6	40.8		2,283.4	35.0
1996	410.1	38.7		2,194.3	31.1
1997	378.2	36.6		2,110.3	30.3
1998	354.4	34.5		2,037.5	28.1
1999	325.8	32.8		1,878.2	25.7
2000	330.8	31.1		1,901.8	24.7
(a) Excludes persons aged 70 years and over. Source: Trade Union Members, Australia (6325.0); Employee Earnings, Benefits and Trade Union Membership, Australia (6310.0).