Structural change in Australian trade unionism, 1969-1996: a structural events approach

Traditional studies of long-term change in trade union structure have, in constructing explanations of change, predominantly focused on aggregate trends in union merger activity. This paper argues that our understanding of structural change in the Australian trade union movement would be better served by a structural events approach that examines the incidence of union formations, dissolutions and breakaways, in addition to that of union mergers. In doing so, it outlines how these structural events can be identified and measured, and presents the preliminary findings from the method's application.