Make $2 million more over 5 years for every 1000 new members
Every 1000 new members you sign up can make you an extra $2 million over 5 years, after the costs of recruitment.
That’s a lot of extra money available for campaigns, to provide services for your members and to build the strength of your union.
To strengthen your union’s financial base call Stuart McGill now on 0412 141 753.
Earlier this year I received an email from an ex-WorkPartners employee describing their experiences in 2008 working for the company, which specialises in recruiting workers to trade unions.
Or did.
Stumbling around the NUW site recently, I came across a media release [DOC] noting that regarding WorkPartners it “will be pursuing all avenues to secure workers’ entitlements, and where possible pursue further employment options. Workers with WorkPartners across several states were stood down. The company has now been put into liquidation.”
I didn’t notice it at the time, but WorkPartners apparently went bankrupt late last month:
Union recruiting company put into liquidation
Ewin Hannan
The Australian
October 27, 2011
A PRIVATE company paid by unions to recruit members has been placed in liquidation owing up to $4 million, including at least $750,000 to 700 current and former employees.
Unions National Pty Ltd, trading as Work Partners, was wound up on Tuesday night after acknowledging it was “or may be” insolvent and could not pay its debts when they fell due…
Union recruitment firm collapses into liquidation
Patrick Stafford
SmartCompany
October 27, 2011
A firm designed to recruit members for unions has been placed in liquidation with more than $4 million in debt, the second collapse of its kind within just one week, suggesting some sectors of the recruitment market are struggling to keep up.
The liquidation of Unions National, which traded as Work Partners, comes after family-owned business Extrastaff Recruitment was placed into administration last week…
In any case, given the collapse, I thought now would be a good time to publish the story I was sent earlier in the year, along with a little more infos I gathered at the time regarding the company.
WorkPartners is/was the brainchild of Stuart McGill (a former staffer for Senator Doug Cameron). In an online presentation, McGill presents a convincing case for adopting a rational, which is to say business-oriented approach to selling a product–union membership–to a market–industrial workers. McGill argues that the key to increasing consumption (and hence income) is informing the consumer of the wide range of financial benefits available to union members. He further notes that:
Interestingly when I talk to people who are twenty-something, a lot of them have never heard, really, seriously, never heard of unions, let alone have any sense of what they do… then among some of my progressive and Left friends, particularly some of my Green friends, they say it’s a has-been story thank you very much, what can they do for me? In fact, some of the things that I would like to see in the world–they say to me–unions oppose. This is why I think unions are still critically important: pay, protection and influence. They are the best way to get each of those…
On December 13, 2009, McGill joined Brian Henderson, the Secretary of the Victorian Australian Education Union (AEU), in a forum to discuss Union Recruitment or ‘The trials and tribulations of growing union membership in the 21st Century’:
In the last two years, the Australian Education Union in Victoria, as well [as] other unions in several states, have used a new methodology pioneered by Dr [?] Stuart McGill. It has seen a dramatic growth in membership.
The Secretary of the AEU, together with Stuart McGill, will discuss the new approach and its successes, as well as the controversies that surround it.
Can this new method play a major part in making unions even larger social movements than in recent years? What works for 20 somethings? What happens to unions when the baby boom retires? Can workplaces get greener via workplace bargaining? How do we build productivity, make work more interesting, and get better paid?
These and more issues and questions will be discussed. Come and hear the burning debates in modern unionism.
McGill also features in a Sydney Morning Herald article regarding allegations of branch-stacking in Labor branches in the Blue Mountains: Mountain blue over branch stacking, Lisa Carty, March 2, 2008.
Issues concerning and potential problems with union-recruitment-as-profitable-business have been canvassed in a number of articles in recent years. See : Watchdog targets union scouts, Ewin Hannan, The Australian, March 21, 2010 | Australian unions contract out recruitment of members, Terry Cook, wsws.org, March 13, 2010 | Union bounty hunters, Tim Palmer, The 7.30 Report (ABC), March 11, 2010 | Unions employ ultimate in outsourcing, Ewin Hannan, The Australian, March 10, 2010.
While WorkPartners is probably most widely known for its work on behalf of unions, its recruitment model was spawned in relation to fund-raising for business charities, where it was known as ‘Good Cause’, with clients including the NSW Cancer Council, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Medecins Sans Frontieres and Save the Children (Look who’s taking a huge slice of your charity, Michael Pelly, The Sydney Morning Herald, December 23, 2004). The article notes that “The not-for-profit sector is huge. The Fundraising Institute of Australia said it was worth between $3 billion and $5 billion each year, comprised 4.7 per cent of GDP and employed 6.8 per cent of all workers”. See also : Fundraisers flood city – Spruikers paid to solicit for charities, Mandi Zonneveldt, Pathways Australia, April 2004.
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