"Organising Works" Is It Meeting the Challenge of Declining Trade Union Membership?

Since the mid-1980s the Australian trade union movement has started to confront the issue of declining union membership. This issue, as much as any other, has the potential to threaten the labour movement's long-term future and influence in both the economic and political arenas. To this end, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has developed a recruitment division to support and develop the refocusing of the movement from a servicing-based to a recruitment-based culture. In this paper the development of a recruitment focus within the trade union movement is documented. An evaluation of how effective this process has been in achieving its objectives is also conducted.