Employers that learn how to manage their union relationships are far more likely to achieve industrial harmony, says industrial relations consultant Michael Cosgrove. 

HR and employee relations managers need to re-learn this skill, he says, because in many workplaces they are "out of practice". 

"The Work Choices legislation did all the work for employers," he explains. "Now the Fair Work legislation has swung the pendulum back the other way, I think the balance is well and truly off kilter. It has handed power back to the unions - in terms of right of entry, bargaining power, their capacity to recruit and to take industrial action - and employers aren't ready for that." 

Managing the relationship with unions is a far better strategy than "aggressively taking them on... because employers don't have the same power a union has in terms of being able to mobilise their employees against them", says Cosgrove, a former union official and now the director of Industrial Relations Training Academy. 

"It's not about conflict. Unions thrive on conflict, so if employers can better learn to manage the relationship and have an open, communicative, consultative process in place, I think they could mitigate the impact of unions in the workplace quite successfully. 

"Employers don't need to be afraid of the unions, but unfortunately that's the way the Act has gone," he says, while adding that "not all unions are aggressors". 

"The way that the unions have been able to apply the Act tactically in the workplace has caught employers off guard and they've chucked their hands up and gone, 'What do we do?'" 

Develop mutual understanding

Employers should keep in mind that, "The union is not the union officials", Cosgrove says. "The union is their members in the workplace, and those members are their employees." 

Therefore, he says, the first step towards a more harmonious relationship is to "understand their employees a bit better, in terms of how they connect with the union. What gives the employees the need to go to the union?" 

"It's like an organisational assessment of the employees and the business as a whole." 

HR professionals should also sit down with union officials and "develop a clear understanding of where each [party stands]", he adds. 

That means where the business is, and where it intends to go, but also where the union is coming from and its intentions. 

"You're not going to manage the relationship straight away, but there needs to be a clear understanding of both parties," he says. 

The next step is to establish a protocol for union communication. 

"Employers have a right to restrict and monitor communications and so forth in the workplace... It's their business and they can do that. So set down a union communication protocol, where employees, managers, supervisors, team leaders and so on have a clear understanding of what employees are and aren't allowed to do in the workplace. 

"Obviously with the general protections provisions in the Fair Work Act they're restricted, but there's no reason why they can't do this. 

"They don't have to take on face value what the union official tells them that they can and can't do in the workplace," he says. 

Learn from unions

Employers should be asking unions what their view of the business is, Cosgrove says. 

"Where do they see the business heading? How do they think it should be run? Obviously they're going to have an opinion about that - sometimes the unions can think of things that the employers don't. 

"Unions have a different perspective; they probably talk more and inherently communicate better with employees than some employers do. They know the employees better than the employers, which is what the employers need to break first." 

Communicate better

The best thing employers can do to avoid union conflict is to foster a better direct relationship with their employees, Cosgrove says. "It's about building that communication; building that connection with the employees directly so they don't have a reason to go to the union; so the union doesn't have a reason to be there. 

"Pretty much the only power that a union has in the workplace is its ability to mobilise the workforce against you. 

"You take that away from them, they've got no more and no less than the employer's got in terms of legislation. It's exactly the same." 

To even up the equation employers need to "get on the same wavelength as their employees", Cosgrove says. 

"It's about building a better relationship with employees than what the union has got - effective communication strategies, effective consultation, consultative groups, social clubs - it's about building rapport with employees better than... the union can. 

"Once you've established that, and it's made perfectly clear to the union official that they don't have the power that they think they had in the workplace, eventually human nature takes over and they realise 'I'm not the kingpin in this organisation any more. I am but an employee representative of the members that pay my wages. I don't control this business. I don't control the employees, I don't control the employer. I'm just another representative'."