Throughout the developed world, there has been a trend over recent decades towards union consolidation. In rare cases, as in Australia in the early 90’s, this was a conscious movement-wide strategy, supported by legislation and even government funding. There were nearly 200 federally registered unions in 1988, a figure that fell by two-thirds over the next 5 years. Here and overseas, consolidation was a natural response by leaders to the situation in which they found themselves.

Union leaders tend to reach for the consolidation strategy at times of crisis or transition in their union or national movements. Australian unions are in such a position, individually and collectively. Understandably, considerable attention is again focused on this issue. Consolidations are on the cards again, after roughly a 20 year hiatus.

This paper is designed to provide some context to this process, and sets out a possible decision making framework for unions to use.