New directions set at federal council

MEAA president Simon Collins addresses federal council in Sydney.

MEAA’S federal council has endorsed a new three-year strategic plan for the union with a focus on membership growth and industry campaigning.

The strategic plan, which will be a guidance document for the union until 2019, was approved at the biennial federal council meeting in Sydney on Saturday.

The federal council is MEAA’s ultimate decision-making body and is made up of 92 delegates drawn from and elected by the union’s rank-and-file membership. Representatives come from each section and region.

This year was the first federal council meeting to take place under a new governance structure adopted in 2014, which replaced the position of federal secretary with an appointed chief executive officer overseen by an elected board of management.

Opening the meeting on Friday, federal president Simon Collins said MEAA would need to make bold decisions in the next few years to remain relevant to its members in a challenging environment.

“MEAA is not unique in that we are being confronted with an unprecedented set of threats: structural and technological change to the industries we operate in, the impact of digital disruption, the breakdown of traditional and permanent models of employment and rise of casual and contract work, politically-driven attacks on unionism, and the tendency of fewer people to be ‘joiners’ than a generation ago,” he said.

“Standing still is not an option. Doing things the way we always have is not an option. We have to be ahead of the curve.”

Mr Collins said MEAA was already responding to these challenges and was blessed with a passionate and committed membership.

“If we can tap into that and direct it into activism for the union, then we will be well-placed for whatever is to come,” he said.

The new strategic plan sets annual membership growth targets for each section of the union, and prioritises identifying new areas of membership coverage.

More major industry campaigns like Save Our Stories will be run, and MEAA will seek to mobilise the majority of our membership to actively take part in these campaigns.

The federal council also approved numerous rule changes, including the creation of a new “associate membership” category to allow people who support our campaigns to become more involved without the benefits of full membership.

The two-day federal council meeting on Friday and Saturday came after each national section committee held its own meeting on Thursday.

On Friday, the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Ged Kearney, gave a wide-ranging speech which included an honest appraisal of the state of the broader union movement, including falling membership in recent years.

She said society would suffer if unions did not have sufficient membership strength to defend workplace rights and fairness in the community.

Unions needed to be innovative and prepared to try new things to recruit members, Ms Kearney said.

She complimented MEAA’s leadership for having already grasped these challenges and begun taking steps to address them.

The federal council also awarded a life membership to former federal president Patricia Amphlett, who stepped down last year after more than a decade in the position (see separate story).