Union Organiser
What the work is
Oversees, organises and promotes union recruitment, operations, mass meetings and communications. Provides advice to union officials, delegates and representatives, and represents union members in industrial relations disputes or other proceedings. Acts on behalf of their union members to negotiate working conditions, wages and employment opportunities.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Oversees and promotes union operations
- Recruits new members to the union
- Advocates for reform or regulation of industry
- Provides advice to other union officials
- Develops effective structures, including union members' communications, at worksites
- Runs mass meetings with union members
- Identifies and develops new and existing delegates, and health and safety representatives
- Uses knowledge of legislation, awards, collective agreements, employment contracts and wage payment systems to represent union members in industrial relations disputes and assist in disciplinary proceedings, tribunals and courts
- Represents union members in negotiations or at conferences
- Visits union members at their place of work to check conditions
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a mix of behind-the-scenes roles: a hospital records office, a strata building and a film production office. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- A messy situation ends with everyone knowing who is doing what and by when
- A document, a form or a code is checked and found right the first time
- Someone thanks you for the thing they never had to think about, because you did it
Hard days
- Everyone wants an answer now, and the answer depends on someone else
- Standing between two parties who each think the other is being unreasonable
- A simple mistake in a record that can ripple through everything afterwards
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 599941, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.