NZCTU welcomes Bill to make union membership the default for new workers

The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi (NZCTU) is welcoming the Green Party’s Employment Relations (Automatic Union Membership) Amendment Bill, announced this morning at E Tū’s 2026 Biennial Conference. The Bill would make union membership the default setting for new employees in workplaces covered by a collective agreement.

“This Bill is a practical, common-sense step that would make it easier for working people to access the benefits of union membership and collective bargaining,” says Rachel Mackintosh, Acting President of the NZCTU.

“Too many workers currently miss out on union membership not because they don’t want it, but because of practical barriers when they start a new job. Automatic enrolment, with the right to opt out at any time, removes those barriers while fully protecting individual choice.”

The Bill closely reflects the NZCTU’s own A New Deal for Workers policy, released as part of Reimagining Aotearoa Together. This also follows the recent release of the OECD’s Employment Outlook 2026 which called for more collective bargaining in New Zealand to help combat real wages falling faster here than anywhere else in the OECD. In real-terms, New Zealand’s working people are earning 6.4 percent less than they were in 2021.

“Collective bargaining lifts wages, narrows gender and ethnic pay gaps, makes workplaces safer, and supports productivity. Countries with higher collective bargaining coverage than New Zealand consistently achieve higher labour productivity and higher wages – our low coverage is holding our economy back.”

Mackintosh says that there is strong public support for this change, with polling showing that 65 percent of employees would remain union members if automatically enrolled.

“Union membership was the norm in New Zealand before the Employment Contracts Act 1991 stripped away workers’ rights. Thirty-five years on, working people are still living with the consequences – suppressed wages, rising inequality, and industries locked into low-wage.”

The NZCTU also welcomes the Green Party’s commitment to take automatic union membership to the 2026 election.

“We strongly support the Green Party taking this policy into any post-election coalition talks,” says Mackintosh.

“Rebuilding an employment relations framework that genuinely supports collective bargaining is essential to a fairer and more productive Aotearoa. We encourage all political parties to get behind this Bill and to commit to the wider reforms we’ve set out in A New Deal for Workers: restoring Fair Pay Agreements, improving access to unions when starting work, and ending the misclassification of employees as contractors,” says Mackintosh.