The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi (NZCTU) has thrown its support behind the Green Party’s proposal to make union membership the default option for new employees, describing it as a practical reform that would strengthen workers’ rights while preserving individual choice.
The Employment Relations (Automatic Union Membership) Amendment Bill, announced at the E Tū Biennial Conference, would automatically enrol new employees into a union where their workplace is covered by a collective agreement. Workers would still be free to opt out if they chose.
Acting NZCTU President Rachel Mackintosh says many employees currently miss out on joining a union not because they oppose membership, but because of the practical hurdles involved when starting a new job.
The proposal closely aligns with the NZCTU’s A New Deal for Workers policy platform, which calls for stronger collective bargaining and wider workplace reforms aimed at improving wages, productivity and job security.
The union movement says the proposal comes at a critical time, pointing to the OECD’s Employment Outlook 2026, which found New Zealand had experienced the largest decline in real wages among OECD countries since 2021. According to the report, workers’ real earnings have fallen by 6.4 percent over that period.
The NZCTU argues stronger collective bargaining would help reverse that trend while also reducing gender and ethnic pay gaps, improving workplace safety and supporting higher productivity across the economy.
The organisation says countries with higher rates of collective bargaining generally achieve stronger wage growth and better productivity than New Zealand, where union membership has declined significantly since the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991.
Polling cited by the NZCTU suggests there is broad public support for automatic enrolment, with around 65 percent of employees indicating they would remain union members if automatically enrolled.
The union movement is also welcoming the Green Party’s commitment to campaign on the policy at the 2026 General Election and is encouraging other political parties to support the legislation.
Beyond automatic enrolment, the NZCTU continues to advocate for wider employment reforms, including restoring Fair Pay Agreements, improving union access to new employees and addressing the misclassification of workers as independent contractors.
The proposal is expected to become part of the wider debate over wages, workplace rights and employment law as political parties outline their policies ahead of the election.
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