Australia’s union movement – weakened over the past decade by falling membership and changing economic fundamentals – is attempting to use the recession to turn back the clock in the labour market.

The unemployment rate bottomed at a 30-year low of 4.2 per cent in June 2007 and now sits at 5.4 per cent. According to Reserve Bank of Australia, it will peak at 8.5 per cent in 2010-11.