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The Future for Unions
Monday 4 June 2007, 17.00 - 18.30
Congress House, WC1B

Unions 21 launched the second of its 'Debate' series of discussion papers with an event that encapsulated the spirit of the new initiative. There was standing room only at a packed meeting at Congress House, when Tom Wilson, the TUC's Head of Organisation and Services, introduced his paper - 'The Future for Unions'.

Wilson gave an optimistic evaluation of the state of the trade union movement. He has analysed what parts of the workforce now make up trade union membership and found that they are increasingly professionals or associate professionals and likely to be better educated than the rest of the workforce. Arguing that this is not just due to greater union membership in the public sector, he said that smaller unions and those with strong occupational identity seem to fare better than others. Numbers are on the up - the paper contains what the author claims to be a unique data set showing the most accurately available figures for every union registered with the certification office. The data shows if each union is growing or shrinking and even takes into account union mergers. Wilson felt that unions can look forward to a better future.

Responding to Wilson's opening remarks, Ed Heery, Professor of Human Resource Management at Cardiff Business School, thought that there is a further positive for unions - the redistribution of membership towards the driving force of the economy in the South East. However, he felt that the state of the union movement could not be measured on numbers alone. Other factors that should be taken into account include union recognition, bargaining power and workplace organisational strength. Heery also argued that the paper does not give sufficient weight to the advantages of larger unions. Big unions have the ability and funds to cross-subsidise activity such as organising.

Analysing some of the other areas of the paper, Ed Heery agreed that unions have more professional and managerial members. There could be a number of reasons for this - new pressures on this section of the workforce, the fact that there are more people that fall into that bracket, or the erosion of managerial autonomy due to different workplace organisation.

The paper argues that leadership is a key factor in union growth. Heery emphasised that leaders need to demonstrate visibly the effectiveness of trade unions to their members. The style of leadership is important but it's not necessarily just militancy that can bring results.

Finally, he noted the importance of good management in delivering effective unions. Managerialism doesn't necessarily squash worker voice and "managed activism" is a key driver of trade union success.

Lesley Mercer, Director of Employment Relations at the Chartered Society for Physiotherapy (CSP), said that the paper chimed with a lot of what is happening at the CSP. It's 80 per cent female, overwhelmingly a membership of graduates, with 90 percent density in their sector. As a smaller union, that is also a professional body, the CSP needs to be acutely aware of what it can provide. With the relatively high-cost of membership, it also needs to give its members exactly what they want.

The CSP carries out regular polling to find out what its membership expects. The society recognises the importance of acting on the findings. Continuing professional development is the priority of its members - so the union is launching an online portfolio of courses. Mercer noted that this is traditionally the role for employers but the membership sees their Society as delivering this. Similarly, the members want the union to promote physiotherapy as a profession.

This service provision is not at the expense of organising. Recently, the CSP has increased its organising capacity and invested more in training its workplace representatives. None of this could be achieved without good management and a business-like approach.

Another union perspective was provided by Steph Marston, Head of Organising at the communication professionals union Connect. She felt that the hostility of employers should not be underestimated and that this remained the biggest challenge for unions. In Connect's sectors, many of the companies have never had any experience of unions. Union growth, in her experience, is against the will of the employers and a strategy is needed to overcome this.

Steph Marston argued that unions are often perceived negatively as being just about work. Rather than the poor public image that unions have gained because of this, this should be seen as unions' unique selling point. Unions should be seen positively as providing a voice at work. This can only be done by having effective participation in the union and getting people active.

A model of engagement is required so that unions "can articulate an alternative vision of the world of work." Unions need to show how they can bring about change in the workplace; they need to provide leadership on how work should be organised around people's lives. In this way a consumerist relationship between unions and their members can be avoided. Unions can't just be about getting people "more" they have to be about changing work for the better and making it different.

The final union response came from by Matt Waddup, Head of Campaigns, Organising, Recruitment and Training at the newly merged University and College Union (UCU). He said that unions had to be realistic about the situation that they are in - they have failed to keep up with the new job creation of the past ten years. This was a missed opportunity because the environment for growth won't get any better. Too many unions are making too many excuses and not adjusting their approach. Unions need to turn there attention to the 'never-evers' - the increasing number of people who have never joined or even been asked to join a union. Dismissing people as "the wrong kind of members" is unacceptable if unions are to grow.

Matt Waddup felt that unions were too good at 'displacement therapy' and they had lost their primary focus - organising and bargaining. Consequently, this was partly why the union wage premium had fallen. Job security is a relatively new issue that fits in with unions' core agenda. In recent years members have been confused by the false choice of "we'll service you" or "we'll organise you". Unions need to listen to what potential members want and provide appropriate structures to enable this. A challenge is finding a way to involve members more widely without alienating the activists. Above all, unions must ensure they give members what they want rather than what unions are currently prepared to give them.

As the debate continued with contributions from the floor, the issue of union density was raised. Lionel Fulton from the Labour Research Department and David Coats of the Work Foundation both argued that the key statistic was union density and that this was on the wane - most seriously in the private sector. Unions had failed to keep up with the growth of the workforce in the past ten years. But Tom Wilson felt that union performance had to be seen within this context - the situation could have been far worse. Unions have to be positive about the areas where they have grown but not complacent about their achievements.

Unison's Alan Kerr joins the debate

Download the PDF of the final paper Printed with the kind support of Russell Jones & Walker

The final printed version will be available at TUC Congress 2007. Please check with the author Tom Wilson on 020 7467 1290 before quoting or reproducing any content.

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