Unions broaden the search for new members

Hilde Syversen on the TUC's plans for the millennium

Thanks to the new Employment Relations Act coming into force, trade union members are finally being given protection against discrimination. As a result, union membership is rising for the first time in 20 years. But new legislation won't sort out the largest obstacle to union membership in the new millennium - the restructuring of British industry.

The massive changes in the labour market during the last 20 years should have provided rich pickings for the unions. When times are uncertain, the most natural thing in the world for the labour force would be to organise and join forces, stronger together than apart, and all that. But no. Where Mrs Thatcher stopped, inevitable changes in both the make-up of British industry and in the way work is organised took over.

"Traditionally, the heartland of the unions was the manufacturing industries," explains Peter Fairbrother at the University of Cardiff, who has studied trade unionism in the West Midlands for 20 years and whose book Trade Unions at the Crossroads is published in December. With the decline in manufacturing industries, however, and an increasing feminisation of the work force, trade unions have been forced to look elsewhere for new members. Not surprisingly, women make up 96 per cent of the 22,000 upturn in TUC membership recorded last year. With new unions joining the TUC umbrella, total membership last year was up by 110,000, taking the number of members to around 6.7 million. Counting in non-TUC affiliated unions, the figure is 7.1 million. But that is still a far cry from the 12.2 million members of the peak year 1980.

"For the first time, a woman full-time worker is more likely to be a union member than a male full-time worker. And we still represent one third of the workers," says Frances O'Grady, head of the organisations department at TUC, whose department is in charge of looking at how the unions can attract new members. Trade union membership is highest among full-time workers in permanent jobs, where 34 per cent are union members, compared with only 18 per cent for workers in part time-temporary jobs. Indeed, the increasing proportion of employees in part-time and/or short- term employment is another reason that union membership-levels are not as high as they could be.

Mr Fairbrother claims that targeting this group is particularly difficult for unions. "To recruit and organise part-time casual employees working in relatively small units is really costly for the unions," he explains.

Ms O'Grady argues that the unit size is less of a problem than the high turnover of some industries, particularly where the younger workers can be found. "All our research shows that young people are very pro-union, but the key problem is that they are going into industries such as hotels, bars and restaurants. Staff turnover in fast food restaurants can be as high as 400 per cent per year," she says.

The TUC is trying to reach these workers through co-operating with the National Union of Students, to which a lot of them belong, and by offering free advice through their Know Your Rights phone line. The TUC has also started the TUC Organisation Academy, which is a 12-month trainee programme for young people. "They are employed jointly by the TUC and a sponsoring union. Their job is to reach non-union ghettos, where people may be putting up with unfair treatment or poor conditions," says Ms O'Grady.

Another problem the unions face is the decentralisation of the decision- making process. It is easier for an organisation to deal with a few decision makers in a head office than individual site managers. And that is exactly what a lot of them now have to do, as more of the decisions are made locally. According to Mr Fairbrother, this is especially true for civil services.

"Unions can no longer negotiate at department level. At a local level, managers are responsible for terms and negotiations in a way that they weren't before. If you look at schools, the decisions are made at the individual school, not by local education authorities or the Department for Education and Employment," says Mr Fairbrother, adding that the picture is further complicated by competition and public tendering.

"It ups the stakes for us, because people can't just rely on the unions to sort problems out nationally. It means that we need more and more local representatives," says Ms O'Grady. "We provide a national training programme, and try to help people help themselves."