http://www.tuc.org.uk/organisation/tuc-18167-f0.cfm?
Trade union density in the UK is following the global trend. That trend is decidedly down and getting lower as we hit the dark edges of the global recession and the government cuts in the public sector. In all the major economies trade union power is diminishing – all across Europe, the US and Australia. Within this trend is another pattern – of much higher density in the public sector than in the private sector. Faced with this problem there is a danger that we can draw the wrong conclusions.
Union density in the public sector in the UK is going down. Dropping now to 56.6 % in the public sector (down to 15.1% in the private sector) and following a trend of recent years we are faced with an enormous challenge. However we have to take into account a number of things. Since 1997 the public sector has been in an environment that should have been conducive to growth. The Financial Times estimated in 2004 that New Labour had created an additional 600,000 jobs in the public sector, all of which fell firmly in the lap of public sector trade unions. As the figures on recruitment and growth demonstrate, this had no impact on our density. With more jobs to unionise – we crawled along with low single figure growth. With more workers to organise, the unions were unable to increase density and trade union power.
Now we are facing an even more hostile environment. With a government proclaiming its intention to cut 600,000 jobs, reduce pensions, amend trade union laws again, reduce redundancy notice periods and with judges even more friendly to employer injunction applications – then the relatively ‘easy’ days are over. Another significant element of the government approach will be a ‘fire sale’ of public service contracts.
Already giant contractors have been condemned by the General Secretary for publicly declaring their delight at further work being made available to take up. This will be done in conjunction with a further reduction of people’s rights at works as the ‘Warwick Agreements’ will be scrapped in favour of the two tier workforce and reduced rights all round. Will Agenda for Change survive in the private contractors? The truth is out there, more contracts will go out to the private sector than ever before. This will undermine national bargaining, undermine current agreements and hit our overall density.
In this situation it would be wrong to artificially choose to concentrate only on organising and recruitment in the public sector. There is no reason to think that we will be any more successful at that now than we were in the relatively ‘better times’. The private sector will expand enormously now and that is where we are even weaker, where we will ultimately be defeated unless we change. We cannot become a minority unionised island in a vast sea of privatised workers – it will drag down terms and conditions.
The answer has to be in a union fully focused on becoming an organising union in both the public and private sector, with branches and regions that have significant membership in both, organised and powerful. It can be part of a campaign against privatisation to have strong trade unionism on the contract so we can campaign to return work in house. There is clear capacity in the union to become an organising union if tough decisions are made by activists and organising staff to prioritise the work. That has to be the way forward and that is what Francis O’Grady is so right to point out.