Unions in 2014 - big chance or no chance?

In a Guardian interview over the holiday period TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady was upbeat on union prospects next year: ‘Our big chance will be in 2014 because we are going to see confidence return as unemployment dips and the economy recovers’. Not for the first time the TUC is looking to the USA for a campaign model - where unions such as SEIU have formed impressive worker led coalitions of civic groups and local politicians in support of workers’ rights in fast food chains.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/26/tuc-frances-ogrady-rebuild-union-membership

UK Unions – arresting the decline

Union density in the private sector has dropped to 14% and more than half the UK workforce has never been a member of a trade union (a proportion which has doubled since 1985). A short FT video examines the profound challenges facing the trade union movement in recruiting new members and remaining relevant. Frances O’Grady, TUC General Secretary, says ‘we have to do more to invest in organising, to having mature and sensible conversations with more employers about the benefits which unionisation can bring’
http://video.ft.com/2857036809001/Unions-face-up-to-new-challenges/latest

Misdiagnosed labour pains

The Economist has highlighted the continued drop in the `labour share’ of national income around the world - a drop from 66% to 62% - and it is going to continue to curve down according to the OECD. This is consistent with a decline in union power across the world and the continued race to the bottom between global companies. But the house journal of big business presents this as a natural and unavoidable state of the world economy. It claims it is down to immigrant labour, to technology and to deregulation:
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21588900-all-around-world-labour-losing-out-capital-labour-pains

Ideology - an essential component of union growth strategies

This year we had the welcome news that unions are growing again in the UK. Despite having been subject to austerity, some of the most draconian anti trade union laws in the world, privatisation and decreasing wage levels, unions are stirring.
  Yet in the closed world of union organising the most advocated model of such campaigns is the US inspired version, promoted by a number of unions and even provoking a 2005 split in the AFL/CIO resulting in the `Change to Win` alliance led by the SEIU. The split is healing and the AFL/CIO remains the main union coalition in the US.

Union Density - The Only Measurement of Union Power?

The recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report in the US has revealed another downwards turn in union density. It is now at 11.3% the lowest level since 1916. By any stretch of the imagination this is bad news. It generally means less income, less influence less power and less relevance. No one would argue that lower union density is evidence of anything other than a continuing problem.

Union membership trends in 2011 - calm before the storm?

The TUC’s Stronger Unions website provides a useful summary of the UK Government’s latest report on trade union membership figures. Of particular interest is that in the public sector, despite a membership fall of 186,000, union density rose by 0.2% to 56.5%; bargaining coverage rose by 3.3% to 67.8% and the amount of public sector workplaces where there is a trade union presence rose to 87.1% from 85.8%. As well as a membership surge linked to the pensions campaign last autumn, this report confirms that public sector unions are retaining our core workplace organisation even though overall workforce numbers are shrinking:  http://strongerunions.org/2012/04/26/2011-trade-union-membership-figures-released/

Political environment & union density rates

A fascinating article on whether or not the political environment produces a correlation between union density and social democracy – that might explain why union density in neo conservative or liberal market economies like the USA and the UK continues to fall: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/changes-in-unionization-rates-in-rich-countries-1960-2010