A LEGAL DEFINITION
“an organisation (temporary or permanent, which consists wholly or mainly of workers.. Whose principal purposes include the regulation of relations between workers and employers or employers associations”

Registered by Certification Officer

Act within government constraint

immunity from ‘breach of contract’

employer recognition was ‘voluntarily’ (1992) now ‘statutory’ (ERA 2004, by application to the CAC in firms with more than 21 staff)

Key features of contemporary Unions

Major function: collective bargaining and protection of members interests as employees is paramount
Independent from influence by employers especially in relation to collective bargaining
Prepared to use industrial action
Declares itself to be a trade union
Is registered as a trade union (with the Certification Officer)
Is affiliated to a trade union federation (eg the Trades Union Congress TUC) and often to a social democratic or Labour political party (Dibben et al, 2011: 37)
Internationally, they may take on very different roles from the western model above

Trade Union Recognition

TU recognition is an arrangement in which the employer agrees that one or more T Us will represent the interests of some or all of the employees for collective bargaining
Collective bargaining generally means – negotiations over hours of work, holidays, pay and pensions but may also include representational rights in the handling of grievances and discipline
‘Collective agreements’ can be over substantive or procedural issues ie concrete issues of pay or the processes by which pay is negotiated or determined – they both have ‘power’ implications

ORIGINS -
CONDITIONS GIVING RISE TO TRADE UNIONS

CRAFT GUILDS - PROTECTIONISM
AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION-LANDLESS LABOURERS
COLLECTIVISED PRODUCTION
EMERGENCE OF CLASS SOCIETY

Types

Craft union eg, represents a craft eg Engineers AEEU
Industrial union – represents all grades in an industry eg GMB union
Occupational union – distinct group eg NEA
In the last twenty years many mergers have blurred the origins of many unions (Undy 2008)

Perspectives:
A CORPORATIST VIEW - 1960s / 1970s

PARTNER IN THE EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP
MEMBER OF TRIPARTITISM
SPOKESPERSONS FOR THE ‘WORKING CLASS’
Re-addresses the balance of power

Neo liberalism -1980s /1990s

‘Militant’ leaders - ‘Entrenched’ attitudes
The ‘enemy within’
Undesirable intervener in the Employment Relationship
Protectionist and disruptive to the Free Market
Return to Individualistic Laissez-Faire (Market Individualism - weak trade unions & individual subordination by the market)

Contemporary views

‘Third way’ politics of previous Labour government
Liberal Collectivism (Market Individualism - some acknowledgment of Trade Unions role but disinclined to reverse the restraining legislation of the 1980s)
More recently, further legislative developments (TU Act 2016) signify a return to an anti Trade Union stance

Trade Unions – a radical or conservative force?

LIMITED POLITICAL AWARENESS
TRADE UNION CONSCIOUSNESS
ASSIMILATED INTO THE CAPITALIST ECONOMIC SYSTEM
ROLE LIMITED TO SHARING THE PROFITS RATHER THAN GRASPING THE MEANS BY WHICH PROFITS ARE PRODUCED (Lenin)

Trade Union Purpose

Pursuit of workers’ interests – recruiting new members and protecting/improving pay and employment conditions
‘social justice’ – campaigning for the rights and protection for those more vulnerable (eg. anti-racist campaigns & migrant worker protection Fitzgerald & Hardy 2010)

CONTEMPORARY FUNCTIONS

PROTECTION (economic regulation)
Employment Rights
Pay & Conditions
Health and Safety
Benefits and Provisions
INFLUENCE (lobbying and campaigning- Boxall, 2009)
Social
Political
Religious
Environmental

Functions (Dundon and Rollinson, 2011)

Economic regulation, best wages for members, employees in a unionised environment likely to be 4% - 8% better off
Job regulation, joint authors of rules and procedures governing work, communication, health and safety, equal opps
Power holding, whether militant or moderate Tus are about worker identity and interest
Wider social change, networks, influence of Trades Union Congress (Frances O’Grady current General Secretary), international links ETUC

Current trends

MEMBERSHIP

1979 13.5 million
1992 9 million
1995 8 million
2005 7.6 million
2008 7.6 million
2011 6.4 million
2015 6.4 million

Dundon T & Rollinson D (2011) Understanding Employment Relations, McGraw Hill

Brownlie, N (2012) Trade Union Membership 2011, London Dept for Business, Innovation & Skills.

Williams, S (2017) ch 6 in Introducing Employment Relations a critical approach

Current trends

DENSITY
YEAR MALE FEMALE TOTAL

1979 66 40 55

1987 55 35 46

1995 35 30 32

2000 30 29 29

2008 30 29 29

2011 26

2015 24.7

Dundon T & Rollinson D (2011) Understanding Employment Relations, McGraw Hill

Brownlie, N (2012) Trade Union Membership 2011, London Dept for Business, Innovation & Skills.

Williams, S (2017:183) Ch 6 , Trade Unions and worker representation in Introducing Employment Relations – a critical approach

Findings from Workplace Employee Relations Survey 2011 (WERS 6)
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/workplace-employment-relations-study-wers#key-publications-of-the-2011-wers

Union Density
unequal between sectors-greater decline in manufacturing than the public sector
Trade Union Recognition
1990-53% declined to 42%, (Kersley B et al (2005) ‘Inside the workplace, findings from 2004 WERS’ ; Wanrooy et al (2013) Employment Relations in the Shadow of Recession
However from 2000 to 2010 – over 3,000 new Trade Union recognitions agreements (Williams, S. 2017 Introducing Employment Relations)

REASONS FOR DECLINE

Changing composition of the workforce
Changing patterns of work and organisational flexibility (part-time, temporary etc)
Recession and Unemployment
Decline of manufacturing
Privatisation and ‘contracting out’ of public sector services
Legislative change

THE RESPONSE

UNION MERGERS
RECRUITMENT INITIATIVES
NEW AGENDA
SERVICES
EUROPEAN AGENDA ?
PARTNERSHIP INITIATIVES
UNION ORGANISING

Questions

How much power do Trade Unions have today?
What are there sources of power?
Can we see contemporary manifestations of their strengths? Weaknesses?
What organizational HR trends have had an weakening impact on them?
Where and why do they remain resilient?

References

Williams, S (2017) Introducing Employment Relations (ch 6) Oxford University Press