Comments on: C5 Trade union membership

By: Martin Hickman

Martin Hickman — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:29:54 +0000

I tend to agree I think the current trend to so called super unions is a mistake though I understand the logic behind it to counter the large multi nationals. The problem however is when they get this large the leadership can become detached from the membership and it gets increasingly hard for workers to relate to the leadership of there union as what’s happening at grass roots level if. Often the complete opposite of what the leadership are putting out this in turns makes it increasingly harder to recruit one of the biggest recruitments tools is for workers to identify with there leadership and union the classic case in being is Unite the union (irony please).

The other problem I touched on is what the members want and what the leadership think they want (Unison) the leader ship of this union for exampled failed to deliver a serious fight back over pay terms and conditions even though they were called on by other more fighting unions to conduct joint strike action. The members in my own union see this as a rather spineless approach by the above motioned leadership simply taking a lets not rock the boat attitude when the boat is already sinking is not what we should be about.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:19:41 +0000

The continuing decline in trade union membership over recent years has been very disheartening, and the fact that the pace of decline slowed after 1997 is little consolation. I wonder whether the trend towards ever fewer, ever larger unions makes if more rather than less difficult to organise new groups of workers in new occupations and industries. Centralisation has been a long-term trend supported by TUC policy over the best part of a century, and has doubtless produced many advantages – not least that larger unions have more resources and are better able to provide professional services to their members. At the turn of the 20th century there were 1,300 unions where today the number barely struggles into three figures. Were those small unions, often created out of local or sectional disputes, more attuned to their members’ needs? It is worth considering whether the advantages of scale have long since been outweighed by the disadvantages.

By: Peter Hall-Jones

Peter Hall-Jones — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:56:29 +0000

Robert Anton WIlson once famously said: “If we can get them asking the wrong questions, we don’t need to worry about the answers they come up with.”

Bearing this in mind, we need to get this whole ‘membership decline’ thing in perspective. In 2000 there were 7,897,519 members. At the beginning of 2009 there are 7,656,156. That’s a 3% drop over 9 years. Check for yourself: http://www.certoffice.org/annualReport/.

The Certification Officer’s 2008-9 report noted: “The number of trade union members recorded in the Annual Returns
received… is… an increase of 28,463 or 0.37% over the membership recorded in my last Annual Report.” Indeed, raw membership has increased, rather than decreased, for 3 years running.

SO.. given the churn involved in this decade’s a shift to a service-based economy. shouldn’t we be celebrating the fact that union officials and stewards have been doing a fantastic job? This motion risks compounding the movement’s general demoralisation.

The real question we need to be asking is one which takes us beyond business unionism and its quasi-commercial approach to head counting. ie How do we build members’ INFLUENCE in the workplace? Such an approach (eg pushing for workplace democracy) includes the numbers game, but also takes us all far beyond it.