Amongst other things, the figures revealed that the impact of the government’s cuts programme on trade union membership is becoming apparent. In a year when the size of public sector workforce shrank by over 250,000, union membership in the sector fell by 180,000. Overall density, that is the proportion of employees who are members of a union, fell slightly to 26% and membership by 143,0000 to 6.4 million.

Arguably a more accurate way of assessing union influence is looking at the proportion of employees that unions collectively bargain on behalf of. Today in the UK just 30% of workers have their pay and conditions negotiated collectively by a trade union – in the private sector just 1 in 5 workers are included in collective bargaining arrangements.

To prove that this is not just a problem for unions and their members, but also society in general and the cause of equality and social justice in particular, we need only look at the proportion of the nations GDP that goes on wages.

In 1975 the share of wages accounted for by GDP was 65% – today it is just 53%. Between 1978 and 2008 the wages of middle income Britain grew by an average of just 56% against an increase in GDP over the same period of 108%. Over the same period the pay in real terms of those in well paid jobs and professions has more than doubled.

It wasn’t all bad news and there were a few shafts of light piercing the gloom. Membership in the private sector increased and despite the fall in membership the proportion of employees in the public sector who are union members held up. We should also member that the trade union movement is the UK’s largest voluntary organisation with levels of membership and an activist base that our political parties can only dream of.

However the debate isn’t so much about whether or not unions do face some significant challenges in respect of membership, as to what to do about it. Of some things we can be certain. A wholesale return to the false promise of credit card trade unionism and individualised membership won’t work anymore than relying solely on a fundamentalist approach to organising.

Those of us in the trade union movement who have been involved in supporting union efforts to grow know that there is no silver bullet solution to the challenge of increasing membership. However, the collective experience of many TUC affiliates and the TUC over the last 15 years has demonstrated that working collaboratively and sharing experience, prioritising resources for organising and training and developing new and existing staff so that they are better equipped to adapt to the changes demanded by a more focused approach to building membership; have all put unions in a better position to organise more effectively:

But if the trade union movement is to make a serious attempt to halt the decline in membership and density, break out into new sectors of the economy and fulfil their potential in the fight against inequality we’re going to have to be more radical and innovative.

Such innovative approaches might include increasing collective bargaining coverage by organising along supply chains, bringing trade union membership within reach of the majority of employees who work where there isn’t a union via affinity schemes and promoting trade unions more generally and membership and activity specifically via both current and future campaign work. A clear and present opportunity exists in the way the TUC and the trade union movement in general has lead the opposition to the government’s austerity programme.

As we rededicate ourselves to the task of building the movement we do so with the realisation that increasing membership is not an end in itself. It is merely a means towards the achievement of a greater goal. Restoring dignity to work and securing adequate reward. To give working people more control of their lives both within and beyond the workplace. To offer protection against the worst that this government would subject them to.

We know that those with power tend not to give it away. Those that need it have to get it for themselves. Trade unions have always played a vital part in this process. Today, though the strategies and tactics may differ, the goal remains the same.

This article was originally published at www.labourlist.org

Marchers at London's May Day march, 1 May 2012

The ITUC chose the eve of May Day -  international workers’ day – to launch its new enquiry into the impact of the global financial crisis on workers’ rights around the world. Former head of the South African trade union movement Jay Naidoo, former Portuguese Labour Minister and ETUC Deputy General Secretary Maria Helena Andre and the former Prime Minister of Denmark Poul Nyrup Rasmussen will be on the enquiry panel. They will investigate at first hand how the crisis has impacted on workers and their unions in Bulgaria, Greece, Indonesia, Mexico, Portugal and Romania, where the right-wing Government was toppled last week because of its economic and social policies.

This enquiry is part of the growing resistance of workers and unions around the world to austerity policies which often target not only public services and public spending, but workers’  wages (pay and social benefits).

The ITUC argues that elites are using the excuse of the global financial crisis to further erode workers’ living standards and job security, despite the fact that growing inequality between the rich and the rest of us caused the crisis in the first place. 60% of workplace reforms by governments have taken away workers’ rights. 15 out of 25 countries studied by the ITUC have relaxed collective dismissal rights for economic reasons. 65% of workplace reforms have taken away rights from temporary workers.

But as May Day - and other recent developments like the first round of the French Presidential election – have shown, workers are beginning to fight back all over the world. Over 100,000 members of metalworker unions marched in Mexico. They demonstrated against precarious jobs, subcontracting and deunionisation in Istanbul. Public sector unions demonstrated in Kathmandhu in Nepal at Martyrs’ Gate, as well as in Indonesia. And trade unions demonstrated across Africa in one of the most powerful shows of strength for decades, in countries like Cameroon, Mali and Tunisia. There were marches across Europe, in Athens, Lille, London, Madrid, Paris, Turin and elsewhere. In Spanish cities like Barcelona, young people were key parts of the marches; as they were on the New York Occupy May Day march (and a big hello to Occupy LSX who finally did what it says on the tin!)

Statements were issued by the global unions about how to create a sustainable recovery, and the ETUC called for social justice and jobs for the 5.5 million unemployed young people in Europe. Leader of the US trade union movement Rich Trumka said: “America’s working families will continue to stand together in their fight to reestablish fairness and opportunity so everyone can have access to their own American dream.” There will be many more demonstrations this weekend, including in the UK (the Tyne and Wear May Day March and Rally is on Saturday, as is one on the other side of the world, in Melbourne, Australia), and there are many other events and initiatives – like the publication May Day: A Graphic History of Protest.

You can find much more news about May Day protests on 1 May and the days to follow at LabourStart.

Last week I was one of a number of trade union officials and shop stewards who took part in a visit to Germany to look at training and skills. We went with Skills Minister John Hayes MP and representatives of BIS and the UK Commission For Employment and Skills. The delegation visited the Siemens plant in Lincoln, UK and Siemens’ giant training facility and manufacturing site in Berlin.

We were also able to meet officials from a number of German training organisations – and of course trade union representatives from IG Metall, Germany’s biggest union and the TUC equivalent – the DGB. The latter meetings gave us an opportunity to discuss and assess the state of German unions and the overall economic situation in the EU’s powerhouse economy.

First off, the German trade union movement is in good heart. IG Metall the main manufacturing union has launched a campaign for a 6.5% pay increase, for 12 months; permanent positions and protection for agency workers and proposals to create jobs for young people.

Union reps we met, including shop floor comrades, pointed out that the German economy grew by 0.4% in the second quarter of 2012. The German government has also published a positive official growth forecast for 2012.  Unemployment has fallen to a record low of 6.7% and union membership is growing again.

They were also buoyed up by the recent success of the services and skills union Ver.di who won German public sector workers a pay deal of 6.3% albeit over a 24-month period – a deal German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, called  ‘a reasonable outcome’ although it went ‘to the outer limits of what the federal government and communities can afford’.

Overall, wages for nine million German workers are up for negotiation this year. Union members argue rightly that following the years of pay restraint their time has come – and pay increases can be afforded. They also point out that German bosses have been winning big pay deals. Last year the CEOs of Germany’s Top 30 companies saw their pay rise 9% to the highest level for five year.

One thing was also clear to us. Germany is doing better because it was less vulnerable when the financial tsunami hit Europe as it was able to fall back on its rigorous tax system to balance the books without taking an axe social security.

Germany has also boosted exports which injected capital into the economy. The country is ranked eighth in the latest Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index. The UK limps in at 17^th position. That’s because Germany also focuses on medium sized manufacturing firms (known as Mittelstand), providing help to them, and by protecting their interests. Training based on the dual system of education and ongoing training prepares young workers to work – as they say – “in the real world” and develops transferable skills, making workers more adaptable. The system is well supported by German unions.

Of course Germans are taxed more but they have high spending power, and they kept them spending through the economic crisis. The German government have just released figures indicating that purchasing power will rise by 3% this year.

One other key factor is that German workers are informed and consulted about company plans and performance through the structure of works councils. German unions are listened to and as the crisis engulfed the world, the German unions were publicly consulted as by Chancellor Angela Merkel. As one DGB officials said: “A smart move – the discussions were very public – it’s showed that unions are respected”.

All this was in contrast to the UK experience (which our German hosts wanted to discuss at length!) of a one trick pony coalition with one mantra – austerity, austerity and more austerity – and bash the workers into the bargain.

We have much to learn!

GUEST POST: Tony Burke is Assistant General Secretary of Unite the Union.

So, what were the figures and what do they mean for trade unions?

Headline figures

• Across the whole workforce, union membership fell by 143,000 despite an increase in private sector membership (up by 43,000), and now stands at 6.4 million.  Union density (the percentage of workers who are union members) fell by 0.6% to 26%.
• 31.2 % of all employees were covered by a collective bargaining arrangement, up from 30.8% and unions are now present in 44.9% of workplaces , down from 46%.

Getting a bigger break down in terms of private/public sector, the figures look more like this:

• In the public sector, despite a membership fall of 186,000, union denisty 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%.
• In the private sector, membership rose by 43,000 but density fell by 0.1%; bargaining coverage has been maintained, staying steady at 16.9% and union presence in workplaces fell to 28.5% from 29.6%.
• In the male/female split, density remains higher amongst women employees (28.7%) than amongst male employees (23.4%).

Analysis

These figures represent a mixed picture of decline and increase from the figures for 2010.  And the points I’d raise on the initial analysis of the figures are:

1. We are seeing a continued fall in total union membership.  While the rise in private sector membership is welcome, total union membership continues to fall.  However, unlike the 1980s and 1990s, this fall is much shallower and the differentials in decline are much less pronounced.  The large decrease in membership should also be taken into the wider context of an overall loss of public sector jobs (369,000) in the same period.
2. Decline in presence should be of concern for unions. 
3. The picture on union density is mixed.  In 2011, overall density fell by 0.6% which is the norm since 1995 (it fell in all but three years).  However, public sector density rose slightly which is the first increase since 2000 and even in the private sector, which saw a fall of 0.1%, saw its smallest decline since 2000.
4. Collective bargaining has risen.  The area where we had a real concern, saw a slight reversal of trend with the first increase in workers covered by collective agreements since 1998.  This is great news but we need to keep this trend going up to have an impact on worker wages. 

A mixed picture for us then with some positives which we didn’t have in 2010, but still one that shows that we need to work hard to continue to organise and unionise.  Look out for postings over the next week from our union contributors to see what it means for their sectors and unions.

‘Seeing is believing’ as the saying goes. Wakefield people wouldn’t go that far, but seeing certainly lends greater understanding. This is a point Denis Doody (UCATT rep at WDH) was keen to impress upon the visiting party which included new UCATT General Secretary Steve Murphy and unionlearn Yorkshire regional manager, Alan Roe.

Park Dale is a brand new zero carbon (code 6, for those in the know) housing estate of 91 homes in Castleford which also includes a union learning centre with a difference.

It contains demonstration models of the environmental technology being used and an impressive exhibition of WDH’s energy generation and community waste management schemes. There is a cross section of an extra thick wall: containing insulation materials, strapped for air tightness and the bricks are designed to absorb and channel rainwater for reuse.  You can also see the solar panels which generate electricity for use in the community and computer controlled heating engineering systems that manage heating efficiently throughout the house.

All of which represent new training and skills challenges for WDH’s workforce. Some are apprentices recruited from local schools and are learning about new technology and techniques on the job. WDH has also invested in training the existing workforce too. The knowledge and commitment of the workforce is absolutely crucial in making this social housing initiative work. For example, learning rep Jeff acts as a tutor and mentor to the apprentices and also works with local school children.

Park Dale is a living, breathing housing estate with families, young and old and from many different backgrounds. And the challenges of living ‘zero carbon’ when most of us don’t, are clearly present for the residents who are adjusting to living with the sensitivity of the heating controls, the computerised toilet system and community recycling facilities. Living in developments such as this should help address fuel poverty particularly for pensioners, but it doesn’t help if the technology is not understood or used properly. That’s where community education comes in and WDH are busy engaging residents with information packs and community drop in sessions.

But what’s to learn from all of this for the rest of us? None of the developments that we had seen had been dreamed up over night, but were the result of very determined leadership in Wakefield District Housing over a number of years. Everything from changed government policy on feed in tariffs to belligerent energy suppliers to complicated planning issues can stand in the way. But in WDH they really do believe that investing in both new build and retrofit low carbon housing can generate employment and new skills and benefit communities, but it has to be done seriously and you have to be in it for the long term.

As we left the Austin Road Depot, you could see Ferry Bridge Power Station’s enormous chimneys in the background. The irony didn’t go unnoticed but Denis (a former miner) was keen to impress that the NUM had been calling for carbon capture technology since the 1980s. If only everyone was as visionary as WDH and the unions.

The federation claims to have organised a phenomenal 2 million workers into 200 unions in barely a year. Of course, many of the new independent unions have their roots in the underground workers’ struggles throughout the past decade. And without clear ways to keep membership records, the total figure may be in doubt, but as an accurate figure emerges it will still be the single most impressive organising effort I’ve ever come across (And this is just one of the two new independent federations: the Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress (EDLC) claims to have signed up 214 unions with a seven figure combined membership also).

Legitimacy means everything to this nascent movement. So long denied a voice in the workplace and a voice in society, they are determined to be democratic and everywhere. “We bid farewell to land-lord run unions” of Mubarak, said Kamal Abou Aita, the acting President of EFITU.

And they did so in meticulous-style: each of the 264 delegates would vote, one-by-one, walking up onto the congress stage, showing their ID, filing out their ballot and putting it in a large glass box for the entire hall to see. “How powerful is that?” I thought after the first few votes. “How long will this take?” I thought after three hours and only 140 delegates in. More hours passed and I realised that these guys have pyramid-building patience and that I’d nodded off and drooled a bit.

But by then the party had set in. Us international guests filed some dead air time by firing off our best platitudes from the podium. I took the liberty to pass on your solidarity, and then joined in a few chants that I didn’t understand. By the time I left the congress in the wee hours the votes for the finance committee were only just rolling in.

What about the role of women in this new Egyptian union movement I hear you ask? Sure they were at the forefront of the revolution but early photos I saw of this new union movement showed a room full of men, straining the definition of middle-aged.

But today’s congress showed progress and promise. “It fills us with pride that the youth represent the vast majority of our union organisation, and that women play a pivotal role in our union,” said Abou Aita. And I could see that he wasn’t wrong.  Further, it was these delegates that moved an amendment to EFITU’s constitution to put in place a 25 per cent quota for women. No mean feat in this part of the world.

But the journey for women’s empowerment in Egypt will be a long one. Take this sobering passage from the ILO’s latest global employment trends report on Egypt, Libya and Tunisa (page 75):

The unemployment rate for young people in the region was 27.1 per cent in 2011, the rate for women stood at 19.0 per cent and young women faced an unemployment rate of 41.0 per cent.

Even where they have a job, “female workers and those in the private sector work in slave-like conditions”, concluded Kamal Abbass, the acting leader of the EDLC, after describing the extreme overtime, poverty wages and high levels of harassment they face. With British business sourcing from these export zones of “slave-like conditions”, we need to play our role.

The new unions are still very much workplace based, yet to make connections with those in the same sector, or region, but the links are emerging.  But workshop sessions throughout the week are pulling together key workers in the same sector, their respective global sectoral union federations helping with the speed-merger-dating.

And bizarrely, it got exciting: “We have formed 23 committees! And I’m on the fishing committee!”, yelled out one speaker to thunderous applause and more infectious chants that I didn’t understand. I wished I was on the fishing committee.

These workers are from workplaces across Egypt. I spoke with welders, justice ministry workers, bus drivers, teachers, farmers, postal workers, and nurses. Abou Aita also spoke proudly of the vulnerable – “peasants, casual workers, informal economy workers and street vendors” – swelling their ranks.

What impressed me greatly is that these folks aren’t waiting for some legislative silver bullet to deliver a union movement to them. They are going out there and making it under laws that haven’t changed since Hosni Mubarak owned the country.

And it’s tough. Most of them don’t have offices, and are barred from opening bank accounts. All of them face workplaces where the official stooge unions of the old regime are still collecting compulsory dues against the wishes of the workforce. To join a real union in Egypt you have to pay double.

Further, the new government may be dominated by Islamic parties that swept the recent elections, and a new law on trade union freedoms is yet to be enacted. But these won’t stop this chanting hall of workers whose time has come. They’ve already sunk their roots too deep.

Burma has long been a labour rights hellhole: rampant forced labour, banned unions and jails full of activists – all reasons why the EU has long maintained economic sanctions against the regime.

But things might be changing. A year ago, there were an estimated 54 trade unionist and labour activists behind bars. Now we think there are only half a dozen left.

Yet the tide of change has only reached so far. While it has been widely reported that the government has eased restrictions on trade unions, it hasn’t yet. Despite passing a Labour Organisations Law (And yes, let’s shorten that to “LOL”), in October last year, the government still hasn’t implemented it. Several unions have tried to register under the LOL but have been turned away by a government, that insiders say is desperately trying to form its own puppet unions.

The Federation of Trade Unions – Burma (FTUB), forced to operate in exile is still dubbed a terrorist organisation. For the new law to have any credibility this has to change.

According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the LOL itself, written without any input from unions, is “…so ambiguously drafted in key places, so lacking in critical detail and so disconnected from surrounding law…” that its benefits to workers are in doubt. Further, the law gives government officials far too much power to decide which unions can register, what collective bargaining can actually occur and what strikes or other actions are permissible.

And even if the law was better drafted, it can easily be overridden by laws providing for “law and order, community peace and tranquillity,” according to the constitution drafted by the Generals. And old repressive decrees still remain in force. Nevertheless the law, if ever implemented, will be a positive step beyond the current blanket ban on trade union activity.

Yet the blackest mark on labour rights against the current government is it’s failure to end forced labour. The FTUB, and the Federation of Trade Unions – Kawthoolei (FTUK) have most recently documented in exhaustive detail, “the persistence of widespread forced labour practices by civil and military authorities in almost all of the country’s states and divisions” (see page 241). The government has faced decades of withering international criticism on this issue and knows exactly what it needs to do to eradicate it.

Without such action, the western businesses that are threatening to flood into Burma will almost certainly be benefitting from slave labour. And the TUC and our Burmese sister organisations will be the first to blow the whistle on them.

There are other areas urgently needing change. As the Burma Campaign UK have pointed out, a key test will be the upcoming budget of a government which spends “almost 20 times more on the military than it does on health.”

So there has been a some positive but limited progress on labour rights, and I personally think that this should be recognised. So let’s relax e.g. travel bans against those who have proven to be genuine reformers in the new government. But the key economic sanctions should stay in place until we have free and independent trade unions and the end of forced labour in the country.

Striking workers and supporters marching on 30 November. Photo: TUC

We’ve always said that the November 30 strike was a tremendous success. Once you take into account the number of workers taking part, the range of unions and occupations – some of whom had never struck before – the level of support across the country was brilliant.

Of course, some publications and commentators had decided even before the strike took place that it was a flop.

Well, today’s monthly employment figures from the Office for National Statistics provide a definitive rebuttal. They include the first set of industrial dispute statistics covering November and they show that the number of working days “lost” to disputes (the ONS’s language, not mine) in November was the highest for 20 years:

Whenever there’s large scale industrial action there will always be people who are eager to tell us that it was a failure. In every major dispute, a new generation of activists learns that these people don’t know as much as they pretend.

If you know anyone who was depressed by those articles, show them these figures. They might cheer them up.

Jesse Norman MP. Cartoon © Alex Hughes

If I was to tell you that today, a former employee of an industry that in 2009 received a bailout from the taxpayer amounting to over £1 TRILLION (and that still owes over £450 BILLION) was to move a motion attacking volunteer workplace union reps and demanding that unions should be forced to repay employers for the time they have negotiated that allows workplace reps to represent employees and negotiate with employers, you would think I’d taken leave of my senses.

But that’s exactly what is going to happen today when Jesse Norman MP, a former Barclays Investment banker stands up and moves a 10 Minute Rule Bill in the House of Commons.

As he moves the motion Mr Norman will no doubt quote the dodgy figures provided for him by the so-called Taxpayers Alliance.  If he’s consistent in pushing the spurious narrative of the Trade Union Reform Campaign, he’ll make no mention of the benefits that result from the work undertaken by workplace reps.

Next week, the TUC will publish the results of research that will prove that paid time off for union reps is an investment not a cost and will set out the significant benefits that accrue to employers and society. The research will also explain just why the figures used by Mr Norman and the TPA shouldn’t be taken seriously.  We’ll also be highlifghting via a series of case studies the work that reps do, not just in representing employees but working with employers.

For the time being, we can only watch on in amazement at Mr Norman’s outrageous chutzpah!

One of the more spurious yet central reasons why right wing front groups hate union reps getting paid time to represent employees and negotiate with employers is because they’ve convinced themselves that this frees up cash that unions (or at least the minority of them that affiliate) can then give to the Labour party.  And a union trying to influence public policy is the thing they hate the most – apart from unions themselves obviously!

But wait – what’s this? It seems that unions aren’t the only groups that give cash to political parties.

A recent analysis by the FT of official electoral commission data found out that one group of people has been particularly generous to the Conservative party.  Over the last 10 years hedge fund managers have donated more than £14 million to the party, including more than £2million since the general election.

Now you may think that this a bit dodgy given the Tories’ opposition to things such as a Robin Hood Tax and apparent support for lowering the 50p tax rate; but no, it’s ok.  That’s because when asked if such donations influence party and therefore government policy, Conservative HQ said;

“There is no question of individuals either influencing policy or gaining unfair advantage by virtue of their financial contributions.”

So there you have it. Anyone (and I’d assume any organisation) who makes a donation to a political party in the hope that it will buy influence is clearly wasting their money.

Maybe now the members of the aforementioned right wing front groups can stop accusing humble TUC staffers of “running money laundering operations for the Labour party” and chill out a bit.