150 years of the Trades Union Congress – reflections on the past and challenges for the future
| Date | 11 February 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-12-2018-0323 |
| Published date | 11 February 2019 |
| Pages | 270-278 |
| Author | Paul Nowak,Andy Hodder |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
150 years of the Trades Union
Congress –reflections on the past
and challenges for the future
Paul Nowak
Trades Union Congress, London, UK, and
Andy Hodder
Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham,
Birmingham, UK
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to look back on 150 years of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and
reflect on the recent challenges to organised labour.
Design/methodology/approach –Places unions in their current context and discusses how they have
responded to the challenge of declining membership.
Findings –With declining membership levels and the lack of a “silver bullet”solution, unions continue to
face many challenges, although there is some light at the end of the organising tunnel.
Originality/value –This paper introduces the special issue which reflects on 150 years of the TUC.
Keywords Industrial relations, Trade unions, TUC, Union renewal
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
This special issue of Employee Relations looks back on 150 years of the Trades Union
Congress (TUC). Established in 1868 in Manchester, the TUC has continually been at the
forefront of campaigning for workers’rights but has surprisingly been the focus of limited
academic enquiry in recent years (Heery, 1998, p. 350). In this introduction, we examine the
key issues facing the trade union movement today. We do not seek to provide a history of
the TUC as a plethora of these are already in existence (see Roberts, 1958; Lovell and
Roberts, 1968; Martin, 1980; Taylor, 2000), nor do we intend to provide an in depth account
of all the issues facing contemporary trade unions. Instead, we briefly reflect on the
challenges faced by the TUC and its affiliated unions. We then briefly outline each of the
papers included in this special issue.
The challenging context
Unions have had to deal with structural changes in the world of work and employment.
These have been neatly identified by Rubery (2015) as feminisation, flexibilisation,
fragmentation and financialisation, brought about as a consequence of globalisation,
technological change and deindustrialisation alongside the aggressive socio-political
landscape designed to promote a sense of individualism in a deregulated environment.
Consequently, Rubery (2015, p. 642) argues that we are “headed towards a society where
labour is regarded as disposable and often irrelevant in the search for financial value which
is to be found through exploitation of asset prices and market malfunction”. In this regard,
unionism remains as crucial as ever to defend and protect member interests, both individual
and collective (Webb and Webb, 1894, p. 1; Allen, 1966, p. 149).
Whilst union membership in the UK grew through the twentieth century up to the high
point of 56 per cent union density in 1979, the period that followed until the mid-1990s saw
the landscape of British unions change beyond all recognition with density dropping to
28 per cent before a period of relative stability (Machin, 2000). Density by 2018 however, had
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 41 No. 2, 2019
pp. 270-278
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-12-2018-0323
Received 13 December 2018
Revised 13 December 2018
Accepted 14 December 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
270
ER
41,2
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