The Nature of Some Recent Trade Union Modernization Policies in the UK
| Published date | 01 December 1997 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8543.00066 |
| Author | Steve Williams |
| Date | 01 December 1997 |
British Journal of IndustrialRelations
35:4 December 1997 0007–1080 pp. 495–514
The Nature of Some Recent Trade
Union Modernization Policies in the UK
Steve Williams
Abstract
This article draws on recent research to present findings concerning the nature
of some recent trade union modernization policies in the UK. In response to
decline, it can be seen that the unions have increasingly been encouraged to
represent and service members more as individual s than as part of a collective.
This appears to be consonant with the frequently expressed view that greater
individualism, both in employment and in society more generally, has largel y
been responsible for recent union weaknesses, and that if they are to endure
the unions should adapt to it. Using data g enerated from interviews with full-
time officers from a number of unions and from a case study of Unison
organization within a local authority, the paper identifies two crucial
problems with such an approach. First, it is argued that the substantial
difficulties that the unions have experienced recently have been caused by a
process of decollectivization in employment relations, and not one of
individualization. Second, an indica tion of the complexity of the relationship
between individualism and collectivism within trade unionism is given,
something that is entirely ignored by proponents of the thesis that unions
should concentrate solely on appealing to i ndividuals.
1. Introduction
In recent years trade unions in Britain have been considerably weakened,
and this can be seen with regard to their declining overall membership, the
substantial falling away of their workplace organization in many areas and
the diminution of their role in state policy formulation. The nature of union
decline has attracted a great deal of attention, and in this article it is argued
that, given the scale and scope of the decline, it is the outcome of the wide-
ranging decollectivization of employment relations in the UK. A more
prominent explanation for the recent weakness of the unions ascribes it,
however, to a greater degree of individualism both in employment and in
society more generally. As a consequence, the unionshave been encouraged
Steve Williams is at the Open University School of Education.
¥ Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd,
108 Cowley Road,Oxford, OX4 1JF, and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
496 British Journal of Industrial Relations
by some observers to jettison their traditi onal collective practices and focus
more explicitly on the ways in which theycan service members as individuals
(Bassett and Cave 1993).
As the article will show, in undertaking processes of modernization British
trade unions have embraced policies and restructured themselves in ways that
appear to be consonant with the purportedly more individualized environment.
The growing emphasis on the provision of individual financial services can be
cited as evidence of this, although it is important to note that such a shift has
not, in the main, caused the unions to abrogate their principal social and
political aims. Drawing upon data gathered from recent fieldwork carried out
in the north-east of England, this article examines two aspects of the
supposedly more individualistic functions of unions: individual representation
activity and the provision of financial services. Not only does the evidence
presented show that the increasing focus on the individual by the unions is an
expression of the decollectivization of employment relations, but it will also be
seen that explanations of trade union decline which attribute it to a greater
degree of individualism disregard the complexity of the relationship between
collectivism and individualism within the unions.
2. The decollectivization of employment relations in the UK
Perhaps the most significant feature of British industrial relations in the
1980s and 1990s has been the extent to which the power of the trade unions
has waned. The declining influence of the unions as a source of collective
social power can be assessed with reference to three dimensions. First, there
is the substantial reduction in trade union membership since 1979. Accord-
ing to data provided by the Certification Officer, there were 13,289,000
trade union members in 1979; by 1995 aggregate trade union membership
had declined to a figure of 8,089,000, a fall of over 5 million (Labour Market
Trends 1997). Second, the extent to which the trade unions have become
distanced from the locus of state policy-making is striking. Whereas the
union movement could be characterized as one of Britain’s ‘governing
institutions’ prior to the 1980s (Middlemas 1979), more recently successive
Conservative governments have at first weakened, and then abolished, the
tripartite institutions (such as the Manpower Services Commission and the
National Economic Development Council) within which the unions had a
voice (Taylor 1993). Third, while there was a considerable strengthening of
workplace organization in the 1960s and 1970s in both the private and public
sectors, the 1980s and 1990s have seen a reversal of this trend. For example,
in 1990 just 38% of all establishments reported the presence of a union
representative from a recognized union, compared with a figure of 54% in
1984 (for plants that do recognize unions, the decline was from 82% in 1984
to 71% in 1990) (Millward et al. 1992). Case-study evidence has also
revealed the extent to which managers increasingly bypass shop stewards
and exclude them from consultation processes; see for example Marching-
¥ Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 1997.
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