The Trades Union Congress 150 years on. A review of the organising challenges and responses to the changing nature of work
| Published date | 11 February 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-09-2018-0242 |
| Pages | 331-343 |
| Date | 11 February 2019 |
| Author | Melanie Simms,Jane Holgate,Carl Roper |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
The Trades Union Congress
150 years on
A review of the organising challenges and
responses to the changing nature of work
Melanie Simms
University of Glasgow College of Social Sciences, Glasgow, UK
Jane Holgate
Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, and
Carl Roper
Trades Union Congress, London, UK
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how the UK’s Trade Union Congress, in the 150th year
of its formation, has bee n responding to the signi ficant changes in the la bour market, working pr actices
and union decline. The pa per considers Trades U nion Congress (TUC) ini tiatives to recruit and o rganise
new groups of workers as it s truggles to adapt to the new world of work man y workers are experiencing.
Although the paper revi ews progress in this rega rd it also considers curr ent and future challen ges
all of which are becoming in creasingly urgent as th e current cohort of union me mbership is aging and
presents a demographic time bomb unless new st rategies and tactics are adopted to b ring in new groups of
workers –particularly yo unger workers.
Design/methodology/approach –This is a review paper so it mainly draws on writings (both academic
and practitioner) on trade union strategy and tactics in relations to organising approaches and in particularly
the TUC’s initiatives from the period of “New Unionism”onwards.
Findings –The authors note that while unions have managed to retain a presence in workplaces and
industries where they membership and recognition, there has, despite a “turn to organising”been less success
than was perhaps hoped for when new organising initiatives were introduced in 1998. In order to expand the
bases of organisation into new workplaces and in new constituencies there needs to be a move away from
the “institutional sclerosis”that has prevented unions adapting to the changingnature of employment and the
labour market restructuring. The paper concludes that in order to effect transformative change requires
leaders to develop strategic capacity and innovation among staff and the wider union membership. This may
require unions to rethink the way that they operate and be open to doing thing radically different.
Originality/value –The paper’s value is that it provides a comprehensive overview of the TUC’s role in
attempting to inject an organising culture with the UK union movement by drawing out some of the key
debates on this topic from both scholarly and practitioner writings over the last few decades.
Keywords Challenges, Leadership, Trades Union Congress, Transformative change, Organizing academy
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
As the Trades Union Congress (TUC) celebrates its 150th anniversary, it is an opportunity
to reflect on the challenges it faces as the peak-level representative body of UK unions. The
TUC’s strapline is “changing the world of work for good”which succinctly captures some of
the challenges facing the organisation. It has the role of bringing together 49 unions
representing members in sectors as diverse as transport, health, and finance. Almost
inevitably, uniting such a broad membership base is challenging. Bringing them together to
facilitate change is even more so; and changing anything as broad as “the world of work”is
nearly impossible. Looking to the future, some long-standing challenges to achieving those
objectives remain, and new ones are emerging. This paper therefore considers some of the
initiatives by the TUC since its relaunch in 1994 to deal with the complex issues arising from
the changing nature of the labour market and different forms of work and employment, and
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 41 No. 2, 2019
pp. 331-343
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-09-2018-0242
Received 11 September 2018
Revised 25 October 2018
12 November 2018
Accepted 16 November 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
331
Responses to
the changing
nature of work
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