Why Do People Join Unions in a Period of Membership Decline?
| Author | Jeremy Waddington,Colin Whitston |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8543.00067 |
| Published date | 01 December 1997 |
| Date | 01 December 1997 |
British Journal of IndustrialRelations
35:4 December 1997 0007–1080 pp. 515–546
Why Do People Join Unions in a Period
of Membership Decline?
Jeremy Waddington and Colin Whitston
Abstract
Drawing on a large survey of new members, this paper examines thereasons
why people join unions and the methods of their recruitment. It shows that
collective reasons remain central to union membership and that individual
services are secondary in the recruitment process. While there is little variation
in reasons for joining across industry, occupation and sex, there are marked
differences in the methods used to recruit new members. These findings are
used to examine existing explanations of membershipdecline and to assess the
efficacy of the different recruitment policy options avai lable to unions.
1. Introduction
Many believe that union membership decline in the UK has reached critical
proportions. Continuous annual membership decline since 1979 has led unions
to reassess their agenda and to highlight the importance of recruitment.
Although many recruitment initiatives have been launched and a recruitment
culture promoted, overall membership continues to fall. By examining why
workers join unions and how they are recruited, this paper isolates many of the
key features underpinning recruitment, and within this focus assesses explana-
tions of membership decline and associated policy issues faced by unions.
Several interrelated arguments have been advanced to explain member-
ship decline. Proponents of the business-cycl e explanation assume that high
levels of unemployment have eroded the constituencies of workers from
which unions have traditionally recruited (Carruth and Disney 1988;
Waddington 1992). Changes in the composition of the labour market have
also been associated with membership decline (see e.g. Booth 1989). Others
argue that shifts in power towards employers have enabled them to resist
unionization in areas of employment growth (Waddington and Whitston
1995a; Gallie et al. 1996). While there is considerable debate regarding the
Jeremy Waddington is in the Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick. Colin
Whitston is in the Department of Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations,
University of Keele.
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516 British Journal of Industrial Relations
relative strengths of these explanations, it is agreed that membership is
concentrated in the public sector and manufacturing and, compared with the
1970s, is less representative of the labour force as a whole. More white-collar,
women, young and part-time workers employed at small sites and in private-
sector services need to be recruited if membership decline is to be reversed and
unions can claim to represent all sections of the UK labour force. Debates on
why these groups have been under-represented have a long tradition within
industrial relations. Central to these debates are the questions, do these groups
of workers have different attitudes from those in membership, and are the same
methods of recruitment appropriate for them?
Proponents of a rather different approach argue that a ‘new indi vidualism’
has marked an era of social structure and policy characterized by the
dissolution of labour movements (Phelps Brown 1990; Skidelsky 1995).
According to this view, the diminution in the bargaining power of unions is
evidence of the attitude shift among workers towards more unitary
conceptions of society. Political change at the centre is regarded as the
driving force of this ‘new individualism’. Recent legislation, for example,
has incorporated a highly atomized and individualistic conception of union
rights and obligations (McKendrick 1988). Furthermore, in order to adjust
to this ‘new individualism’, it has been suggested that unions ‘reinvent or re-
engineer themselves’ and move towards a more client-centred relationship
with members (Cave 1994: 160–91). Questions raised by these arguments
concern the attraction of individual services provided by unions to new
members and the nature of workplace collectivism.
In broad terms, these arguments suggest rather different policy directions
for unions. If unemployment and restructuring are paramount, the debate
centres on whether unions can identify a collective agenda that is appropri-
ate for potential members in under-represented groups and make this
agenda available in recruiting them. If a ‘new individualism’ is as pervasive
as is suggested, policy must revolve around the provision of individual
services to individual members. Furthermore, as the ‘new individualism’ is
often associated with unitary views, it also follows that unions should seek
alliances with employers rather than pursue interests contrary to those of
employers. In practice, a number of interrelated policy trajectories have
been either implemented or recommended.
The TUC attempted to generate a recruitment culture in the 1980s. Six
local labour market studies were conducted by the TUC, each of which was
to be followed by a TUC-coordinated recruitment campaign involving
affiliated unions. However, only two campaigns took place—in London
Docklands and Manchester Trafford Park—as they failed to produce many
members and were regarded as costly by participating unions. In addition,
the TUC established a Special Review Body (SRB) in 1987 to examine new
methods of recruitment. The First Report of the SRB acknowledged a
change in recruitment circumstances and recommended that packages of
financial services be offered by affiliated unions to recruit members in the
expanding areas of the economy (TUC 1988a, b).
¥ Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 1997.
Why Do People Join Unions in a Period of Membership Decline? 517
Unions also launched a variety of recruitment initiatives. These had two
purposes. First, they were to increase recruitment in areas of expanding
employment. Two groups were targeted: those in unskilled, low paid and
insecure jobs, and those in managerial and professional occupations with
more job security and higher pay. Second, they were intended to raise the
level of involvement in the recruitment of union full-time officers and active
members. An extended range of individual membership services was
integral to these campaigns, including insurance, travel and shopping
discounts; union credit cards and mortage facilities—and, in the case of
some non-TUC-affiliated unions, reductions in subscriptions for private
health insurance. Many unions also introduced free legal advice for non-
work-related issues. Individual services were thus seen as appropriate for
workers in very different employment circumstances. Furthermore, these
services represented a more individual and consumerist appeal to non-
members. Indeed, initial survey returns among unions indicated that they
were an aid to recruitment as ‘it was now easier to appeal to a potential
member’s self-interest than to explain the more traditional industrial
relations benefits associated with a union’ (IRRR 1990: 12).
A further policy recommendation arises from Bassett and Cave’s (1993)
proposition that unions need to accommodate the ‘new individualism’ and
low levels of membership participation by developing similar relations with
members, as the Automobile Association has with its clients. Whereas the
TUC and affiliated unions envisage financial services as supplementing
existing collective trade union functions, Bassett and Cave view them as a
central element in an individualized agenda, comprising inter alia anew
financial relationship based on direct debit, and support for individual
members to conduct their own contract negotia tions with employers. This is
similar to the ‘associate membership’ programmes offered by American
unions, as it stresses consumer benefits in return for membership contribu-
tions to the relative exclusion of representative functions (see Jarley and
Fiorito 1990; Hecksher 1988: 177–91). While this view has been criticized in
the UK for its exaggeration of individualization and the absence of any
analysis of power (Kelly and Waddington 1995), it does raise the issue of
individual services in the promotion of recruitment. It also suggests that
union recruitment can be achieved by means of a central appeal from Head
Office to potential members, rather than through workplace organization
and activity. This paper addresses both of these issue s.
A final policy recommendation arises from the assumption that unions
have two ‘markets’, employees and employers, and that unions have failed
in the second of these (Willman et al. 1993: 50–3). The key relationship
identified here is between union and employer, and is exemplified by the
spate of single-union deals concluded during the mid-1980s, when relation-
ships were established with employers before any members were recruited.
A more recent formula arising from this position is that unions enter into
some form of ‘social partnership’ with employers to encourage recognition
and recruitment. Proponents argue that unions must es tablish themselves as
¥ Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 1997.
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