Unions are on the march, but there's a long way to go

Later in 2022, RMT union members at ScotRail also went on strike over pay. In 2024, strike action by the RMT and the other Aslef, TSSA and Unite union members at ScotRail is again on the cards, again over pay.

Mid-2022 was dubbed by some as the "summer of solidarity" because workers widely united and mobilised together in defence of their living standards during an unprecedent cost of living crisis. This led to the biggest uptick in strike action in Britain since the late 1980s. From that August in 2022 until May this year, some 5.2m days have not been worked due to strikes.

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Understandably, strike action hits the headlines in the press and media. Often disruptive, it is certainly newsworthy. The strikes from 2022 onwards have been one of the biggest new stories in recent years. They have featured doctors, nurses, teachers, civil servants, bus drivers, barristers and bin workers amongst many others.

But behind the headlines, what has happened to unions in the meantime? Has the revival in strike action also led to a revival in the fortunes of unions? And, how does this prepare the unions to best equip themselves for the change in government at Westminster?

There’s an old adage in the study of industrial relations that strikes build union membership and strength. There’s much merit to that but, of course, a lot depends on the actual outcome of strikes: win, lose or draw. Much also depends on how the outcomes were gained in terms of membership involvement on demonstrations and picket lines and in strike fundraising.

All of which makes it somewhat surprising that in 2022 union membership in Britain fell by 200,000 according to the authoritative annual Labour Force Survey. This meant a fall in the proportion of workers in unions (called union density) from 23.7% in 2020 and 23.1% in 2021 to 22.2% in 2022, In 2023, despite an increase in 89,000 members, the bigger loss from the year before was not made good so that overall membership is still lower, with density at just 22.4% for 2023. In 2023, in the private sector, density was just 12.3% and in the public sector below half at 49.2%. In absolute terms, 6.4 million workers were union members in 2023, more than 50% lower than the peak of 13.2m members in 1979.

Few unions other than Unite in just a few sectors like air and road transport secured above-inflation pay rises. Even these did not go very far in making up for the fall in the value of these workers’ real wages since 2010 when the "age of austerity" kicked in.

Unite is one of the few unions to pay strike pay from day one of striking so that at least its members did not have to pay for their increased pay rise by sacrificing many days’ wages. That’s not true of other unions so their members did have to forgo wages by striking with the result that it was not clear that the benefits outweighed the costs.

Therefore, despite the sense that unions and their members were finally standing up for themselves in what many thought of as the "good old ways’" with RMT leader Mick Lynch declaring "the working-class is back’" the fruits of their labours have been relatively slight.

Strikes have not been the great recruiting sergeants that they were hoped to be. That does not mean moderation and partnership with employers are the alternatives. They’ve been tried before and been found wanting.

So, what the situation in Scotland then? According to the aforementioned Labour Force Survey, union density in Scotland fell from 29% in 2020 to 28% in 2021 and then 26% in 2022 before rebounding to 29% in 2023. In 1995, it was 39%.

For the critical category of young workers (ages 16-24) in unions in Scotland - because of an old and ageing membership here and elsewhere - density has risen then fallen, from 10% in 2020, 11% in 2021, 12% in 2022 and then 8% in 2023.

All this takes some of the shine off the STUC’s glee this year that Scotland experienced "the largest membership rise within any nation of the UK" and that there has been a "stunning rise in the number of young people joining trade unions". The STUC could only say the latter because it also included the age category of 25-34 year olds in its analysis.

And it needs to be recalled that while union density has always been higher in Scotland than in England and the British average, it’s not always been higher than in Wales or Northern Ireland or some northern regions of England.

Scotland is facing more bin strikes (Image: Newsquest)

Where does this leave the unions now that we have a new Labour government? It will not quite be a land of milk and honey even if Labour’s New Deal for Working People (now renamed Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay) is implemented in full and in double-quick time.

Tight fiscal rules consciously chosen by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are likely to mean that the newly announced above-inflation pay rises for many public sector workers are a one-off to ensure there is at least a short honeymoon.

However, despite repeated pledges on the New Deal for Working People, there is still the fear that it will not end up being all that it’s been cracked up to be. So, unless Labour reduces the costs of organising for unions on membership recruitment, union recognition and strikes, it will not be the friend of the representatives of working people and unions will continue to struggle. To allow unions to flower requires Labour providing simple statutory access to workers, a simplified statutory union recognition procedure, and the repeal of more than just the last two Tory anti-strike laws.

Gregor Gall is a visiting professor of industrial relations at the University of Leeds and author of the Mick Lynch: The Making of a Working-class Hero (Manchester University Press, 2024).