Trade unions have a long history in Britain and were an important part of the country's political, social, and economic development. While union membership and influence have declined since their peak, unions still play a role in protecting workers and negotiating with employers. This document discusses the history of unions in Britain, their current principles and functions, and debates around their advantages and disadvantages. It argues that despite lower membership numbers, unions remain significant for certain sectors and issues in British society.

1. University of Salford
Msc(Hons) Business with Information Technologies
People Management
Tutor: Jane Macmillan
2010/2011
Frederico Costa
@00255034
University of Salford Year 1

2. Trade Unions are still important in Britain
It is very pleasant for me to have the opportunity to write this essay about Trade Unions and
more specifically discussing the importance of Trade unions for Britain today.
Trade Unions are part of Britain’s political, social and economical history but they are
changing their behaviour. Strikes are not organised the same way as it used to be and modern
trade unions have a political structure, not based on social demands and well prepared to debate
laws and show, diplomatically, alternatives in order to protect its membership’s interests.
This essay will be divided in three main points that will explain how significant trade unions
are today.
Firstly, a brief explanation about Trade Union’s History with some relevant events such as
the creation of The Trades Union Congress, “Thatcher’s era” and the miner’s strike with figures
about Trade Union’s number of memberships.
Secondly it will be shown and developed the principles of Trade unions, its structure, why
do they exist and what do they do today to protect employee’s conditions and working
environments.
Finally it will be demonstrated the advantages and drawbacks of trade unions and for last its
influence to British society, politics and economy.
Before Trade Unions were called by its name it already existed by the form of mutual
societies and so work legislation. Between 1720 an 1799 some legislation was already in use
mainly to dictate terms and conditions on some sectors and mutual societies tried to increase
wages and decrease working hours especially to artisans.
At the same time industrialisation was evolving, and became the biggest sector of
employment in Britain. There were still gaps in the legislation identifying rights and duties for
masters and servants, something obsolete today.
With the industrialisation miners gained importance in Britain’s economy and that
spilled to politics and consequently to societies. Mine workers became a strong organisation,
even without a true Trade Union. In 1850 the mutual societies were already unions, not
sophisticated on their strategies, policies and structures but the Miner’s Unions were bigger than
unions for all the other sectors. By late 50’s railways were more developed and unions weren’t
just local “upgrading” into amalgamations with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE)
having special relevance. In 1868 the Trades Union Congress (TUC) is created and
amalgamations, which grown in other sectors too such as the tailoring, woodworking and
railways workers turned into Trade Unions.

3. In the beginning of the 20th century Trade unions became more relevant. Heavy industries were
now the main “engine” for Britain and were protected by its Trade Unions with the Miners
Union having essential relevance.
The two World Wars were extremely important in Trade Unions history because
women started working more and Trade Unions started to accept women as memberships,
demanding equal recognition and wages between genres.
Moreover, trade unions became more assertive on the political sector. Although strikes
were still frequent in order to claim new conditions to employees, Trade Unions familiarized
with some parties values with frequent association with the Labour Party’s ideals.
But in 1979 Trade Unions in Britain started to lose their influence with Margaret
Thatcher as Prime-Minister. She cut Britain’s dependency to heavy Industries closing mines,
affecting all North Region populated by industrial workers. It was determined that mines should
be closed for the good of Britain’s economy and trade unions retaliated with violent strikes. At
that time strikes already could only be realized covering all the requirements in law so those
strikes were illegal and Riot Police took action too. It was the lethal lose for trade unions and
consequently the percentage of memberships fell down.
Thatcher also abolished the minimum wage and workers felt more helpless. But in 1997
Labour’s returned to the government and in the Employment Relations Act in 1999 decided
favourably to declare a new minimum wage and improve rights for maternity leave, part-time
workers and incremented relations with the European Union.
Trade Unions principles are social related. Although they are employee-oriented, a
trade union relates employee’s welfare with firms functioning. Surveys and statistics shows that
firms with a bigger percentage of employees connected with trade unions produce more than the
others. The reason is simple; an employee with better work conditions works better and stays
longer in a company.
Countervailing power and job regulation are strongly correlated and trade unions
worked through the history to improve job facilities and employees rights and recognition. It
affects Economics too so it can be said that Trade Unions have influence in economical
regulations.
Trade Unions are also connected with social and political changes. Again, the history
shows that some of their “conquers” were associated with new Governments dialogues (Labour
party.
Values like diversity and fairness are indispensable when identifying Trade Union’s
values.

4. Women and Disabled rights were improved thanks to Trade Unions sensitization to
equity and decency under the principles of democracy.
The Fairness at Work shows that Trade Unions are concerned to be fair with companies
too, showing that if the employees are happy with their work conditions firms will operate
better so they can be seen more as an asset rather than an enemy.
When practiced and recognized by firms, employees develop a confidence relationship
with Trade Unions and it tends to increase the number of memberships so it can be said that
Trade Unions works to improve employees work conditions and specially by adding better
membership services.
Fairness at Work works on Trade Union’s recognitions too by three main points.
Firstly the “white paper” encourages “voluntary recognition of unions by employers as
partners in the workplace” states Ian McCartney, British Labour party Minister of State at the
Department of Trade and Industry.
Secondly it specifies conditions for ballots of employees searching for recognition
which when voluntary it can be granted at any time.
Finally the Union Recognitions gains emphasis again. Fairness at Work gives automatic
union recognition when more than 50% of workforces belong to union members.
Trade Union’s main advantage is protection of its member’s interests.
Previously it could be seen that trade unions were more focused in pay rises but now
they act more effectively improving work conditions in different sectors and type of work.
That positively affects the new generation of workers based on Part-times or Temporary
contracts.
Another main point is the relationship between employer and employee. Collings states
that “employment relationship is a trade-off between effort and wages(...) regulation of
employment conditions by management and trade unions” (Collings and Wood 2009) Trade
Unions can negotiate with more accuracy for both sides, improving the benefits for their
members and at the same time preventing a fall in productivity for firms.
On the other hand Trade unions always seek better wages for their memberships and in
competitive labour markets this can lead to unemployment.
Another drawback is the unemployed “slice”. A trade union usually facilitates
payments with unemployed memberships but there’s no trade unions (only) focused on
improving unemployment’s rights and incentives.
Trade unions also affects inflation (when they are too influent on salaries demands for
example) so it shows that they can become negatively influent not only on the political and
social but also in the economical sector.

5. Based on the BIS Trade union Membership 2009 it can be realised that three main
factors reveals that Trade Union are still important for Britain.
Although the figures are far from the records on the 60’s and 70’s, the difference from
year to year on the number of memberships is decreasing which shows that the labour market is
turning to trust in Trade Unions (Part-time workers and temporary workers are trying to protect
their rights and improve contract and work conditions) again.
Secondly the number of women in trade unions (as memberships) is increasing too.
Women are more important in the labour market than 30 years ago and they didn’t reach their
maximum potential on Labour Market Supply, so the tendency is to rise.
Thirdly the public sector is joining more trade unions. Dunn states that “The
foreseeable future of trade unions is as an accessory of the state. Having been largely rejected
by private sector firms, they nevertheless continue to perform certain functions that are
necessary, useful (…) in public matters” (Dunn, S, 2009).
Nowadays trade unions memberships belong to the service sector (transports,
education) and the public sector encompasses all this sectors. While the public sector is growing
on number of memberships trade unions gains influence. However, public services tend to be
privatized (capitalism ideals and on the other hand socialism is not influent in Britain) and the
figures for memberships in private sector are decreasing.
The number of strikes - organised days to protest and not attend to work- is decreasing
too and other methods such as Work to rule - take orders by the “letter” being inflexible and
consequently slowing down production, Going slow – when employees work as slow as
possible, Picketing – when employees go to the firms front door showing banner and finally
Overtime Ban – it occurs when employees refuse to work overtime, slowing down production
had been implemented. They now prefer more diplomatic ways to deal a win-win situation to
firms and employees.
Another diplomatic way is the multicultural events, where memberships participate in
events not so “noisy” but with big impact – that includes colloquies and open space events.
To summarize, this essay covered important facts in trade union’s history and how it
influenced Britain’s society, economical and political sectors and how important it still is.
It also covers the principles of trade unions and its advantages and disadvantages.
Not as influent as it used to be, trade unions still have some margin to develop and
become more important that they are now. Trade union’s organisation has been also changing
and its way of operate has changed too, with a more political approach rather than social
expression.

6. Appendix
Trade union membership levels by sector, 1993 to 2009a 1.4 Thousands, not seasonally
adjusted
United Kingdom Great Britain
all male female
Private sector
1993 3,380 2,289 1,091
1994 3,432 2,374 1,057
1995 3,397 2,320 1,077
1996 3,301 2,240 1,061
1997 3,265 2,245 1,020
1998 3,353 2,254 1,099
1999 3,313 2,270 1,043
2000 3,309 2,240 1,069
2001 3,278 2,220 1,058
2002 3,191 2,164 1,027
2003 3,214 2,127 1,087

7. 2004 3,057 2,095 961
2005 2,996 1,980 1,017
2006 2,970 1,974 996
2007 2,914 1,926 988
2008 2,787 1,816 971
2009 2,612 1,687 926
Change from 1995 -785 -633 -151 -798 -637 -161
Change from 2008 -175 -129 -45 -198 -144 -54
Public sector
1993 3,624 1,614 2,009
1994 3,651 1,572 2,079
1995 3,728 1,607 2,121
1996 3,668 1,531 2,136
1997 3,635 1,477 2,158
1998 3,580 1,464 2,116
1999 3,668 1,479 2,189
2000 3,811 1,513 2,298
2001 3,768 1,473 2,294
2002 3,834 1,440 2,394
2003 3,901 1,484 2,418
2004 4,005 1,468 2,537
2005 4,060 1,495 2,565
2006 4,051 1,456 2,595
2007 4,091 1,453 2,638
2008 4,091 1,463 2,628
2009 4,102 1,435 2,667
Change from 1995 374 -172 546 355 -163 517
Source: Labour Force Survey, Office for National Statistics.

8. References
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Metcalf. .. London: London School of Economics.
Collings, D G and Wood, G, 2009. Human Resource Management: A critical Approach. 1st ed.
Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, Page 242
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Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Labour? Interpreting WERS 2004’, Industrial Relations Journal, 39 (2): 91–103.
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left. [Accessed 15 March 11].
Achur, J, 2009. TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP 2009. Department for Business Information
and Skills. National Statistics Publication: ..
Frank Hantke. 2009. Trade Unions in the 21st Century. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id/06672.pdf. [Accessed 10 March 11].

9. CIPD . 2011. Employee relations: an overview. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/employee-relations-overview.aspx. [Accessed 15
March 11].
Gall, G, 2005. The First Five Years of Britain’s Third Statutory Union Recognition Procedure.
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