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Trade Union Recognition in Britain: An Emerging Crisis for Trade Unions? Gregor Gall Economic and Industrial Democracy 2007; 28; 78 DOI: 10.1177/0143831X07073030 The online version of this article can be found at: http://eid.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/78

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Trade Union Recognition in Britain: An Emerging Crisis for Trade Unions? Gregor Gall University of Hertfordshire

This article examines recent developments in union recognition in Britain and assesses the influence of the statutory union recognition provisions contained in the Employment Relations Act 1999 upon the gaining of union recognition and the capacity of unions to take advantage of this more favourable legal environment. It details the significant increase in new union recognition agreements, concluding that the new law is one among a number of factors explaining this growth. However, the impact of the rise in new agreements is found to have made a negligible impact on aggregate union recognition coverage, indicating the limitations to union capacity to significantly increase coverage with a more favourable environment at hand.

Keywords: Britain, trade unions, union organizing

Introduction The statutory provisions for gaining union recognition in Britain, contained in the Employment Relations Act 1999 (ERA), came into force on 6 June 2000 and represent the third such statutory mechanism for gaining union recognition to be introduced (Gall, 2003a: 15–16). The provisions enable independent trade unions to apply for statutory union recognition where they have at least 10 percent of the proposed bargaining unit in membership, where a majority of workers in the proposed bargaining unit favour their terms and conditions of employment being determined by collective bargaining (usually evidenced through a petition), and where existing voluntary recognition of another independent union does not exist (see also Gall, 2003a: 13–14). An application resulting in Economic and Industrial Democracy & 2007 Arbetslivinstitutet, Vol. 28(1): 78–109. DOI: 10.1177/0143831X07073030 www.sagepublications.com


Gall: Trade Union Recognition in Britain

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statutory union recognition can be gained through two routes after meeting the aforementioned preliminary conditions. The first concerns simple majority membership through an independent audit of union membership. The second concerns a ballot where the union must win not only a simple majority of votes cast but this number must also be equivalent to at least 40 percent of all those entitled to vote in the bargaining unit. Consequently, reluctant or resisting employers can now be compelled by law to engage in representation and negotiation with trade unions, allowing an elementary level of workplace codetermination of the employment relationship and the terms and conditions of the wage–labour exchange to emerge (Gall, 2003a: 6–8). But despite the existence of the statutory provisions, the creator of the legislation, the ‘new’ Labour government, made it clear that it wished to see the use of the provisions as a recourse of last resort. This position was entirely in keeping with ‘new’ Labour’s neoliberal induced minimal interventionistcum-voluntarist predilection to industrial relations. In tandem with this, trade unions have been vociferous critics of the overly ‘business friendly’ nature of the statutory provisions, whereby reluctant and resisting employers have been able to engage in lawful ‘union busting’ activities within the statutory framework. The creation of the third statutory union recognition provisions resulted from a long process of union lobbying. This began with a small number of unions winning over the union movement, through its peak organization, the Trades Union Congress, to the policy of advocating a statutory mechanism. From here, the Labour Party was then won over to this policy position. The dynamic compelling trade unions to espouse such a policy, and thus overturning their traditional advocacy of collective laissez-faire, was their industrial weakness as a result of emboldened and unilaterally minded employers. Consequently, successful union efforts to resist the withdrawal of recognition – called derecognition – in existing workplaces and to gain recognition in new and greenfield workplaces was very limited. The wider backdrop to this was the disorganization and demobilization of trade union presence and power. Across the measures of union membership, collective bargaining coverage and strike activity, unionization weakened and atrophied, particularly in the private sector of the economy and especially in the private services subsector. This article critically examines the ability of the trades unions to take advantage of the relatively more favourable legal and public


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Economic and Industrial Democracy 28(1)

policy environment indicated by the ERA. Prima facie, there is much evidence that unions have been able to take advantage of this new situation and benefit from it. Since 1995, when it became likely that the Labour Party would win the next general election and legislate on its policy to establish a statutory mechanism for gaining union recognition where there was majority support among the workforce, the industrial relations climate began to change, influenced by the imminence and then presence of the statutory mechanism. Moreover, from 1995, trade unions in Britain also began adopting ‘union organizing’ strategies to organize previously unorganized workers and workplaces. Consequently, just over 3000 new union recognition agreements have been signed, covering around 1.2m workers, between 1995 and 2005 (see note to Table 1) as a result of the enmeshing of the two processes. Prior to 1995, the seven years between 1988 and 1994 yielded some 435 new union recognition agreements, covering some 42,000 workers (Gall and McKay, 1994: 444–5). Thus, the annual average for the period 1995–2005 of 273 new agreements per year (with just under 80,000 known new workers covered) compares to the average of 62 new agreements per annum (with just under 6000 known new workers covered) for the period 1988–94. This article examines the significance of the growth in the new recognition agreements and considers the environment and contexts of the campaigns from which these agreements were gained. It concludes by suggesting that despite the evident union success in gaining the new agreements, using a wider lens to judge this achievement indicates that there exist a number of important limitations to current union organizing capacity. Union organizing capacity refers to the quantitative and qualitative aspects of a union’s ability to unionize and organize workers and represent their interests through collective bargaining after having gained union recognition. This ability centres around the financial, ideological, organizational and personnel resources and expertise that a union has or can bring to bear on a particular situation. Of particular importance are the relative numerical preponderance and motivational drive of the milieux of workplace (lay) activists to the carrying out of the recruitment and organizing, and the number of union full-time officers (FTOs) who are dedicated to, or spend a considerable amount of their time, recruiting and organizing.



81

For trade union-orientated audiences outside Britain, particularly those in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US, the salience of this examination of current developments in trade union recognition in Britain lies in three aspects. The first concerns the efficacy of the outcome of the implementation of ‘union organizing’ approaches, strategies and techniques, given the parallel existence of a turn to ‘union organizing’ in these other countries. The research reported here suggests that on a national scale and despite the not inconsiderable human and financial resources devoted to ‘union organizing’, the goals of union renewal and growth still remain elusive, a conclusion that has much in common with the renewal and growth projects in these other countries. The second aspect concerns the evaluation of the benefit to trade unions of a new statutory provision for gaining union recognition where, broadly speaking, similar mechanisms exist in these other countries but where the wider sociopolitical environments are markedly different (see Gross, 2003; McArthur, 2004). The salient point to emerge here is that not only are the nature and complexion of statutory union recognition mechanisms influenced and determined by contending social interests and dynamics, and the balance thereof between them, but that statutory union recognition mechanisms are constrained by the environmental contexts into which they are inserted. The third aspect revolves around whether, and to what extent, such union activity and components of the terrain on which unions operate are helpful in stemming union decline and revitalizing union movements in these countries. Previous debates on union fortunes have discerned a dialectical relationship between union agency and societal structuration. At present, union agency may be seen to remain sufficiently weak and constrained as to be unable to overcome the inhospitable forces and environment in which it finds itself.

Methodology The data for this research are derived from a number of sources. The first is material from the LRD/TUC (1996–2006) Trade Union Trends surveys on union recognition. Starting in 1995, these surveys, compiled from questionnaires sent to unions, cover on average 81 percent of the TUC’s affiliated membership (see Table A1 in Appendix). Second, over 80 semi-structured interviews were con-


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ducted with regional field and national FTOs from the 15 major unions in Britain, with a membership of 5.4 million workers or 73 percent of union members. The FTOs from these unions were interviewed in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002. Those interviewed in 1999 were reinterviewed in subsequent years while new officers were interviewed in 2000 and 2001. Each new ‘interviewee’ was reinterviewed in subsequent years. The third source is information provided by the major employers’ federations, through either interview or correspondence. The fourth is the monitoring of the journals of the 30 largest unions and of secondary industrial relations sources for 11 years, 1995–2005. Lastly, the determinations of the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) and the Labour Court in Northern Ireland, the state bodies that adjudicate on applications for statutory union recognition, were used – 485 applications had been made by the end of 2005. From these sources, data were collected on the number and character of new recognition agreements as well as the processes by which, and contexts in which, they were signed. The data are, thus, extensive in their coverage but not inclusive of all new agreements and relevant developments because of poor information gathering and record keeping (as well as poorly disseminating and publicizing the data) within the different levels of unions, particularly at the national/headquarters level. It is, however, more inclusive of actual developments than any other data set. For example, the Trade Union Trends surveys report on only those agreements and campaigns that were identified to it through its surveys.1 Other deals, which may be known of, are thus not reported. Further, although the percentage of unions that respond to the Trends surveys of affiliated membership is high, this still means that many unions have not responded to each survey. The effect of these characteristics is offset by the use of the other data collection methods for this research, in particular interviews and monitoring union journals. However, again the poor record keeping within unions means that it can be said with certainty that not all agreements and campaigns are known of. Similarly, not all the details of reported agreements and campaigns are known. What the exact degree is of overall ‘underreporting’ it is impossible to state. But this research’s data are, nonetheless, the most inclusive of any existing data on such developments (cf. Moore et al., 2004: 13; Blanden et al., 2006).


3, 88 3, 86 3,109 3,128 3,365 3,525 3,685 3,388 3,259 3,239 3,131 ,3003

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Total

27,404 (64) 26,377 (64) 24,509 (75) 39,820 (68) 130,446 (265) 156,745 (452) 122,033 (425) 201,053 (224) 78,053 (206) 39,702 (208) 27,388 (81) 873,530 (2133)

Known Numbers Covered by New Recognition Deals (from Number of Cases)

66 54 31 7 11 4 5 9 4 2 4 197

Number of Cases of Derecognition

15,931 (42) 16,851 (46) ,4362 (17) 41,432 (4) ,1210 (9) ,1700 (3) 41,108 (1) 41,760 (3) 41,100 (1) 41,340 (2) 41,000 (0) 41,454 (126)

Known Numbers Covered by Derecognition Deals (from Number of Cases)

n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 0% 3% 5% 8% 6% 7% n/a

% Cases Where CAC Application Used to Gain Voluntary Agreement n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 1% 3% 9% 12% 13% 21% n/a

% of Deals Which are CAC Awards

n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 1% 6% 14% 20% 19% 28% n/a

% of New Recognition Deals Where CAC Used Directly or Indirectly

Note: By taking the known number of workers covered from 71 percent of the new agreements and averaging up from this for the remainder, around 1.2 million workers are covered by all the new agreements. n/a ¼ not applicable.

Source: See Methodology.

Number of New Recognition Deals

Year

TABLE 1 New Trade Union Recognition Agreements, 1995-2005

Gall: Trade Union Recognition in Britain 83


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Trends in Union Recognition Agreements and Union Recognition Coverage It is clear from Table 1 that there has been a significant increase in the last nine years in the number of new recognition agreements being signed by trade unions. Concomitantly, the phenomenon of union derecognition appears to have been almost eclipsed. This stands in the context of cases of derecognition being of greater significance, despite being matched by cases of new recognition agreements, in the early 1990s (Gall and McKay, 1999). Table 1 also indicates that the vast majority of new agreements are voluntary agreements, signed in the shadow of the ERA, but without recourse to it. However, alongside the recent considerable growth in new agreements, it is also apparent that the high point in terms of the number of new agreements – represented by the year 2001 – is now over. The post-2001 level of annual agreements shows indications of settling down to the 1998 level, i.e. before the statutory mechanism came into force and before the ERA was put on the statute book. Of note also is that the level of reliance of trade unions on the CAC to secure recognition has increased from 6 percent in 2001 to 28 percent in 2005, particularly where most of this concerns statutory awards (see Table 1). This suggests that the terrain on which union recognition may be gained is getting harder, that is, the targets of union recognition are increasingly less receptive and increasingly more hostile. The trend in the annual rate of signing of new union recognition agreements is matched by the picture emerging from the state body, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), through its casework in terms of volume of cases and successful resolution of cases for trade unions with regard to union recognition (see Table 2). ACAS can arrange to test the union density via membership audits or the support for union recognition by organizing ballots in a way that is similar to the CAC. Proportionately, and from 1999, the extent of the use of ACAS to help secure union recognition rose from 21 percent to 31 percent in 2001 before falling back to 21 percent in 2003, suggesting that there are increasingly fewer relatively more receptive employers to union recognition, for accepting ACAS involvement is voluntary and dependent upon employer agreement. The data in Table 1 represent only one aspect, albeit an important one, of how the current level and coverage of union recognition can



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TABLE 2 Trade Union Recognition Claims Involving ACAS, 1999–2004 Year

1999–2000 2000–1 2001–2 2002–3 2003–4 2004–5

Number of Submitted Cases

Completed Cases

Successful Cases

Success Rate

Percentage Full Bargaining Rights

n/a 384 385 308 236 234

148 264 337 170 131 n/a

78 174 216 112 56 n/a

52% 66% 64% 66% 73% n/a

67 92 n/a 85 92 n/a

Source: ACAS Annual Reports (2000–2005) and communication with ACAS. Note: n/a ¼ not available.

be assessed. Table 1 represents an ‘input’ to the aggregate level of union recognition while closures of establishments with union recognition as well as redundancies among workers covered by union recognition represent ‘outputs’. Meanwhile, growth in the number of new establishments (and their workers) without union recognition and the recent increase in the number of workers in the heavily unionized public sector constitute further ‘inputs’. Between 1997 and 2005, 1.1 million jobs were ‘lost’ in manufacturing (The Guardian, 17 March 2005, 5 December 2005), one of the two heartlands of trade unionism, the other being the public sector. In the public sector, the level of employment grew by 0.719 million between 1998 and 2005 (NSO, 2005). Far less common have been cases, like Virgin Airlines, of employing organizations that have recently granted union recognition expanding the number of workers they employ (see Moore et al., 2005: 31). On this basis, data from the Labour Force Survey (see Table 3 [Grainger, 2006: 39; Grainger and Holt, 2005: 36]) indicate that the impact of the new union recognition agreements is likely to have been marginal to the aggregate level in the period 1999–2005. Another means of assessing the impact of the tranche of recent union recognition agreements upon aggregate levels of collective bargaining coverage can be derived from a breakdown of the Labour Force Survey data. Between 1999 and 2003, the number of union members covered by collective bargaining over their pay and conditions rose from 5.4 million to 5.5 million, while the number of union members not


86


covered by collective bargaining over their pay and conditions remained at 1.6 million (Metcalf, 2001: 32; 2005: 21). Meanwhile, the number of non-union members covered by collective bargaining over their pay and conditions rose from 3.1 million to 3.3 million and the number of non-union members not covered by collective bargaining over their pay and conditions rose from 13.6 million to 14.0 million (Metcalf, 2001: 32; 2005: 21). Thus, and overall, the process of unfolding developments in union recognition coverage can be viewed to be like a set of revolving doors, where while some workplaces and workers ‘enter’ through the doors, other workplaces and workers ‘leave’ through the same doors. In the period of (relative) substantial growth in new union recognition agreements (1999–2004), the impact of the number of unionized workers affected by redundancy and the number of workers in newly established non-union workplaces has been a greater influence on the aggregate coverage of union recognition than that of workers being brought under new recognition agreements for the first time. Further, as big a positive impact on the input side of the equation of union recognition coverage is likely to be recorded by the increase in the number of public sector workers. In addition to this, other data, such as the time series the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (Millward et al., 2000) and Workplace Employment Relations Survey (Kersley et al., 2005) (Table 4) and the annual British Social Attitudes surveys (Table 5), indicate the considerable decline in both union recognition and collective bargaining coverage over a longer period. Despite the slight increase in the British Social Attitudes survey data between 2000 and 2002, collectively the two data sets suggest that the extent of union organizing and the impact of the statutory mechanism on the gaining of union recognition would have to have been far greater than has been the case to exert a sizeable positive impact on the overall coverage of union recognition (workers covered, workplaces covered). Finally, the British Social Attitudes survey data also indicated that the proportion of employees who reported that unions were not recognized for negotiating on pay and conditions in their workplace rose from 33 percent in 1983 to 46 percent in 2003 (Kaur, 2004: 18).



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TABLE 3 Union Recognition Coverage from the Labour Force Survey, 1993–2005 Year

No. of Workers Covered by Recognition

% of Workers Covered by Recognition

No. of Workers Whose Pay is Affected by Collective Agreements

% of Workers Whose Pay is Affected by Collective Agreements

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

10.42m 10.374m 10.226m 10.141m 10.032m 10.081m n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a

48.9 48.2 46.8 45.8 44.3 43.5 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a

n/a n/a n/a 8.243m 8.198m 8.177m 7.274m 7.269m 7.215m 7.273m 7.236m 7.225m 7.054m

n/a n/a n/a 37.2 36.1 35.3 36.2 36.3 35.7 35.7 36.0 35.0 35.3

Source: Grainger (2006: 39) and Grainger and Holt (2005: 36). Note: After 1998 the LFS questions were changed so continuing data on the 1993–8 questions on union recognition are not available. Data on the number of employees whose pay is affected by collective agreements are the best available proxy to those covered by union recognition. n/a ¼ not available.

Aspects of Limitations to Union Capacity While the union movement has striven to take advantage of the new legal remedy to cajole and force employers to grant union recognition through a significant increase in both union organizing and union recognition campaigns (Heery et al., 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2003), the extent to which unions have been able to make progress can be assessed in a number of ways. Setting aside any legitimate criticisms that may exist of the implications for unions of the restrictive nature of the statutory union recognition provisions (see later), a number of initial observations are useful to contextualize an assessment. First, out of 6729 recognition campaigns run between 1995 and 2005 that were identified from the research undertaken for this


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Economic and Industrial Democracy 28(1) TABLE 4 Coverage of Union Recognition and Collective Bargaining

Year

% Establishments Covered by Union Recognition

% Workforce Covered by Union Recognition

% Establishments Covered by Collective Bargaining

% Workforce Covered by Collective Bargaining

1980 1984 1990 1998 2004

64 66 53 42 27/30

n/a n/a 54 62 48/50

n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a

n/a 70 54 41 n/a

Sources: Column B: Millward et al. (2000: 96), Kersley et al. (2005: 13); Column C: Millward et al. (1992: 107), Cully et al. (1999: 92): Column E: Cully et al. (1999: 242). Note: The first figures for 2004 are those which are commensurate with the previously used question. The second figures for 2004 are those where managers were now asked if unions were recognized even where there were not believed to be any union members in the workplace (resulting from industry-level agreements or extension of recognition to new areas of an employing organization). n/a ¼ not avilable.

article, the success rate for campaigns to date has only been 40 percent. The measurement of ‘success’ is based on the winning of union recognition within the time period, for merely gaining members in a non-recognized workplace severely limits the extent to which a union can represent its members’ interests vis-a-vis the employer without union recognition. For example, in the Liverpool, North Wales and Irish region of the GMB union, of 63 recognition campaigns run between 1999 and 2001, only seven gained recognition by 2002 and only four remained as campaigns thereafter. One inference that could be drawn from this is that the number of new agreements signed is merely a factor of the much larger number of campaigns run where the unions must, on average, run five campaigns to gain success in every two campaigns (Gall, 2003b). However, one caveat needs to be added. In cognizance of the considerable time that is often required in which to gain recognition (see Table 13), some of the campaigns, particularly those begun in the latter part of the period 1995–2003, are likely to be successful after 2003. Second, the Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) Employment Trends Surveys (Table 6) recorded that employers, both in relative and absolute terms, have anticipated considerably fewer


63

66

62

1985

62

1986

62

1987

58

1989 58

1990 58

1991 56

1993 54

1994 55

1995 50

1996 50

1997 49

1998

47

1999

48

2000

47

2001

49

2002

49

2003

Note: The question on union recognition was not asked in either 1988 or 1992.

Sources: Alex Bryson, Policy Studies Institute, pers. e-mail comm. from British Social Attitudes surveys, 24 March 2004 and Harjinder Kaur, DTI, pers. e-mail comm. from British Social Attitudes surveys, 20 July 2005.

1984

1983

TABLE 5 British Social Attitudes Surveys: Percentage of Workers in Workplaces with Recognition



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recognition claims from trade unions after 2001.2 Similarly, the Trade Union Trends surveys also indicate a quantitative decline in the number of recognition campaigns run and the number of workers covered by these campaigns (see Table 11). The data are consistent with the rise then fall from a minority to a majority and then back to a minority of unions in the Trade Union Trends surveys reporting that they had signed more than one new union recognition agreement between 1997 and 2005 (Table A1). Employment lawyers Dibb Lupton Allsop (2005: 6) also commented in its annual industrial relations survey that ‘Trade union activity in relation to the seeking of and achieving of new recognition agreements . . . appears to be faltering.’ Third, the increasing use of the statutory procedure by unions to gain recognition has become more marked (see Table 1, last three columns). This is noticeable as unions have been widely critical of its challenging aspects such as the high membership and worker support required thresholds, the complex and long, drawn out procedure, and the three-year bar on rejected applications. As a result, unions did not anticipate using the statutory procedure to any great extent, and only as a last resort. The growing usage, relative to the number of new recognition agreements gained, suggests that unions are increasingly facing more resistant employers, and consequently require extra-workplace national union help like legal support to gain union recognition from such employers. TABLE 6 Employers’ Perception of Recognition Claims, 1998–2004 Year

Received

Expect/Anticipate (no. of Employers)

Number of Respondents

Survey Response Rate

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

n/a n/a 13% 9% n/a n/a n/a

10% (67) 13% (98) 12% (99) 7% (49) 9% (85) 5% (29) 10% (52)

671 830 829 673 940 581 520

14% 17% 17% 14% 10% 6% 8%

Source: CBI (1998–2004). n/a ¼ not available.


75 102 119 139 133 125 102

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2005

32,000 53,000 78,000 108,000 106,000 112,000 97,000

Numbers Employed

‘minority’ 44 47 49 52 n/a 44

Percentage of Organizations with Union Recognition

n/a n/a 44 47 47 55 n/a

n/a n/a n/a 68 74 69 n/a

Percentage of Percentage of Organizations Workers Covered Where Collective by Union Bargaining Covers Recognition ‘a High Proportion’ of Employees

n/a 54 70 n/a 66 n/a 66

Percentage of Workers Covered by Collective Bargaining

Note: No data for trade union recognition or collective bargaining were included in the 2004 IDS survey. Survey data from IRS (2001: 10, 2003: 32, 2005a: 30) show a broadly similar picture. Of 143 organizations surveyed, employing 53,570 employees in 2001, 52.2 percent recognized a union for collective bargaining. In 2003, of 153 organizations, employing 111,659 employees, 50 percent recognized a union for collective bargaining, and in 2005, of 191 organizations employing around 150,000 employees, 47 percent recognized a union for collective bargaining. n/a ¼ not available.

Source: IDS (1998–2003, 2005).

Number of Organizations

Year

TABLE 7 Union Recognition in Call Centres, 1998–2005



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Fourth, the industrial sector distribution of the new union recognition agreements remains heavily slanted, by number of agreements and workers covered, to the manufacturing sector (see Gall, 2004a, 2005a, 2005b). Union targets in the ‘new economy’ and the private services sector like large, multi-site and well-known employing organizations such as T-Mobile and Vodafone telecommunications, and retailers like Marks and Spencer, high-street betting shops and Egg internet bank remain elusive to the gaining of union recognition despite long, ongoing and resource-intensive campaigns. Although the picture concerning the extent of union recognition in call centres (see Table 7) looks to be relatively favourable towards trade unionism, the nature of the Incomes Data Services (IDS) surveys compromises this. The IDS surveys predominantly cover the larger call centres and those within larger organizations, and its respondents are primarily concentrated in long-standing employing organizations in already well-unionized operations in telecommunications, former public utilities, banking and finance and the public sector. Consequently, the picture for unions here continues to be one where they have scored relatively little success in breaking into the call centre part of the ‘new economy’ or the private services sector. The same broad picture emerges from the Industrial Relations Services (IRS) surveys (see note to Table 7). An examination of further data from the LRD/TUC Trade Union Trends surveys (Tables 8 and 9) suggests, inter alia, that employers’ willingness to grant union recognition is increasingly concerned with specific union recruitment campaigns and higher membership density rather than the innovative and legal influence of the ERA, and that trade unions recognize this. But unions’ willingness to launch union recognition campaigns is derived largely from selfinitiated increases in union membership in the workplace (Table 9). These data, in tandem with Tables 10 and 11, suggest that employers are increasingly insisting on unions meeting the stipulations of the statutory process within the voluntary area, that is, 50 percent plus union density in membership audits and, where ballots are conducted, attaining 50 percent plus of the votes, which also equates to at least 40 percent of all those entitled to vote. Indeed, the use of the ERA thresholds by employers in the voluntary arena has led unions to aim to gain substantial majorities above these minimum levels in order to counter any employer antipathy or ambivalence. Tables 10 and 11 also indicate that substantial proportions of successful campaigns (respectively 55 percent and 45 percent)


6%

8%

25%

25% 22% 16% n/a

1998

23%

53% 44% 34% 19%

1999

10%

45% 41% 34% 24%

2000

12%

71% 80% 72% 79%

2001

Note: Respondents can enter one or more reasons or none, producing totals greater or less than 100 percent. n/a ¼ not available.

Source: Trade Union Trends (1996–2005).

26% 9% 17% n/a

41% 17% 23% n/a

After union approach to employer Following an increase in membership After a union recruitment campaign Due to new legal right to recognition (actual/impending) Following a change in management/ownership

1997

1996

Reason

TABLE 8 Reason for Gaining Recognition, 1996–2004

3%

74% 54% 73% 34%

2002

11%

56% 54% 66% 32%

2003

19%

69% 71% 78% 76%

2004



33% n/a 40% 20% 8% 12% 4%

Following an increase in membership Due to new legal right to recognition (impending/actual) After union approach to employer Following a change in management/ownership Following privatization and derecognition Following a change in bargaining arrangements Following an employer approach to the union

29% n/a 32% 16% 10% 9% 6%

1997 31% n/a 31% 13% 14% 5% 6%

1998 51% 39% 26% 8% 14% 8% n/a

1999 58% 56% 28% 26% 16% 15% n/a

2000

Note: Respondents can enter one or more reasons or none, producing totals greater or less than 100 percent. n/a ¼ not avilable.


1996

Reason

TABLE 9 Reason for Recognition Campaigns, 1996–2003

55% 53% 28% 21% 6% 9% n/a

2001

53% 32% 22% 15% 1% 6% n/a

2002

57% 35% 36% 12% 3% 8% n/a

2003

94 Economic and Industrial Democracy 28(1)



95

comprised over 60 percent union density or 60 percent worker support in union recognition ballots. Overall, it can be suggested that the influence of the ERA has been to raise the bar for recognition in the voluntary arena, where previously there was no one standard threshold. Nonetheless, it is noticeable that compared to data for the density at which union recognition was gained between 1995 and 2002 (Gall, 2004a: 263), the data for 1995–2005 (Table 10) show that the proportion of new agreements gained with high densities (> 70 percent) has declined from 34 percent to 28 percent, and the proportion of new agreements gained with low densities (10–49 percent) has risen from 25 percent to 31 percent. With the addition of very little retrospective new data for 1995–2002, the changes reflect the increasing reliance of the trade unions on the statutory procedures for gaining new recognition agreements. In successful statutory recognition ballots, union density need only be 10 percent at a minimum so long as there is evidence of majority worker support (through a petition, for example) for collective bargaining. Tables 12 and 13 indicate that not only are the vast majority of union recognition campaigns conducted among small to mediumsized employing organizations but that the vast majority of new union recognition agreements are also won among small to mediumsized employing organizations. Indeed, Table 13 shows that the new recognition agreements per year are now covering fewer numbers of workers not just because there are fewer agreements but TABLE 10 Union Recognition Granted 1995–2005: Known Union Density Level (n ¼ 523) Densiity

Number of Cases

% of Cases

> 90% 80–89% 70–79% 60–69% 50–59% 40–49% 30–39% 20–29% 10–19% 0–9% Total

40 46 58 102 100 55 45 37 25 15 523

8 9 11 19 19 11 9 7 5 3 100

Source: Data gathered from fieldwork (see Methodology).


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Economic and Industrial Democracy 28(1) TABLE 11 Known Ballot Results where Recognition Gained, 1995–2005

Level of Support for Recognition

90–100% 80–89% 70–79% 60–69% 50–59% 40–49% 30–39% 20–29% No. of ballots for which data exist

Turnout in Vote for Ballot by Recognition Number of by Number of Ballots Ballots

37 46 45 36 25 5 0 0 194

101 74 35 22 14 9 0 0 255

Overall Support Overall Support: for Recognition Percentage of in Workforce Cases (% Turnout % Vote for Recognition) by Number of Ballots 8 17 23 36 51 34 19 1 189

4 9 12 19 27 18 10 0.5 100

Source: Data gathered from fieldwork (see Methodology). Note: Overall support level results from ‘turnout’ multiplied by ‘vote for’ where data exist or where just overall level of support known. The number of ballots (voluntary and statutory) held annually since 2000 (when the statutory mechanism came into force) that have led to new union recognition agreements are as follows: 46 (year 2000), 67 (2001), 44 (2002), 33 (2003) and 24 (2004). This means that the number of new agreements gained per annum by ballot has varied between 9 percent and 13 percent. In addition some 43, largely statutory ballots were held in this period that did not lead to union recognition.

because the numbers of workers covered by the agreements are getting fewer. The pattern of proportionately more smaller and fewer large new union recognition agreements by the number of workers covered found in the mid-1990s has been returned to by the early 2000s after a period of proportionately more larger and fewer smaller agreements. While these trends might be expected, given that the numerical majority of employing organizations are of a small to medium workforce size (< 250 employees), that a greater number of larger employing organizations have not been targeted to date and that union recognition has not been won among a greater number of larger employing organizations suggests that unions will find it difficult to significantly increase the aggregate coverage of union recognition. Winning recognition in large (> 500 employees)


1122

n/a


563

25% 30% 28% 10% 5% 2% 0% 0% 106 59,680 (106)

1998

495

43% 22% 17% 12% 3% 0% 3% 0% 143 70,872 (143)

1999

383

27% 27% 33% 11% 2% 0% 0% 0% 149 34,870 (91)

2000

598

25% 20% 29% 10% 7% 7% 2% 0% 144 89,178 (93)

2001

257

n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 104 24,981 (97)

2002

405

n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 94 33,992 (84)

2003

137

n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 16 2200 (16)

2004

192

42% 24% 15% 15% 0% 3% 0% 0% 46 6228 (33)

2005

31% 21% 23% 12% 6% 4% 2% 1% 96 (958) 43,083 (430,835 (N ¼ 760)) 525

1995–2005 Average/ (Totals)

Note: Figures for 2002–4 are not available from the surveys because only those campaigns with in excess of 50 percent membership were listed. n/a ¼ not available.


35% 17% 17% 5% 9% 9% 4% 4% 97 108,834 (97)

30% 9% 17% 19% 8% 8% 3% 6% 59 n/a

1–50 51–100 101–250 251–500 501–1000 1001–5000 5001–10,000 >10,001 No. of campaigns Known no. of workers covered/(from no. of cases) Av. no. of workers

1997

1996

No. of Workers

TABLE 12 Number of Workers in Each Campaign, 1996–2005


412

428

1% 326

30% 26% 31% 7% 2% 3%

1997

24% 11% 18% 24% 13% 8% 1% 1% 585

1998

495

22% 18% 22% 12% 16% 9% 1%

1999

26% 28% 21% 12% 5% 5% 2% 1% 346

2000

43% 23% 16% 10% 2% 4% 1% 1% 287

2001

34% 26% 18% 10% 5% 5% 1% 1% 890 (488)

2002

36% 20% 22% 11% 5% 4% 1% 1% 378

2003

191

45% 24% 15% 9% 4% 3%

2004

338

34% 22% 24% 10% 5% 5%

2005

34% 21% 22% 11% 6% 5% 0.81% 0.5% 425 (388)

1995–2005 Average

Note: In 2002, the TGWU signed a national enabling agreement with an employer covering 90,000 workers whereby local recognition agreements are then to be worked out. If this deal is excluded, the average number of workers covered in 2002 falls dramatically and also has some effect on the 1995–2004 average.


40% 14% 26% 8% 3% 8% 1%

35% 17% 31% 6% 4% 6% 1%

1–50 51–100 101–250 251–500 501–1000 1001–5000 5001–10,000 >10,001 Av. no of workers

1996

1995

No. of Workers

TABLE 13 Number of Workers Covered by Each New Agreement, 1995–2005 (N ¼ 2133)

98 Economic and Industrial Democracy 28(1)



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employing organizations is generally more of a challenge for trade unions by virtue of the greater number of sites and shifts to be organized across. Another indication of the potential difficulties unions are experiencing concerns the length of time taken to gain union recognition, with the implication that, on average, longer successful campaigns will require greater amounts of resources than shorter, successful campaigns where union resources are relatively limited. Table 14 highlights that where recognition was won, 58 percent of campaigns were successful within two years and 42 percent of successful campaigns took more than two years to come to fruition, with 30 percent taking more than three years. One ‘positive’ reading of this is that recognition was gained in a short period of time in a majority of cases. However, and taken with the data on the success rate of recognition campaigns, another reading is that if recognition is not gained within two years, the prospects of doing so thereafter are very poor. Nonetheless, it is noticeable that compared to data for the length of time taken to gain new union recognition agreements between 1995 and 2002 (Gall, 2004a: 262), the data for 1995–2005 (Table 14) show that the proportion of new agreements gained within a year has declined from 26 percent to 25 percent, while the proportion of new agreements gained after between one and four years has risen from 46 percent to 50 percent. With the addition of very TABLE 14 Known Length of Successful Union Recognition Campaigns, 1995–2005 (N ¼ 475) Years

Number of Cases

1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10+ Total

120 157 57 22 16 7 13 20 10 8 45 475

% of Cases 25 33 12 5 3 2 3 4 2 2 9 100



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little retrospective new data for 1995–2002, the changes reflect the increasing length of time unions are expending on gaining new recognition agreements. Moreover, and where recognition was achieved after two years, substantial union lay and FTO resources have been necessary to sustain the campaign and to secure a return on the initial resource investment. The frequency of incidents of employer anti-unionism and the number of employers using anti-union tactics where employers have faced union recognition campaigns have increased significantly over the period 1995–2005 (see Table 15). Incidents of employer anti-unionism comprise tactics of union suppression like victimization and sackings and tactics of union substitution like works councils and higher-than-expected pay rises. The level of employer anti-unionism falls from its high point in 2002 to a level commonly found in the mid-1990s by 2005. This is explicable by the increasingly fewer number of recognition campaigns run by trade unions. Of critical importance is that union recognition campaigns were successful in fewer than 30 percent of the employing organizations that deployed these tactics (see also Gall, 2004b). Furthermore, of the 836 recognition campaigns identified in the Trade Union Trends surveys run between 1997 and 2003, employers in 37 percent of cases where membership density was 50 percent or above, which TABLE 15 Frequency of Incidents of Employer Opposition to Union Recognition Campaigns, 1995–2005 (N ¼ 1180) Year

Totals

Number of Employers Using Tactics

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Totals

35 55 78 113 143 160 163 203 162 75 60 1247

18 31 52 68 85 107 101 113 105 57 45 782

Source: Data gathered from fieldwork (see Methodology) (see also Gall, 2004b).



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TABLE 16 Non-Union Employer Attitudes towards Trade Unionism, 1998–2004 Issue

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

Anti-unionism a Anti-unionism b Number of non-union employers

82% 78% 30

78% 81% 21

83% 74% 97

59% 52% 47

67% 53% 51

n/a 26% 96

n/a 28% 104

Source: Dibb Lupton Allsop (1998–2004). Note: Anti-unionism a – respondent agrees that being required to recognize a trade union would be detrimental to the organization. Anti-union b – respondent agrees that recognizing a union would damage the employment relations structure in the organization. A similar diminishing degree of hostility to trade unionism is identified in the same questions to partly unionized employers, that is, those with a minority of their workforces covered by union recognition. The UK Business Barometer survey of 162 predominantly small employers in January 2004 found that 64 percent would resist the lowering of the minimum numerical threshold of 21 employees for eligibility to apply for statutory union recognition. n/a ¼ not avilable.

would permit a statutory award of recognition, refused recognition, accounting for 100,000 workers out of 500,000 covered by recognition campaigns in this period (Gall, 2004b). However, one countervailing point is that the Dibb Lupton Allsop (1998–2004) annual industrial relations surveys of non-union employers indicate that employer hostility to trade unionism continues to fall (see Table 15). This suggests that a normalizing impact, resulting from the recent growth in the number of new union recognition agreements, may be taking place. But because the Dibb Lupton Allsop data are derived from relatively small samples of non-union employers (see Table 16, last row), considerable caution must be taken in making a definitive judgement here.

Discussion For heuristic reasons, the implicit position underlying the preceding assessment of both union organizing activity and the utility of the ERA to trade unions in Britain has been that the union movement should, by deploying both, be able to halt, if not reverse, the decline in the coverage of union recognition. Indeed, the union movement should be seeking to generate the conditions for a mutually


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reinforcing ‘virtuous circle’ between union recruitment and union recognition (Bain and Price, 1983: 18), where an upward spiral is created. Rather, and in practice, the most appropriate characterization of trade unions in Britain vis-a-vis union recognition and union membership (see also Table A1 in Appendix, fourth column) between 1995 and 2005 would be ‘running very fast merely to stand still’. In 1995, union membership stood at 7.07 million (29.0 percent density). In 2005, it stood at 6.67 million (26.2 percent density) (Grainger, 2006: 15). More tellingly, union density in this period in the private sector fell from 24.0 percent to 17.1 percent (Grainger, 2006: 17), meaning that the private sector has increasingly become non-union (as in the US). Only public sector union membership recorded a small absolute increase in the period (although it experienced a decline in density). Indeed, Tony Woodley, the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) general secretary and a leading exponent of ‘union organizing’, recognized this when he judged that despite the number of organizing initiatives the union movement was ‘struggling to stand still at present’ (Morning Star, 13 February 2004; see also Metcalf, 2005: 23). Thus, the resource inputs have been large but the output gains relatively meagre. The little comfort that the unions can take from this is to counter-factually ask how much less would be the extent of union recognition coverage if union organizing had not been carried out. There are three aspects to such an assessment, concerning trade union resources, employer opposition and the pro-union strength of the statutory provisions. All have a direct bearing on union organizing capacity, and their present complexion and collective configuration suggest significant limitations on capacity. Trade unions have organized more recognition campaigns in the last 10 years than at any time since 1979. On the one hand, the relatively low success rate suggests that they may need to consider more strategically which campaigns they mount with a view to raising their ‘strike rate’. However, the genesis of recognition campaigns militates against a high degree of strategic choice for most recognition campaigns develop from (aggrieved) workers approaching unions and not vice versa (Gall, 2004a; and Table 8). On the other hand, and despite the increased resources given over by unions in recent years to union organizing of non-union workers and recognition campaigns, the relatively low success rate suggests that if this absolute success rate is to remain unchanged then unions will



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have to organize many thousands more recognition campaigns to win hundreds more recognition agreements. Here, a key resource weakness for unions is not only the quantitative decline in the size of the lay activist milieux from around 500,000 in 1980 to 230,000 in 20033 but also the qualitative decline in the level of activism and motivation among lay activists. Activists are now less able to be active because of reductions in time provided by employers for conducting union business at work and less inclined to be active in their own non-work/out-of-work time. The specific salience of this decline is fourfold. First, there is a limited amount of organizing and recognition campaigning that the 3000 FTOs in Britain can carry out and there are limited amounts of union financial resources that are available to increase the number of FTOs for this purpose. So far, only the TGWU appears to be prepared to spend significant sums on ‘union organizing’ in the way that the Service Employees’ International Union in the US has done. Second, there is the unfulfilled demand for union representation through union recognition of the 2.8 million non-unionized workers who desire union representation or would be very likely to join a union if one were available to them, and the 1.6 million workers who are union members but are not covered by recognition (Metcalf, 2003: 38). The pertinence here is that union activists are necessary to locate, recruit and organize these potential members. Third, the cost of recruiting and organizing new members in nonunion workplaces is sufficiently high (Heery et al., 2000b), because it is often done by FTOs, that additional surplus from these new members is either low or non-existent. This means that inflows of new resources are not being created to recruit further members in non-union workplaces. Lastly, the fragmentation and now decomposition of the social democratic and socialist projects have both reduced the size of the traditional pool from which lay union activists are traditionally drawn and dampened the motivational drive of those that remain as activists. Employer opposition to granting further union recognition now appears qualitatively more important than at any time in the last 10 years. This situation arises because the initial increase in new union recognition agreements reflected the relative ease unions had in signing new agreements in the light of the imminence or actual presence of the new legal provisions by using their existing stock of ‘strong cases’. Strong cases are defined as those workplaces where union membership was/is in excess of 60 percent density,


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membership attachment to the union high and membership participation significant. However, and having used up their strong cases, unions are experiencing difficulty in creating further strong cases and are encountering entrenched anti-unionism among the remaining non-union employers which they target. In essence, the potential for new agreements with the less hostile employers has been largely expended while the remaining and reduced scope for new agreements is to be found among the more hostile employers.4 Indeed, although the extent of cases of such employer anti-unionism vis-a-vis union recognition campaigns has declined recently (Gall, 2004b), this is a factor of fewer campaigns being run, which itself reflects the importance of underlying anti-unionism among those employers where trade union members exist. Setting aside the validity of any union criticism of the ERA,5 the third statutory recognition mechanism in Britain has had a considerable positive impact on the number of new agreements signed, but only a marginal effect on the aggregate coverage of union recognition. This assessment of the overall impact of the third statutory recognition mechanism is consistent with the limited impact of the previous statutory recognition mechanisms that operated between 1971 and 1974 and 1976 and 1980 (Gall, 2003a). The common characteristic of the three statutory mechanisms, notwithstanding significant differences, is their insertion into an industrial relations system of voluntarism or ‘collective laissez-faire’ and a stated preference by lawmakers for parties to reach voluntary settlements to recognition issues before taking recourse to the statutory mechanism. Indeed, the CAC will only accept an application where the voluntary route has failed. Calls by the trade union movement for significant reform of the statutory mechanism have concentrated on reducing the exacting nature of a number of the membership and support thresholds and removing a number of barriers as well as creating the offence of an ‘unfair labour practice’. While these measures would be of some benefit in gaining further new recognition agreements and in the ease of doing so, it can be seriously doubted whether they would allow further significant numbers of new recognition agreements to be gained because of employer anti-union and non-union policies and practices. Even the creation of the offence of ‘unfair labour practice’ following the review of the ERA (Labour Research Department, 2004) only pertains to cases that are the subject of accepted CAC applications and, thus, not employer actions in the



105

voluntary arena. Consequently, employer use of unfair labour practices may prevent unions being in a position to make applications to the CAC. While the project of ‘union revitalization’ in Britain, and embodied in ‘union organizing’, has become (relatively speaking) increasingly more widespread in recent years and has witnessed innovation in union form and practice (Heery et al., 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2003), renewal in the manifest fortunes of unions has not been so marked. Absolute and relative membership levels, along with aggregate union recognition and collective bargaining coverage, have not experienced any form of ‘resurgence’. Rather, they have shown a degree of stability at vastly lower levels following many years of substantial annual decline. What wider conclusions can be drawn from this? Under the broad internationalized project of renewal, trade unions in Britain have probably performed in relative terms at least as well as their contemporaries in the US (see Clawson, 2003: 15; Fiorito, 2003: 202–7; Jordan and Bruno, 2006: 182; Katz, 2001: 346) who began their turn to ‘union organizing’ in advance of unions in Britain. One comfort that British unions can draw is that their union renewal project started (and remains) at a higher baseline than that found in the US. Such an overall trajectory for unions in Britain would not seem to equate, for the time being, to either ‘dissolution’ or ‘perdition’ (see Metcalf, 2001, 2003, 2005). Indeed, by again posing the counter-factual question, ‘How much worse would the situation be in Britain if unions had not engaged in ‘‘union organizing’’?’, we may get a better sense of the positive, if nonetheless, limited impact of recent union revitalization work in Britain. Nonetheless, the technical and bureaucratic rationalist bent of ‘union organizing’, as a ‘top-down’, centralized exercise employing full-time officials as the fulcrum of renewal, and as practised in Australia, Britain and the US, raises the issue of whether such an approach complements or substitutes itself for the primary underlying dynamic of trade unionism, that of being a social movement (see also Carter, 2006; de Turberville, 2004; Gall, 2006). So, a mainstay of evaluating ‘union organizing’ may not be just whether it is appropriate by virtue of the size and scale of the human and financial resources ploughed into it. Rather, it may be to suggest that renewing and growing the networked grassroots activist base of trade unionism is at least as important and this may be usefully approached through deploying social democratic or socialist ideologies, which seek to attain social justice within


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and without the workplace. This may be one route to ‘squaring the circle’, namely, for unions to engage not just in ‘organizing’ renewal but also in ‘political’ renewal so that union activists as the key milieux and agency have both the practical and ideological tools to produce widespread, secure and deep-seated ‘union renewal’.

Appendix TABLE A1 Data on Trade Union Trends Surveys Year

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Averages

Number of TUC Affiliates’ Members Covered

4.690m 5.031m 4.661m 5.673m 6.146m 6.134m 6.116m 5.548m 6.088m 4.600m 5.200m 5.444m

Percentage Percentage of Total TUC of TUC Respondent Affiliated Affiliates’ Unions which Membership Members Signed at Least Covered One Recognition Deal 68% 74% 69% 84% 91% 90% 91% 83% 91% 71% 81% 81%

n/a n/a 24% 24% 43% 53% 51% 56% 64% 32% 37% 42%

6.898m 6.799m 6.756m 6.754m 6.764m 6.816m 6.721m 6.685m 6.690m 6.423m 6.452m n/a

Total Trade Union Membership in Britain

7.070m 6.918m 6.911m 6.890m 6.911m 6.924m 6.846m 6.840m 6.820m 6.784m 6.677m n/a

Source: Trade Union Trends (1996–2006). Total TUC membership figures from TUC (1996–2004, 2005, 2006) and total trade union membership figures from Grainger (2006: 15) and Grainger and Holt (2005: 12). Note: Data for 1996, 1997 and 1998 Trade Union Trends surveys on union recognition averaged from biannual surveys. n/a ¼ not avilable.

Notes 1. For example, the TUC Trade Union Trends surveys between 2000 and 2004 reported 1280 new union recognition agreements. As a percentage of the agreements reported on within Table 1, and on an annual basis, this represents 61 percent of the total number of agreements for these years.



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2. The IRS (2005b: 9; 2006: 12) HR Prospects surveys reported similarly low levels of anticipated recognition claims. 3. Data from TUC union reps website; at: www.tuc.org.uk (accessed 12 August 2004). 4. Although speaking of applications for statutory recognition, the comment by the CAC (2002: 8) is apposite for the voluntary arena too because it identifies a significant phenomenon: The time may not be that far off when the unions will have, in practice, a limited number of new potential targets each year for . . . recognition among British employers, once the backlog of opportunities already existing . . . has been worked through. 5. It is interesting to note that employers and some lawyers working for employers opine that the CAC procedure is too ‘union friendly’ (People Management, 7 March 2002, 27 January 2005; Financial Times, 3 March 2005).

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Gregor Gall is Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Hertfordshire and director of its Centre for Research in Employment Studies. He has authored The Meaning of Militancy? Postal Workers and Industrial Relations, The Political Economy of Scotland, Sex Worker Union Organising and edited Union Organising: Campaigning for Trade Union Recognition and Union Recognition: Organising and Bargaining Outcomes.
