Union Membership maybe on the Decline

Government figures have revealed that Trade unions have suffered their largest fall in membership for nine years. The statistics reveal that 28.4 per cent of UK workers are now unionised, a fall of a 0.6 percentage point from the previous year.

Private-sector staff are largely responsible for the drop. Only one in six workers (16.6 per cent) in the private sector were union members in 2006, down a 0.6 percentage point from 2005. Trade unions were present in 86.8 per cent of UK public-sector workplaces.

The TUC denied that the unions were in terminal decline, saying membership had roughly stabilised since 1997, total numbers are now estimated at 7.4 million workers.

The research also revealed that for the third year running, a higher proportion of women (29.7 per cent) were part of a union than men (27.2 per cent). In 1992 the figures were 32 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.

Ben Willmott, CIPD adviser, employee relations, said greater statutory protection for the individual had lessened the need for collective protection of rights.

The report, Trade Union Membership 2006, can be found at www.dti.gov.uk/publications