Great item on Radio 4's 'Women's Hour' this morning, about the 1888 Match Girl's strike. The strike, and the sense of enthusiasm and optimism it provoked in working class people across Britain, helped lead to the development of 'New Unionism' - which opened up unions to millions of unorganised workers. You can listen to the item and get more links here - BBC - Radio 4 - Woman's Hour -Match Girls.

I used to help lead the TUC's 'New Unionism' project, which was set up in 1996 in an attempt to get unions focusing on how they could 'organise the unorganised'. Despite some success, unions still have a long way to go - at our current rate of growth it will take us some 240 years to get back to where we were in 1979. What do you think are the key challenges for unions? How can we begin to reach out to the 19 million or so British workers who aren't union members?