Back to the Blog

Pressures of work, home and everything else mean I've been neglecting this blog over the last couple of months. As I'm now reading the diaries of Samuel Pepys, I'm resolved to get back into the groove for posterity's sake- though I'm not sure that they'll still be selling copies of these posts in 400 years time, but worth a try! (If you haven't read Pepys by the way you should. Shows you how much, and how little, things have changed in 400 years - this is a man who went to Church for the express purpose of checking out the women in the congregation, and who constantly complains about his inability to fart...). Those of you who still read this blog can be assured that I'm not intending to keep you up to date on the state of my bowels.

While I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front there's been lots of interesting stuff on the unions front - including this article (and ripostes by Tony Woodley and Peter Kenyon) in the FT. One of the immediate points that jumped out of me when I read the original article was the claim that '[union]membership halved in the last 25 years'. While this is factually true, the reality is that membership nearly halved between '79 and the mid-90's, and has in fact since then been fairly static. This may seem a small point but its a significant one, because its simply not true to try and characterize trade union membership in such negative terms. The LFS survey figures out next week are again likely to show that union density is at last beginning to stabilise - an achievement in itself after year on year decline. Of course this doesn't mean that unions can relax or have any room for complacency - but I think its does mean we can have a bit more grounds for optimism than the Coats and Milburn article suggests. (I'm also not sure you can connect membership revival with breaking the union/Labour link - but maybe that's one for another day.)

All this matters because I think that just as its important for trade unionists not to walk round in rose tinted specs, its equally important that we don't talk ourselves into a sense of despair. Yesterday I was in Taunton for the latest B2O briefing with a group of 3o or so union officers, organisers, reps and stewards from across a range of TUC affiliated unions - all working day in day out, doing what they can to make things better for their colleagues and work-mates. While everyone at the briefing was well aware that unions face challenges (not least about how we reach out to younger workers and into the private sector) I didn't pick up any sense of 'doom or gloom' or that unions are somehow fated to decline.

6.5m people still think we have a job to do - and I agree with them.