The past and future of trade unionism

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to offer a broad practitioner’s overview of recent trade union history in the UK, and to investigate organised labour’s prospects in the decades ahead.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on a review of relevant literature and trade union documentation from the period 1964 to 2014.

Findings

This paper concludes that the past 50 years has been a period of change and turbulence for the movement, and suggests that this is likely to remain the case in the decades to come. Although external political and economic factors will have a significant bearing on unions’ prospects, the paper argues that unions remain powerful agents of change in their own right and that a revival of organised labour is not beyond question.

Originality/value

The paper is written with unique practitioner insight from the UK’s trade union centre.

Citation

Nowak, P. (2015), "The past and future of trade unionism", Employee Relations, Vol. 37 No. 6, pp. 683-691. https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-04-2015-0064