Describe and critically assess the main challenges faced by trade unions in Britain today - Essay Example

?Introduction Statistics revealed that in 1979, membership was estimated to be 13.5 million representing 55 percent density. However, membership declined significantly to 6,780,000 representing 24.7 percent density in 2009 in Britain (Achur2009).The nature of trade unionism in Britain today has encountered troubling changes in the past decades. The employer’s agenda has overpowered the unions. They have been weakened and are unable to raise appropriate opposition and resistance to the strategies implemented by the employers. This has been brought about by declining membership caused by lack of government support and changing needs of workers among others. The problems began in 1980s following the entrance of Thatcher into the helm of Britain politics in 1979 and have extended beyond 1990s due to unavoidable social, economic and political changes that altered the labour market in the United Kingdom. Social, economic and political changes in Britain have interfered with the bargaining power of trade unions to champion for better pay, improved working conditions and obstruct alteration of existing pro-employee laws and regulations that protected the employees from unfair treatments of their employers (Heery 2002). Trade Unions in Britain have increased their efforts to increase it members of to trade unions but it proves a hard nut to crack. This is because the collective bargaining and the union power have been paralyzed. With the current membership decline among the unions, several questions have been raised concerning the impact of unions in the workplace. The main challenges faced by trade unions in Britain today The first challenge facing the trade unions in Britain is declining membership. According to Achur (2009), report from the Department for Business Innovation and skills revealed that the number of trade union members who were employed fell by 2.3 percent to 7.1 million members in 2008. Furthermore, there was a further decline of one hundred and sixty five thousand members in 2009. Reducing number of trade union members is disturbing because sustainability of trade unions in future is threatened. Reduction of membership is attributed to changes in various human resources and management practices of many organisations in the United Kingdom. Changes in human resources and management policies introduced practices such as team working, team briefings, quality circles and different profit sharing schemes. The new practices increased the levels commitment of all employees to their organisation. These organisations’ practices have paralyzed trade unions activities because it has made some of the members to withdraw from them. Therefore, trade unions are losing their bargaining power against employers and their influence among the workers is diminishing significantly (Kochan and Lansbury 1997). The second challenge facing the trade unions in Britain is political interference. When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, there were over thirteen million members of the trade union. At that time, trade unions influenced every from work related matters to politics. Thatcher was not happy about it and she chose to weaken them through reforms under the tinder-dry Norman Tebbit. The powerful and militant Trotskyite union leaders were stripped off power and the power was handed over to ordinary members of the union. The Lawson secondary picketing and strike ballots were also changed. As a result, the structure of the trade unions were significantly weakened (Opinion 2011). Since Thatcher’s time, labour laws in Britain have changed. Changes in labour laws have never been friendly to the trade unions. Trade unions have experienced weakening support from the government as politics change. The conservative government also in the United Kingdom enacted policies and legislations that weakened the trade unions. This is evident when conservative government gave management of the organisations authority over the employees through change of labour laws (Waddington 2003). Therefore, the level and capacity of legal support for trade unions reduced significantly and this has contributed significantly to declining unionised activities in the United Kingdom. The labour reform of 1990, led to creation of parallel and diverse source of funding the unions. This parallel and diverse funding mechanism weakened the scope of mobilising union members. Consequently, the trade unions failed to secure critical changes in industrial policy of the United Kingdom (Bach 2002; Waddington 2003). Because of lost opportunity for the trade unions to make major changes in labour legislation during Tony Blair times, there was some fighting between the Labour Party and the trade unions during Tony Blair’s second term in office. Following the tussle between Tony Blair and the trade unions, rail, marine and transport unions were expelled because they supported non-unionised labour candidates. Because the government and labour laws do not provide adequate support to trade unions, most employees are resisting trade unions’ proposals. Some employers are even decentralizing collective bargaining of workers against the efforts of the trade unions. This has lead to dramatic decrease in collective bargaining in Britain. The third challenge that faced the trade unions was gradual removal of the wage premiums of employees who were members of trade unions. The premium fell from 10 percent in 1980s to 5 percent in 1990s. Consequently, when the advantage of trade union’s members reduced as compared to those of nonunionised members, the members began withdrawing their membership. Globalisation is the fourth challenge that hampered growth and progress of trade unions in Britain. Trade unions in Britain still have their structures fixed on the nation state even though it has been in existence for several years. In the era of globalization, the unions in Britain still have narrow scope of transnational unionism. The inflexibility is not acceptable in the capitalist state because social justice and regulations have changed (Blanchflower 2007). According to Beale (2003), globalisation has weakened trade unions. The global changes witnessed in last three decades in have brought a lot of changes in work force composition in Britain. There has been free movement of workers from and to Britain. Some unionised employees moved out of Britain to other countries. Once they were out, they were no longer members of the unions. Furthermore, according to (Waddington and Hoffmann 2000), initially, minority groups who were immigrants were encouraged to join trade unions because they were most affected by unfair employment practices due to discrimination. However, the number of workers migrating to Britain has decreased significantly and this has negatively affected unions significantly. A demographic change is the fifth challenge that impacted negatively to trade unions. Three decades is long enough for major demographic transformation to occur. Employment composition changed within three decades, children grew to adults and other unionised members got old and died. The younger generation has lost interest in the unions unlike the older generation and chose to remain non-unionized (Waddington, 2006). The proportion of younger workers in trade unions is lower as compared to older workers, especially those above 46 years of age. Young people found it hard to adjust to trade unions’ rules and regulations. Currently in Britain, majority of the union members are from the public sector and not the private sector, yet private sector has a lot of employees. Membership has greatly also become feminized, and most of the union members are the retired and the unemployed. The union cannot undergo renewal as the young and the minorities are no longer interested in it. In addition, majority of the members occupy managerial, professional occupations. Hence, great emphasis is on identities of individual membership rather than collective. The sixth challenged that have impacted negatively to trade unions is macroeconomic instability in Britain. Britain just like any other country has experienced hard economic times. The hard economics period spread to all sectors and affected labour markets adversely. This led to decline in the Britain’s economic growth and productivity. Hard economic times were caused by high inflation rates emanating from oil shocks witnessed from 1970s to date. The hard economics times increased unemployment rates as companies and other organisation laid off workers. For example, hard economic conditions have impacted the manufacturing sector negatively. Waddington and Hoffmann (2000) revealed that the manufacturing sector in Britain has contracted significantly as a result of macroeconomic instability caused by various economic crises such as financial crisis and diminishing demand for manufactured goods. Decline witnessed in the manufacturing sector has also caused increase in unemployment rates in the sector. This impacted negatively to the members of trade unions who lost their jobs in the process. The seventh challenge of trade unions is discrimination of women in trade unions. The decline in the membership growth has also been attributed to variations in the unionisation rate between men and women. This has been attributed to the employment segregation. The situation has not changed much even with the presence of trade unions and most women did not see the need of joining the trade unions. Furthermore, the commitment of women in different activities of the union is not recognized and this demoralise women further. According to Hoffman (1997), the union’s social changes that took place in 1980s and 1990s did not recognized women’s efforts and this caused the younger women to behave in an individualized manner. Eighth, trade unions have suffered due to their own inefficiencies. Membership decline in trade unions has resulted from both the external threat and internal inadequacies in the unions. It has been noted that most potential members have remained individualized than before. Legislation and trade union reforms require trade unions to shift their focus from group package to individual package. This has made it difficult to meet the needs of every member. Individualization requires the trade unions to focus on every individual member with an appropriate package. This package consists of needs that every member wishes meet. This implies that the package will remain varied depending on the potential member’s industrial location, profession, and individual characteristics. The demand for individualisation packages places excess demands to the trade unions and may be extremely difficult to meet the needs of each member. Internal inadequacies among unions have also contributed to the decline. Most trade unions have not been able to implement various reforms that are necessary in adjusting to the current conditions. Trade unions still apply various traditional ways. Ineffectiveness of union organization has been witnessed in the workplace and in the whole society. Most potential members have viewed union membership as being less attractive. Trade unions are also viewed as old fashioned and too formal. Kelly (1996) revealed that the interest of younger people to join trade union were suppressed by formalities that exists in trade unions. They are also viewed as being dominated by middle-aged men and its leadership is perceived as being unrealistic with the current realities in the workplace. Ninth reason why the trade unions are weakening is dwindling resources available to conduct union activities. As the members of the union declines, the amount of money contributed by the remaining members is not adequate to enable the trade unions to perform their roles accordingly. Furthermore, the trade unions are not receiving sufficient support from the government as before. Since Thatcher took office in 1979, trade unions in Britain are not receiving the much support and government patronage it had prior to 1979. Without government support, little can be done to improve the situation. Conclusion Trade unions have faced different challenges in the Britain. These include, decline in membership, the decline has been attributed to the alteration of practices in the human resource and management in most of the organisations. The second challenge is political interference. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher introduced reforms to weaken the trade unions influence. This led to powerful union leaders losing their positions. The unions have also been affected by gradual removal of the wage premiums of employees who were members of trade unions. The premium is estimated to have fallen from 10 percent in 1980s to 5 percent in 1990s. Most members withdrew their membership when their advantage of being on trade unions reduced compared to that of non-union members. The fourth challenge is globalization. This has interfered with the growth of trade unions in Britain. The fifth challenge is the impact of demographic change. The unions encountered demographic transformation in the past three decades. The young generations have no interest in unions and choose to remain non-unionized. Macroeconomic instability also impacted the trade unions in a negative manner. The tough economic times experienced in Britain had adverse effect on the labour markets. The hard economic times increased unemployment rates as companies and other organisation laid off workers. Discrimination of women also contributed to the challenges faced by unions because men still get some preferential treatment. Inefficiencies have also posed challenges to the unions in Britain. Both the external threats and internal inadequacies have contributed to the union membership decline. Finally, the scarce resources do not enable unions to organize renewal of membership as required. Bibliography Achur, J 2009, TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP 2009, 12 April, 2011, < http://stats.bis.gov.uk/UKSA/tu/TUM2009.pdf>. Bain, G & Elias, P 1985, ‘Trade union membership in Great Britain: an individual level analysis’. 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