Organising strategy - mobilise or organise?

On 8th November I attended four fascinating meetings at the Historical Materialism conference with people from the USA and Canada discussing the plight of the labour movement and ideas for turning it round.

I found the debates really useful and there were a lot of ideas the British labour movement should engage with.  I've written up some of the key points as a series of three articles.  The first ("Mobilise or Organise?") is mainly about Jane McAlevey's ideas on organising strategy and has been published here.  The other two should be published over the next few days and will cover "Migration, the labour market and social reproduction" and "Reversing the decline".

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Union membership and wage premium for 2011

This week saw the publication of the latest report from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) on trade union membership - Trade Union Membership 2011.

Overall, the picture on union membership remains bleak, with the number of union members falling slightly (to 6.4m) and the "union density" (the proportion of employees who are in a union) falling slightly (to 26%).  There was a slight rise in union membership in the private sector.  Union density in the public sector rose slightly as non-members lost their jobs faster than members.

On a more positive note, the "union wage premium" (the difference between average hourly earnings for union members and non-members) continues to rise.  In 2011 the premium stood at 8% in the private sector 18% in the public sector.  This difference is partly explained by the difference in union density - only 14.1% of private sector workers were in unions compared to 56.5% of public sector workers.

Across the whole workforce, the average hourly earnings for a union member was £14.18 compared to £12.01 for a non-member - a difference of 18.1% which is worth pointing out when people question the value of union organisation.

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Union wage premium up for the second year running

Last year I posted on the increase to the "union wage premium", which is defined as the percentage difference in average hourly earnings of union members with non-members.

The new Trade Union Membership 2010 includes figures for the union wage premium based on wages in the last quarter of 2010. It shows the premium rose again in 2010, now standing at 16.7%, with union members earning an average of £14 an hour compared to £12 an hour ofr non-members. Predictably, the gap in the public sector, where union density (and therefore power) is higher, is greater, standing at 21.1% compared to 6.7% in the private sector.

It's interesting to see the sharp rise in the premium since 2008, which I would guess is thanks to union members faring better than non-members at resisting downward pressure on pay through the recession.

These figures deserve much greater prominence than they get - they represent a strong argument for union membership and make union subs (typically a fraction of 1% of pay) look like very good value for money.

The report also contains much that should concern trade unionists. The decline in the proportion of employees whose pay is affected by a collective agreement since 2007 is dramatic. In the public sector this has fallen from 72% in 2007 to 64.5% in 2010, and in the private sector from 20% to just 16.8%. This is much worse than the decline in union density (the proportion of employees in unions) which has declined from 27.6% to 26.3% in the same period, suggesting that the proportion of union members not covered by collective bargaining is growing. If this was the result of mass recruitment in unorganised workplaces, that would be one thing, but in the context of declining membership, it should sound alarm bells about workplace organisation.

Overall, the picture painted by the report is of unions being increasingly effective in defending workers' living standards, but failing to involve workers in that process and seeing their base dwindle as a result.

All the unions that took part in the strikes on 30 June reported significant numbers of recruits. Unions need to show working people that they are serious about resisting cuts and austerity if they are to grow and win - the idea that we grow first and then resist later flies in the face of the whole experience of trade union history.

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Union wage premium rises to 15.3%

It's worth taking a look at the latest official statistics on union membership. These are produced annually, based on the fourth quarter Labour Force Survey, so the latest report is based on the survey in the last quarter of 2009.

The report includes the 2009 figures for the UK "union wage premium", which is defined as the percentage difference in average hourly earnings of union members with non-members.

Across the UK as a whole, the union wage premium stood at 15.3%, with union members earning an average of £13.60 per hour, compared to £11.80 for non-members, a difference of £1.80 per hour. In just over six hours, this is enough to pay UNITE subs for a whole month!

In the public sector, where 56.6% of employees are union members, union members on average earned 19% more per hour than non-members.

In the private sector, where 15.1% of employees are union members, union members on average earned 5.1% more than non-members.

The fact that the premium exists is a good indicator of the value of union membership. The fact that the premium is so much higher where the proportion of employers who are in the union is higher is a good indicator of the value of strong union organisation.

It is also good to see that the union wage premium rose sharply in both public and private sectors last year, after a fall in 2008 as the recession bit.

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Indesit follows Electrolux to Poland

Indesit have closed their cooker factory near Stoke, moving production to Poland, getting their closure in before Electrolux and with far less visibility.

The UNITE/Amicus press release is full of the despair that many manufacturing workers and trade unionists feel. Stoke has been hit very hard by the decline of manufacturing. The company I work for, now Fujitsu, used to (when it was ICL) employ several thousand people manufacturing printed circuit boards in the area. The plants were outsourced, downsized and finally closed.

I do think the press release goes too far, however, talking about there being "no manufacturing" left. I hear the same from many trade unionists in Manchester, where I live, but the reality is a bit more complicated. Nearly all the big old manufacturing plants in Manchester are long gone - these are the plants that were the bedrock of the trade union movement in the city for decades until the 1980s. So union activists see none of the old names left and conclude there's no manufacturing left.

What's actually happened is a combination of:

1. The proportion of manufactured goods produced here has dropped (Electrolux and Indesit being just two of the latest examples)
2. Productivity in manufacturing has risen rapidly, so UK manufacturing employment has plummeted while many parts of UK manufacturing output has not declined. For example, jobs in car manufacturing have been devastated, but the remaining plants produce more cars than decades ago. These aren't always the plants people think of, many of which have gone, but there are big Honda, Nissan and Toyota plants in the UK.
   
3. The factories that remain are generally newer and/or smaller. As union recognition is generally established during periods of high industrial action, a high proportion of workplaces which have been set up since the 1970s are not effectively unionised. Smaller workplaces are also less likely to be unionised than large ones. The effect is that trade unionists are less aware of the factories that are currently operating than of the ones that we've lost.

I think "traditional" manufacturing in Stoke lasted a little longer than in Manchester. You can see from the 2001 census for the Stoke council area, over a quarter of workers were employed in manufacturing at that time, higher than the West Midlands as a whole, and far higher than England. The equivalent table for Manchester (the council area, not Greater Manchester) shows just over 10% employed in manufacturing. That's still a lot more than most union activists would guess though...

This might seem a bit obscure, but I think it's important to know what the problem is if you want to tackle it.

I'm not suggesting there are easy answers, but here are few thoughts:

• A shift in government policy to see manufacturing industry as an essential component of a viable economy.
• Better employment rights to make it harder for employers to up-sticks and leave.
• Better unionisation in manufacturing. Despite the stereotype, most manufacturing workers are not currently unionised (actually, the latest stats say only around 23% are in a union - below the average for the whole UK workforce)
  
• Stronger unions would open up more possibilities to fight job cuts, rather than just fighting for better redundancy money.
• Stopping the thin end of the wedge. Most companies cutting jobs to exploit low-paid workers offshore still require production, marketing, sales, distribution etc in the UK. Uniting those immediately affected with the rest must offer the best chance of success.
• Campaigning for more local production, linking with the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions.
  

What do you think?

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