Unions Follow

A recent report shows an increase in trade union membership last year. Sadie Robinson looks behind the figures at who’s signing up, where and why

I started working in the voluntary sector in 1994. We were expected to work all hours. 

Unions are more diverse than we are often told. Firstly black workers are more likely to be in unions than white.

More workers were members of trade unions in Britain last year than in 2011, according to new government figures.

The queen’s speech outlined plans to make it easier for bosses to ignore discrimination in the workplace.

Over 40,000 teachers converged on the Danish capital Copenhagen on Thursday of last week in a magnificent demonstration of defiance against a savage employers’ offensive.

For around 6.5 million workers in the UK, being in a union is a recognition that we need organisations to defend us at work. Over 2.5 million of us in the public sector enthusiastically struck together in defence of our pensions on 30 November last year.

Forty years ago this June saw one of the biggest industrial disputes of the 20th century. Builders began their first national strike since 1924.

The Building Workers Charter had been formed in 1970 and the paper soon had a sale of tens of thousands on the sites, with a much wider circulation.

Picketing may seem a very strange thing to do at first.

Picketing has an important history in the trade union movement.

If you are on strike you have a legal right to picket "to peacefully communicate with and seek to persuade colleagues" not to go in to work.