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The informal sector is expanding in the developing countries while the formal sector is shrinking. The loss of employees through workforce reduction strategies has adversely affected trade union membership in Ghana. To make up for the loss of members, the trade unions recruit the informal workers into their fold. Using in-depth interviews, this study explores trade union organization of informal workers and the suitability of these forms of organization within the informal sector in Ghana. The results indicate that formal trade unions are desperately adopting traditional methods and structures to organize informal workers into their fold without success. There is therefore the need for the informal workers to self-organize and for the trade unions to create streams of membership for affiliation.

At the end of 1984, the Certification Officer listed 365 trade unions in Britain with a total membership of 10,753,993. Eighty‐nine of these organisations were affiliated to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) whose total membership at that time was 10,082,144 (p. 47), (p. 1). There are no up‐to‐date figures providing the numbers of full‐time officers and lay officials of TUC unions currently. But an estimate by the TUC in 1973/74 suggested that there were about 2,800 full‐time officers in affiliated unions at that time. There were also 400,000 voluntary officers in union branches or at their places of work, with an annual turnover of 20 per cent (p. 2). Given that TUC affiliated membership was just over 10 million at 31 December 1973, it can reasonably be assumed that there are similar numbers of full‐time officers and voluntary office holders today. The potential education and training needs of these 3,000 paid officials, but especially of the 300,000 work‐place representatives and 100,000 branch officials, as well as those of millions of trade union members generally, are very large indeed. And, given the limited resources available to satisfy them, they can only be marginally addressed by the trade union movement.

The purpose of this paper is to examine why and how the Trades Union Congress (TUC) – the labour movement's peak body, “think tank” and exemplar – engages in alliance building with civil movements and groups. In particular, it investigates: the rationale for such; the nature of the alliances and the extent to which they inform TUC revival efforts or a new approach to trade unionism.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with eight senior TUC personnel. Most interviewees provided documentary evidence to elaborate on their comments. The dimensions of a thematic analysis of this and web site evidence were structured to reflect the above areas of inquiry.

The findings are that: interest in the TUC and labour movement in alliance building with civil groups is building at all levels; TUC engagement with, promotion of and guidance on civil alliances is largely emergent and sporadic; notwithstanding this, certain parts of the TUC have increased its promotion of and to a lesser extent direct engagement with alliances. It also is shown that: such engagement looks likely to continue to grow as a feature of other revival strategies and there is little assessment of whether alliance building can help strengthen the British labour movement.

The findings inform the paper's discussion of potential TUC and union revival purpose, policy and practice.

This paper provides an in‐depth empirical study of the TUC's involvement in alliance building with other social movements and groups. Policy‐maker and practitioner interest in such is growing rapidly, particularly in light of the debatable effectiveness of familiar British union revival strategies.

This article examines the impact of the 1997‐2001 Labour Government’s public policy on British trade unions. First, the ideologies of New Labour and New Unionism are considered; second, the TUC’s relationship with the Government is discussed, by reference, one, to procedural and, two, to substantive interests; and, last, the value of the relationship to the trade unions will be assessed, by examining two of the four problem areas identified by Minkin as determining the unity of the Labour Movement, i.e. ideological compatibility and satisfaction of unions’ interests.

The purpose of this paper is to look back on 150 years of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and reflect on the recent challenges to organised labour.

Places unions in their current context and discusses how they have responded to the challenge of declining membership.

With declining membership levels and the lack of a “silver bullet” solution, unions continue to face many challenges, although there is some light at the end of the organising tunnel.

This paper introduces the special issue which reflects on 150 years of the TUC.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how the UK’s Trade Union Congress, in the 150th year of its formation, has been responding to the significant changes in the labour market, working practices and union decline. The paper considers Trades Union Congress (TUC) initiatives to recruit and organise new groups of workers as it struggles to adapt to the new world of work many workers are experiencing. Although the paper reviews progress in this regard it also considers current and future challenges all of which are becoming increasingly urgent as the current cohort of union membership is aging and presents a demographic time bomb unless new strategies and tactics are adopted to bring in new groups of workers – particularly younger workers.

This is a review paper so it mainly draws on writings (both academic and practitioner) on trade union strategy and tactics in relations to organising approaches and in particularly the TUC’s initiatives from the period of “New Unionism” onwards.

The authors note that while unions have managed to retain a presence in workplaces and industries where they membership and recognition, there has, despite a “turn to organising” been less success than was perhaps hoped for when new organising initiatives were introduced in 1998. In order to expand the bases of organisation into new workplaces and in new constituencies there needs to be a move away from the “institutional sclerosis” that has prevented unions adapting to the changing nature of employment and the labour market restructuring. The paper concludes that in order to effect transformative change requires leaders to develop strategic capacity and innovation among staff and the wider union membership. This may require unions to rethink the way that they operate and be open to doing thing radically different.

The paper’s value is that it provides a comprehensive overview of the TUC’s role in attempting to inject an organising culture with the UK union movement by drawing out some of the key debates on this topic from both scholarly and practitioner writings over the last few decades.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

The demand of the trade unions and the TUC in September 1978 for an orderly return to responsible free collective bargaining was translated into action by the unfettered use of the strike weapon. It was exercised by the stop stewards at local levels to support demands for wage increases ranging from ten to fifty per cent. It belied order and responsibility. It belied economic sense in a climate when inflation had been reduced to single figures but productivity was around two per cent. The disruption to national life and the economic loss sustained by the country caused the Government and the TUC to pose the question, what is to be done? Since the TUC has no powers of control over its member unions, although it can exercise exhortation, it seemed the time was ripe for a joint declaration. This was issued in Feb. 1979 and considered by the General Council of the TUC. The nineteen page document is inelegantly called ‘The Economy, the Government and Trade Union Responsibilities’. As might be expected, it is a mixture of general observations, particular advice to the trade unions, and a powerful belief in the efficacy of the close and constructive partnership of the TUC and the Government.

Examines the provision of trade union training for health and safety representatives in the UK. Bases research on a 1995 European survey of provisions for education and training in health and safety offered by trade unions in eight European countries and allows for some inter‐country comparisons. Focuses on some of the influences that have helped to shape provision including the introduction of new legislative provisions for employee representation. Describes developments in Britain with reference to the TUC Regional Education Programme, sources of funding and the likely impact of new legislation extending representative rights in health and safety to all employees. Shows that trade unions make an important contribution to health and safety training, particularly through the TUC Regional Education Programme. In Britain as in other European countries, training is identified as an important supportive factor in promoting the effectiveness of employee health and safety representatives. It is possible to identify a common pedagogy of trade union education in health and safety whose characteristics are applicable internationally and which may be linked to effective actions by health and safety representatives in their workplaces.

The authors examine the lack of trade union membership in building societies. To form conclusions as to reasons for this lack of representation they look at the period from 1971. The emergence of staff associations and the employers' obvious reluctance to allow TUC union representation in their organisations are held to be responsible in part. The authors then discuss TUC unions' current strategies such as mergers with staff associations, and consider the possibilities for the future.