Union Business: Trade Union Organisation and Financial Reform in the Thatcher Years

by Paul Willman , Tim Morris , Beverly Aston

• ISBN13: 9780521153133
• ISBN10: 0521153131
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-10
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

It is fashionable to speak of trade unions in the UK as organizations in decline. However, it is their organization and, in particular, their financial status, that ultimately dictates unions' ability to survive, recruit and influence employers. This book provides the first systematic picture of union financial status for thirty years, and reveals a dramatic picture. Though, overall, unions have become financially less healthy in the postwar period, many unions experienced an improved financial position during the membership contraction of the Thatcher years. The authors also show that the long term financial decline of unions has been affected more by competition among unions for membership, than by the effects of traumatic industrial disputes.

Table of Contents

Introduction: unions in the 1980s

The financial status of British trade unions 1950-1989

Financial differences between unions

The role of financial matters in union organisation

The politics of union finances

Union size, growth and financial performance

Strike activity and union finances

The National Union of Mineworkers: strikes and financial disaster

The GMB: merger and financial reform

The Amalgamated Engineering Union: back from the brink

The Banking, Insurance and Finance Union: competitive unionism and financial survival

The Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Trade Union: accountability and financial control

Conclusions: union business and business unionism

Appendices

References

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