Recruitment - and the threat of competition

It was reported to yesterday’s meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) that UNISON had grown by 29,000 member (2%) in 2006.

Every Region except Greater London experienced net growth (although London is actually the best recruiting Region, it has the highest turnover of members.

General Secretary Dave Prentis expressed concern under this item about the merger of T&G and Amicus (the new union is provisionally entitled Tea and Jamicus I understand…)

Dave was concerned that the new Union would aim to compete with UNISON for recruitment in the public sector in order to compensate for the continuing decline in trade union density in the private sector. Whilst this is no doubt true, I can’t help feeling that the big challenge to our movement is the majority of workers who are not members of any trade unions.

Mind you, I hope that the new union does focus on organising the unorganised rather than squabbling with other unions over the minority of workers who are already organised!