Whilst everyone else is waiting for the publication of the Sue Gray report, your blogger has noticed today's annual publication of the official report on trade union statistics.
There's not a lot of change, although the recent trend to small increases in union membership has been reversed in 2021. The proportion of employees that were union members has also fallen this year, with a decrease of 0.6 percentage points to 23.1% in 2021. This follows a 0.2 percentage point increase to 23.7% in the previous year. Employee numbers overall rose in 2021, so this fall in employee union membership density is a consequence of both rising employee numbers and falling union membership among employees.
Women are more likely than men to be trade union members. However, the proportion of female employees who are members of trade unions decreased by 0.9 percentage points to 26.3% in 2021, its lowest rate since 2018. The number of UK female employees who were union members fell by 60,000 to 3.66 million in 2021, falling from the record high of 3.72 million in 2020. The fall in female membership makes up 97% of the total fall across all employees. Meanwhile, the proportion of UK male employees who were in a trade union in 2021 decreased marginally to 20.0%, representing a new low across comparable statistics going back to 1995. Membership levels for male employees decreased by 2,000 on the year to 2.78 million in 2021.
Black workers are more likely than white workers to be trade union members, although this is not true for Asian workers. The proportion of employees who were trade union members was highest in the Black or Black British ethnic group (29.0%), followed by the White ethnic group (23.3%). Trade union membership density was lowest among the ‘Chinese or other ethnic group’ employees, at just 15.3%. Mixed and Asian and Asian British Employees made up the middle ground at 20.6% and 20.3%, respectively, but both were below the national average (23.1%).
These differences by race and gender probably reflect the distribution by gender and ethnicity of the workforce between more and less unionised sectors. The proportions of employees who belong to a trade union were highest in the Education sector at 49.4%. Followed by Human health and social work activities (39.2%), public administration and defence (38.6%) and transportation and storage (36.6%) all being significantly higher than membership density across all employees (23.1%).
Older employees make up a larger proportion of trade union members than younger employees. Of employees who were trade union members in 2021:
- 4.3% were aged between 16 and 24.
- 19.8% were aged between 25 and 34
- 34.8% were aged between 35 to 49, and
- 41.1% were aged 50 or older.
That the likelihood of an employee being a trade union member increases with age accords with the data showing that employees who have longer lengths of service with an employer are more likely to be a member of a trade union. 24.9% of employees who were trade union members in 2021 had between 10 and 20 years of service, while those with tenure of 20 years or more accounted for 22.5% of total employee union membership. These are significantly higher than the percentages comprised of those with less than 1 year and between 1 and 2 years of service tenure at 7.4% and 6.4%, respectively (Table 3.1).
Trade union density varies considerably across the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. Wales had the highest proportions of employees that were trade union members at 35.6%, followed by Merseyside (32.6%), Northern Ireland (31.4%) and South Yorkshire (31.3%). Inner London had the lowest proportion of workers affiliated to a trade union at just 14.7%, with the South East (17.4%) and Outer London (19.9%) not far behind.
These figures are similar to what we have seen over recent years. Our trade union movement is ageing and, if not shrinking, then certainly not growing in a healthy way. The same challenges we have faced for the past few decades continue to confront us.
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