Union density steady again

Union membership is rising in line with the growth of jobs despite large-scale redundancies in some well organised industrial sectors.

The latest Labour Force Survey statistics on trade unions show that membership rose by 60,000 in the year to Autumn 2000. This means that "union density" - the proportion of employees in unions and staff associations - stayed level at around 29% (see box). This figure has remained steady for the last three years.

TUC general secretary John Monks welcomed the news, saying: "The decline through the '80s and most of the '90s has been halted."

A TUC analysis of the figures found that the total increase in union membership is mainly accounted for by women part-timers, where union membership soared by 10% to 100,000. Density for this group rose from 21% to 23%.

1989 1998 1999 2000 All employees 39.0 29.6 29.5 29.4 (excluding self employed)

Male 44 31 31 30

Female 33 28 28 29

Full-time work 44 33 33 32

Part-time work 22 20 20 21

Manual workers 44 30 29 29

Non-manual workers 35 30 30 30

Production 45 31 29 29

Services 38 30 31 31

Less than 25 employees 19 15 15 16

25 or more employees 49 37 37 36

Public sector N/A 61 60 60

Private sector N/A 19 19 19

Source: Labour Force Survey, Autumn 2000