Membership remains stable

The combined membership of TUC-affiliated unions has remained broadly stable over the past year at 5.8 million.

In fact, the total figure increased slightly in 2015 compared with 2014, but this can be attributed to the addition of 30,000 members of the Royal College of Midwives which affiliated for the first time last month.

Among the 10 largest affiliates, which together account for 85% of total membership, six unions slightly expanded in size.

These were the largest —general union Unite, the GMB general union, retail and wholesale union Usdaw, the NUT and ATL teaching unions, and specialists’ and managers’ union Prospect which took in the BACM-TEAM colliery staff managers union in the period. However, losses sustained by the primarily public service unions UNISON and PCS, plus a contraction of the CWU postal and communications union, were rather more substantial in percentage terms.

UNISON is fighting hard to counteract what it calls the “exodus of members caused by steep job cuts in the public sector”. General secretary Dave Prentis told his union’s national conference in June that, while 180,000 members left the union last year after being made redundant, 170,000 new members joined, many of whom were recruited from businesses taking on contracted–out public sector contracts.

https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/TUC_Directory_2015_Digital_Version.pdf