High fives over union membership survey

The private sector provided a surprise boost to the union movement in 2012, with the number of employees in the sector who are union members rising by 63,000 to 2.6 million.

The National Statistics report, Trade union membership 2012, revealed that the increase completely outweighed a 3,000 decline in union membership in the public sector. The result is that overall membership among employees is at a five-year high, totalling 6.46 million. This compares with 6.40 million a year earlier.

Large contributions to the increase in union membership in 2011-12 were made by the education, health, construction, wholesale and retail and transport and storage sectors.

Union density — the proportion of employees who are union members — edged up from 14.2% to 14.4% in the private sector, but fell back from 56.6% to 56.3% in the public sector. Across the economy it remained at the previous year’s level of 26%.

Full details are available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/trade-union-statistics-2012