Labour Research September 2017

Union news

Unionisation of Poles


Polish nationals working in the UK are increasingly likely to be union members, official figures show. Union density among UK employees who are Polish nationals was 10.4% in 2016, up from 8.6% in 2015 and 8.2% in 2014.


The figures are particularly noteworthy as workers of Polish nationality are much less likely to work in the better unionised public sector than UK employees in general. Just one in eight (12.1%) of them work in the largely public sector services of education, health and public administration and defence, compared with one in four (25.7%) of all employees.