Trade unions and the flexible workforce: A survey analysis of union policy and practice

In 1980 the annual conference of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) adopted its first motion on part-time workers, which called for their recruitment, their participation in union government and collective bargaining and legal action by affiliated unions on their behalf. In the intervening period virtually every subsequent conference has included a resolution on part-time work and by the late 1980s parallel calls for the recruitment and representation of temporary, casual and fixed-term workers had also become a fixture. This working paper reports findings of a survey of UK trade unions, conducted in 2001, to establish the extent to which these policy commitments have been adhered to.The survey gathered information on the degree to which unions have attempted to recruit, organise, service, bargain for, litigate and lobby on behalf of part-time and temporary workers. The analysis of findings shows the uneven development of policy on 'flexible' work across the UK trade union movement and identifies the characteristics of those unions that have taken most action