“Social Movement or Social Partner? Strategies for the Revitalisation of British Trade Unionism”

The vocabulary and assumptions of social partnership and social movement unionism are strikingly different and they can be regarded as alternative choices for revitalising British labour (see Kelly 1996). What is striking, however, is that elements of both are occasionally fused in union policy. The central confederation of British labour, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), for example, has simultaneously sought to develop a ‘culture of organising’ across the British union movement and established an Organising Academy, while it advocates ‘partnership’ in relations with employers and has sought an integrative relationship with the new Labour Government elected in 1997 (Heery 1998). Accordingly, the paper concludes by considering the extent to which partnership and movement are genuine alternatives or whether they may prove mutually compatible and even reinforcing elements within a complex strategy for union renewal