Scotland : where have all the trade union members gone?

The dimensions of the substantial decline in the extent of trade union membership in Britain as a whole in the 1980s (and into the 1990s) are well known, although there is some disagreement as to the major causes or factors involved in this membership fall.(1) However, when we take a more disaggregated look at the contours of union membership in Britain in the 1980s we still find evidence of the traditional 'North-South divide', with membership being disproportionately concentrated in the Northern part of the country.