The ETUC Explores the Resources Needed to Strengthen Trade Union Membership

By ETUC

The ETUC needs to act as a platform and a motor for strengthening the unions' identity and influence. Reinforcing union membership is one of the European trade union movement's priorities.

The 2005 ETUC summer school reached a wide consensus on this subject:. Rates of union membership are falling. The sociological profile of union members has specific characteristics (e.g. few young people or migrants), but this profile is being transformed (more women and retired people). So it is in the interest of the European trade union movement to examine these particular features as well as the changes taking place. Unions face a series of challenges: finding ways of countering the fall in membership, recruiting in sectors outside those that traditionally account for the bulk of union members (the public sector), and adapting to new, atypical forms of employment. In short, they need to revamp trade union organisation. At stake is the survival of the trade union movement and the social dialogue, because the drop in numbers of members always goes hand in hand with a fall in material and financial resources, and consequently a loss of influence at the political level.

Moreover, there are signs of the emergence of new forms of collective solidarity. Yet the unions have a greater 'raison d'être' than ever before in an economic context characterised by increasingly precarious conditions. This is where they need to demonstrate they are effective. Various statistical studies show that the rate of trade union membership in the European Union has declined noticeably over recent years, falling from 32.5% in 1995 to 26.5% by 2001. The current level is one of the lowest in Europe's history.

(European Trade Union Congress Newsletter no. 4, January 2006)