Levels of union representation across the economy are now similar to what they were a century ago with the decline in the proportion of the workforce currently in membership evident in both the public and private sectors, an employment conference has heard.
Announcing some of the findings of the second Working In Ireland Survey at the Nevin Economic Research Institute (Neri) event at the southeast Technological University, Prof John Geary of the UCD School of Business, who carried out the research with Assistant Prof Maria Belizon, said the collective bargaining coverage had declined 53 per cent in 2023 to 40 per cent last year.
The proportion of workers in membership (density) was down from 32 per cent to 25.5 per cent during the same period. This was, Geary said, in the context of a substantially larger workforce.
Sixteen per cent of the workforce had previously been in a union but are not currently in one while 59 per cent of the 3,000 employees of working age surveyed said they had never been a member of one.
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While the decline in private sector membership – “where access to collective bargaining is essentially in the gift of the employer,” – was well documented, he suggested, there was also clear evidence of a decline in the proportion of public sector workers in membership.
He cited the public administration and defence area as well as education in both of which density is now running at about 60 per cent, well down on historic levels.
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In some expanding areas of the private sector economy, he said, unions are “virtually non-existent”. The survey put density in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector at about 7 per cent while 82.4 per cent of ICT company employees said they had never been in a union.
Overall, he said, the movement’s members are ageing, increasingly woman – almost a third of women workers are in a union compared to just over a fifth of working men – and increasingly well educated.
Despite the decline, he said, however, a majority of employees in unionised workplaces, including those who had previously been a member of a union, remained supportive of them with 71.1 per cent of thee ex-members saying they wanted the union to continue representing staff.
Forty-four per cent of employees of companies where unions do not currently enjoy collective bargaining rights, meanwhile, said they would vote to establish one if they had the choice.
Support was broadly similar across different levels of educational attainment with 44 per cent of those with lower secondary education and 49.6 of those with a primary degree level one positive about the idea.
Young people remain particularly supportive of unions, the survey found. Although the number was down among 16 to 24 year-olds from 66 per cent in 2021, when the survey was last carried out, to 55 per cent now the corresponding figure for 25 to 34 year-olds was up from 45 per cent to 49 per cent while the increase was larger among 35 to 44 year-olds, from 39 per cent to 49 per cent.
Future membership levels, he suggested, are dependent on both the ability of individual unions and the movement generally to organise and recruit but also on government policy.
