As the Irish Congress of Trade Unions prepares for its biennial delegate conference next week, The Irish Times, in a series beginning today, examines the critical issues confronting trade unionism in Ireland.
Overview:Two thirds of employees are not in a union and Ictu want to change that, writes Martin Wall.
A major recruitment drive to boost trade union membership is to be unveiled at next week's biennial conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
The campaign, to include a media advertising blitz and the establishment of a new outreach service, is being planned amid increasing concern among union leaders about membership levels.
While the number of workers in unions is almost certainly increasing, this growth has not kept pace with the dramatic expansion in the overall labour force in the past decade.
Senior lecturer in industrial relations at the University of Limerick Joe Wallace says there are difficulties in estimating union density - the number of union members as a percentage of the workforce.
While it is likely that membership figures have increased, there is clear and consistent evidence that union density is in decline, he says.
While this is not disputed, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) says that membership across its 56 affiliated unions is growing quite significantly. Individual unions such as Siptu, Impact, the Irish Nurses' Organisation, the craft union TEEU, and the retail workers' union Mandate, have all made strong gains, it says.
Ictu says total union membership in the Republic is about 628,000, or 36 per cent of the 1.7 million employees (which excludes the self-employed) in the labour force.
Other official figures back up the argument that union membership numbers, in absolute terms, are increasing.
Official registration returns made by unions to the Department of Enterprise and Employment show that union membership increased from 474,450 in 1990 to 653,433 in 2004.
Mr Wallace says these statutory trade union membership returns are higher by about 100,000 than those noted by the Quarterly National Household Survey published by the Central Statistics Office. This difference may be due to a number of methodological factors, he says.
Given their statutory basis and consistency over time, the growing membership levels indicated in the trade union returns "must be given a degree of credence", he says.
Nevertheless, it is clear that from a situation in the early 1980s when two out of three workers were members of a union, there has been a steady decline in the percentage who hold union cards.
Ictu estimates that there are only 358,000 private sector workers in unions, out of a workforce of about 1.38 million. It suggests that trade union density in the private sector is running at about 26 per cent.
This means that, by the trade union movement's own calculations, more than a million private sector workers are now non-union. Mr Wallace maintains that trade union density in the private sector is even lower than the Ictu estimate, and is probably about 20-23 per cent "and declining fast".
Union leaders argue that any fall-off in membership levels has less to do with ideological opposition or hostility to trade unions than the changing nature of the economy and employment in general which has made organisation more difficult.
In a private presentation to the last Ictu biennial delegate conference two years ago, general secretary David Begg said that 85 per cent of companies in the Republic employed fewer than 10 people, a total of 400,000 workers.
"Now this group is one we don't have a mechanism for reaching. That's the fact. It is impossible to reach them through traditional means because it is far too labour-intensive . . . so we need to find a new paradigm for organising those people," he said.
Ictu president Peter McLoone told the conference that finding the resources for recruiting and organising new members was "the single biggest challenge" facing congress.
At its conference in Donegal next week, Ictu will unveil its blueprint for revitalising union membership.
Ictu assistant general secretary Sally Anne Kinahan says a number of unions have come together to establish a collaborative initiative aimed at reaching workers in sectors that are not traditional areas of organisation such as services.
The new initiative, which will be established on a pilot basis in the south and southeast from later this year, will be two-pronged.
One element will be a mass media advertising campaign aimed at highlighting the benefits of union membership.
There will also be an outreach service which people with workplace concerns can contact, either via the internet or by phoning or calling in person to centres around the country.
Ms Kinahan said one of the objectives would be to channel people who contact the service to full union membership. It is understood that the participating unions have agreed to invest about €250,000 each in the project.
Mr McLoone says it is important that the unions arrest the slippage in union density and take measures to turn the situation around. "I don't think that we have a great tradition or culture of operating like a business and going out to promote what we do and convince people that it is important that they would participate and support the work that we do even if they do not individually require the service of a trade union themselves immediately," he says.
"If you look at areas like construction, which traditionally had high union density, you will find that that is no longer the case. Most people would say, 'I was never asked to join'."
"If you go around the financial services sector or manufacturing you will find we are not at the levels that we could be. That is as a result of a lack of a businesslike approach, of recognising that to get people to join, you have to go out, tell them you are there and why they should be part of it," Mr McLoone adds.
He insists there is scope to increase membership substantially, adding that "before you would encounter resistance in companies that would be hostile to trade unions".
Unions' failure to recruit more members has been less to do with hostility towards them than their own failure to give the issue "as high a priority as we should", he says.