Trade associations and trade unions. In most industries, there are trade associations, like the British Clo-

In most industries, there are trade associations, like the British Clo-

thing Industry Association (BCIA), which represent employers, and trade

unions, like the GMB, which represent employees.

Trade associations have three main functions:

· They negotiate national rates of pay and conditions of employment

with ’ trade unions in some industries

· They present the industry’s views to the European Union, the gov-

ernment and the public.

· They provide advice and information, and sometimes carry out in-

dustrial research, for member firms.

There are 114 main employers’ associations in Britain. Many of the

other trade associations are small and cover only part of an industry.

Employers as a whole are represented by the Confederation of Brit-

ish I Industry (CBI). More than 200 trade associations and employers’

organizations and more than 250,000 public and private companies are

members. About half of the members are small- and medium-sized firms

with less than 200 employees.

The CBI’s main task is to state the views of British business to the go-

vernment, the public and the European Commission in Brussels, where

the CBI has a permanent office. In addition, it has regional offices in

Britain and provides information and research services for its members.

The main functions of trade unions are to:

· negotiate rates of pay and

· conditions of work with employers, including health and safety

matters

· give members legal advice about problems at work and provide law-

yers to represent members in courts or at industrial tribunals

· support members financially during strikes and lock-outs by em-

ployers and after accidents at work

· provide a range of other services for members, such as mortgages,

insurance, personal loans and discounted holidays.

There are 256 trade unions. Many of them are very small craft unions

formed in the last century for skilled workers in one trade, such as the

Pattern Weavers Society with its 58 members! Some kinds of employees

still have their own separate union, such as the National Union of Jour-

nalists or the British Airline Pilots Association. In recent years, however,

there have been many mergers of smaller unions. Bigger general unions

have been formed to represent skilled, semiskilled and unskilled workers

in a variety of industries. One of the most striking changes in recent years

has been the growth of white-collar unions, such as the Manufacturing,

Science and Finance Union, for clerical workers, managers and profes-

sionals in different industries.

The largest union is Unison with 1,400 000 members. It was formed

in 1993 by a merger of three unions: the Confederation of Health Service

Employees, the National Union of Public Employees and the National

and Local Government Officers’ Union. Other big unions include:

· Transport and General Workers’ Union, 900,000 members.

· GMB (formerly the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied

Trades Union), 790,000 members.

· Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, 750,000 members.

· Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union, 452,000 members.

Most unions have a president, general-secretary and national execu-

tive, who have to be elected by members in a secret ballot. They have

paid officials to assist them. Bigger unions have regional or district com-

mittees, also elected by members. There are usually paid officials in the

regions. Most negotiations in the workplace are carried out by shop stew-

ards, who are unpaid union representatives elected by their workmates.

Most of the bigger unions, 67 in all, are attached to the Trades Union

Congress (TUC), which represents the union movement as a whole, as

the CBI represents business.

Trade union membership has fallen dramatically in recent years. It

reached a peak of 13.3 million in 1979. It is now about 7 million, the

lowest since 1946. This represents about 40 per cent of people in em-

ployment.

The main reasons for the decline are an increase in the number of

unemployed and part-time workers who are less likely to be trade union

members.

From 1979, Conservative governments passed a series of laws to re-

duce the power of trade unions. Strikes were one of the unions’ main

weapons. As a result of the new laws, a strike can only be called after

there has been a secret postal ballot of members. The result has to be

checked by independent persons. Employers must be given seven days’

notice of any industrial action. If a strike takes place, peaceful picketing

is allowed, but there must be no more than six persons at each entrance

to the workplace. Secondary picketing by workers from other firms is

illegal, as are all unofficial strikes. Under the Trade Union Reform and

Employment Rights Act of 1993, anyone deprived of goods or services

by illegal industrial action can apply to a court for it to be stopped. The

Act also made it more difficult for unions to collect subscriptions auto-

matically from members’ pay. Other laws have made it almost impossible

to set up a closed shop where only union members can be employed.

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