‘We just get a bit set in our ways’: renewing democracy and solidarity in UK trade unions

Abstract

In a broader context of austerity, sustained financial pressures and policies of restructuring and outsourcing have steadily eroded traditional features of UK public sector employment such as job security, fair reward and collective representation through trade unions. This article examines how a UK trade union representing local government workers attempted to respond more effectively to radical restructuring plans. By engaging in a process of democratic experimentation, full-time officials from above and activists from below sought to challenge the existing ‘insider’ relationship between branch officers and management, which was seen as ineffective in responding to a severe disruption in the regulation of local government employment. Drawing on participatory ethnographic research, the findings show the importance of leadership in the processes towards union renewal and the tensions and struggles underlying democracy and solidarity. Union renewal is presented here as a dialectical process and set of responses involving both strategic direction from above and membership pressure and activism from below.

Introduction: institutional experimentation for better (or worse) work

“…The case presented by Connolly (2020) represents a perfect storm for union representation in local government in the United Kingdom. The local authority in question was itself a poster child for neoliberal experimentation in public sector management, championing downsizing, privatisation and outsourcing with a stated objective of achieving zero salaried employment – a literal caricature of a neoliberal nirvana which has seen gone into receivership.…”

“…For Pulignano et al (2020), the unions drew on traditional regulatory legacies in new ways, at the interstices between organisational and institutional experimentation, to protect working conditions. For Connolly (2020), in response to one of the more egregious manifestations of neoliberal experimentation, a local union branch sees few other options than to experiment on itself. The renewal of its collective identity requires greater deliberative capacity to renew its repertoire of actions.…”

“…However, experiments do falter through uneven participation and opposition to the disruptive nature of experiments, as was the case for some works councillors and union partners in Arbeit 2020. In the UK union branch explored by Connolly (2020), full-time officials from above and activists from below engaged in a process of democratic experimentalism that challenged the existing ‘insider’ relationship between branch officers and management. For Murray et al (2020), experimentation in co-working represents a hybrid potential for new forms of solidarity between atomised workers, but can just as easily legitimise a model of fissured and displaced work in the absence of participation and deliberative capacity.…”

“…Bosch and Schmitz-Kießler (2020) illustrate how union strategy has driven the Arbeit 2020 experimentation and how reflexivity and learning are central to this ongoing process. Likewise, the case presented by Connolly (2020) starts from the need to rethink how the local union branch operates in the face of radical disruption. For Pulignano et al (2020), experimentation required the trade unions to be reflexive in order to identify the causes of bad working conditions and to use their resources to improve these conditions in a novel way.…”

L’expérimentation institutionnelle au travail, pour le meilleur (ou pour le pire)

“…Le cas présenté par Connolly (2020) représente une véritable tornade pour la représentation syndicale au sein du gouvernement local au Royaume-Uni. L’autorité locale en question représentait elle-même un modèle d’expérimentation néolibérale en matière de gestion du secteur public, prônant la réduction des effectifs, la privatisation et l’externalisation avec l’objectif déclaré de parvenir à l’emploi salarié zéro - une caricature littérale d’un nirvana néolibéral – et cette autorité locale a depuis lors été placée sous tutelle.…”