In this blog by Professor John Geary, UCD and Dr. Maria Belizón, UCD they present on their paper based on novel findings from the UCD Working in Ireland Survey. This survey was led by Professor John Geary with the involvement of NERI researchers.
The proportion of the workforce that is in union membership has declined precipitously from a high of over 60% in the early 1980s to about 25% now.
The reasons for this decline are usually explained in terms of structural shifts in employment that include the demise of traditionally unionised sectors, the growth in atypical and precarious forms of employment, as well as an employer preference not to deal with unions for the purposes of establishing employees’ terms and conditions of employment but instead to rely on engaging directly and individually with their staff. For their part, trade unions have been faulted for not dedicating sufficient resources to organising and mobilising workers in non-union enterprises to join trade unions.
Union membership is now concentrated primarily in the public sector (health, education, public administration and defence). Formerly highly unionised sectors such as manufacturing, construction and transport have now comparatively low levels of union membership. Elsewhere, and particularly in the new expanding sectors of the economy, such as in high-tech and social media, unions are a minor presence or are completely absent.
Against the backdrop of this bleak picture we conducted a major study of workers’ views of unions by surveying a nationally representative sample of 2,076 people of working age in paid employment across the country. The study examines in particular the structure of union membership, members’ and non-members’ disposition towards unions, the perceived effectiveness of unions and the coverage of collective bargaining.
Our principal findings include:
• Despite the decline in union density, trade unions remain an important means of representing employees in Irish workplaces.
• The growth in female participation in the labour market is matched by growing numbers of women joining trade unions. Indeed, union membership is increasingly becoming a female phenomenon. There are now more women than men in trade unions.
• Support for union representation among non-union employees is noteworthy: as many as four out of every ten non-union workers would be willing to vote to establish a union in their workplace. Young workers are particularly well disposed to seeking union representation.
• Sixteen per cent of the national workforce were union members in the past but are no longer.
• The highest concentrations of union membership are in the public sector. The hospitality sector has the lowest levels.
• On the whole, Irish trade union members are positively disposed towards union membership, value being members, and are generally committed to retaining union representation. Four out of every five unions members would vote to maintain the union in their workplace.
• We estimate the coverage of collective bargaining to be 43%. A previous estimate derived from a similar employee survey in 2003 found it to be 53%. This represents a decline of almost 19% over a period of 18 years. (Using other data sources, the OECD estimated that collective bargaining coverage in Ireland in 2017 was 34%).
In our forthcoming presentation on October 19th in Fórsa’s offices, we will consider our study’s findings in the context of the recent Report of the LEEF High-Level Working Group on Collective Bargaining, particularly as they relate to ‘good faith engagement’, together with the European Commission’s proposal for a directive on adequate minimum wages in the European Union.
You can read the full report titled ‘Union Voice in Ireland: First findings from the UCD Working in Ireland Survey 2021’ here. For further details or to read other outputs based on the Working in Ireland survey click here.