Trade union recruitment strategies: facing the 1990s

Industrial Relations Journal ISSN 0019-8692 S3.00

Trade union recruitment strategies: facing the 1990s

Bob Mason and Peter Bain

Despite a high level of initiatives f ew unions have developed systematic recruitment strategies, in particular when measured against three key criteria-the employment of a ’dedicated’ national official; a specific budget; and a comprehensive monitoring system. This reflects an organisational ’culture’ restricting recruitment potential.

The question of recruitment strategy has often been a contentious one-both in trade union and academic circles-and not least in the last few years. Any assessment of recruitment potential is intrinsically linked to some view of the condition of the trade union movement and the attractiveness of its policies and methods to those outwith its ranks whom it seeks to recruit. There have been three main areas of debate which are central to understanding the prospects for recruitment in the 1990s: a. environment v. union initiatives; b. services v. militancy; c. competition v. regulation.

The first debate is centred upon the extent to which it is possible for unions to increase their aggregate size through their own initiatives, or are largely constrained by certain socio-economic factors which, i t is argued, constitute the determinants of union growth[l]. Proponents of the latter position emphasise the role of factors such as low unemployment, rising inflation, and favourable government and employer attitudes, in providing the main conditions in which aggregate growth can take place. To the

0 Bob Mason is Lecturer in Industrial Relations in the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Peter Bain is Research Assistant in the above establishment.

extent that individual unions do increase membership when the above conditions do not prevail, then this will be as a result of re-distribution between unions rather than signalling a rise in overall figures. The con- comitant view that unions‘ role in recruitment is “tightly constrained by these determinants” has been strongly challenged by reference to the role of forceful national officials in leading recruitment drives, whilst inter-union competition, it is argued, has also contributed to aggregate growth. Fur- thermore, in this perspective, actual recruitment is always dependent upon the effectiveness of unions’ organisational ability in detecting and persuading ‘aggrieved‘ workers to join and in processing applications.

The issue of services v. militancy revolves around the question of which type of union policies are likely to attract non-members into joining (and to retain existing members)[2]. Increasingly, unions have offered a range of services (insurance, credit cards, legal advice, etc.) which substantially transcend traditional ’friendly society’ bene- fits. The TUC believes that these may be important in “attracting members in newer industries and industrial locations, and from particular groups of workers with no tra- dition of trade union organisation.” The counter-view has tended to see such

36 lndustrial Relations Journal

practices as a distraction from what is perceived as the unions’ main role of protection of members in the workplace, and has placed considerable emphasis upon the positive relationship between successful recruitment and industrial militancy (either by individual unions or generally during a particular period). In some cases, advocates of services have been associated with the view that potential members are put off from joining unions by industrial action.

As union membership and density declined from their peaks in the late 1970s, recruitment competition between unions increased, with a particular feature being efforts to expand recruitable job territories. The question of competition v. regulation of inter-union recruitment practices has, therefore, assumed much greater importance in recent years[3]. In essence, unions have been competing for a percentage of a declining membership base in high density sectors, and failing to co-operate in expanding the membership base in low density areas. Fur- thermore, unions based in expanding areas often suffered financial restrictions on their recruitment activity-for example, opting to keep subscriptions low for competitive reasonsand sometimes becoming ensnared in recognition ‘beauty contests’ leading to offers of competitive inducements to employers. Subsequently, TUC-affiliated unions reached agreement on a Code of Practice for regulating single-union deals, and have also participated in two pilot recruitment schemes co-ordinated by Con- gress House.

We believe that the importance of such issues will not diminish in the coming period. The TUC General Secretary, for example, clearly sees new initiatives in recruitment as being central to the health and vitality of the trade union movement:

(The] loss of membership is obviously disap- pointing. In part it is due to computerisation of records which gives us more accurate reports. But more important it emphasises once again the crucial importance of recruitment work in a rap- idly changing economy[4].

Discussions have taken place between the TUC Special Review Body set up by the 1987 Congress, and other union federations (especially the US and Dutch) who are confronted with similar problems. In practical terms, the TUC conducted two pilot recruitment schemes in 1990 in Manchester and London Docklands under a ’Union Yes’ cam-

paign slogan (based upon work done by the AFL-CIO in the USA). The Manchester campaign centred on Trafford Park with 67 companies targetted, whilst unions also tried to recruit elsewhere in the area (the airport, city centre hotels, inner-city textiles). Three hundred union officials and activists were involved and, over three weeks, 900 new members were gained with the expectation of further recruitment over a longer period of time (notwithstanding hostility and intimidation from some employers). The Docklands scheme was less successful, with particular problems experienced in trying to contact potential members who work in multi-tenanted office blocks and-organi- sationally-a lack of involvement by some unions and unfamiliarity with individual recruitment techniques. Even so, a number of unions recorded successes and similar projects are likely in the future, drawing on the lessons of Manchester and Docklands[5].

In this regard, the TUC official in charge of the pilot schemes concluded that the two crucial ingredients for success are a detailed labour market analysis to enable targetting, combined with union commitment to recruitment (intra-union as well as inter- union divisions proving a self-imposed handicap on occasions). The trade union movement, he further argues, cannot sit back and wait for “the pendulum to swing” towards a more favourable environment in which to recruit, even though “you never know the degree of your success since there’s no way of knowing what would have hap- pened if you had done nothing”[6].

The establishment of the Special Review Body and the launch of the pilot recruitment schemes clearly reflect an understanding by British unions-in their main collective expression-that things could not drift along in the same old way. The extent to which they actively support joint activity and co- operation in order to strengthen trade- unionism remains to be seen, although the signs seem reasonably hopeful. However, throughout this article we argue that at the level of the individual union, a number of holes in the organisation of recruitment policy will have to be plugged if they are to survive the stormy seas of the 1990s.

Methodology Falling/stagnating membership is a central problem facing most British trade unions

Trade union recruitment strategies 37

going into the 1990s. However, there is little systematic knowledge relating to recruitment, particularly regarding the strategies and rationale adopted by individual unions (although Beaumont and Harris provide some evidence from the early 198Os)[7]. In part, this reflects a widely-held view that ’environmental’ factors determine membership growth patterns, but as the unions experienced continuing decline in the 1980s, attention has increasingly focused upon their own organisational efforts. Our research therefore attempts to contribute to an understanding of this area, with the present article being the result of the first stage of a longer- term project.

This is based upon the initial findings of a postal survey of 100 British trade unions, conducted during the first half of 1990. Our main aim was to gain some initial insights into the objective reality of how central specific recruitment campaigns were for trade unions. In other words, although environmental factors clearly have an important impact on unions’ overall size, our survey sought to establish the ways in which unions were nevertheless actively attempting to influence membership trends.

We approached 80 TUC-affiliated unions and a selection of 20 non-TUC affiliates (including most of the larger organisations), and received 56 usable questionnaires (ie. a 56% response rate), relatively evenly divided between 45 TUC-affiliated unions and 11 non-TUC unions. Our survey asked a total of 16 questions, categorised as follows: factual information regarding the union, information about the content of recruitment policies, questions concerning the union’s evaluation of their campaigns, and an invi- tation to the respondent to add further comments. The respondents themselves were grouped in four categories according to their job description. The largest group (40) were national officials with broad duties-general secretaries, their assistants or deputies, national presidents/officers, etc. Six respondents had primarily a research function and six were in administration, whilst four had a specific responsibility for membership. We analysed the returns using the computer programme SPSSx.

In order to develop an understanding of the reality of recruitment campaigns carried out by trade unions, we asked a series of questions about organisations’ practices in this area. Firstly, we wanted to examine the

content of the campaigns-particularly the type of campaign that was pursued, the target group focused upon, the level of the union involved in the campaign, and during which period of the 1980s the campaigns were conducted. Secondly, we felt that it was important to examine possible sectoral differences, and variations in approach between TUC-affiliated and non-TUC unions. Thirdly, given that concern about recruitment has become a major issue within the trade union movement over the last few years, we thought that it was important to evaluate the extent to which objective criteria supported an oft-stated theoretical commitment to gaining new members. Towards this end, we asked the three key questions: a. is there a union official with responsi-

bility solely for national recruitment? b. does the union have a specific budget for

recruitment campaigns?* c. how does the union monitor recruit-

ment?t Utilisation of these measures by unions would, we thought, give some indication of the extent to which-as a matter of national policy-they prioritised recruitment, planned and financed campaigns, and rigorously examined and assessed membership gains (and losses). Furthermore, these criteria provide us with another means of assessing the legitimacy of unions’ self-evaluation of the success of recruitment campaigns. However, it is quite conceivable that at a variety of levels within existing union structures, measures are in place which enable individual branches, districts or regions to methodically plan, finance and monitor recruitment activity-but withirr parameters set by their limited access to physical resources, information and finance. If a union’s (scarce) resources

* I t is apparent that although most unions do not have a budget specifically allocated to recruitment, nevertheless, they do finance campaigns from internal sources. However, we judge the existence of a specific budget as indicative of the organisation having a coherent and systematic national policy. t We asked unions to describe how they monitored the effectiveness of their recruitment campaigns, then graded their responses: ’no system’; ‘basic‘ (essentially a crude numbers count); ’moderately sophisticated’ (some indication of an effort to break down the figures with monitoring at national level); ’very sophisticated’ (regular detailed reports con- sidered nationally with eg. workplace, regional, occupational gains and losses). In the text we categorise both ’moderate‘ and ‘very’ sophisticated as a ‘sophisticated monitoring system‘.

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are to be deployed in the most effective and efficient manner, then it requires an overview of all resources available and where they should be concentrated, based upon an assessment of where the best opportunities for recruitment are located-tasks which can only be carried out at national level. Our three criteria, we suggest, throw some light on not just whether unions perceive this to be their role, but if they have taken appropriate steps to carry it through in practice.

Table 1 presents the basic findings on the incidence of these three criteria amongst responding unions. As can be deduced from the Table, in each area the majority of unions (82%, 83Y0, and 67% respectively) do not have in place measures which we identified above as key criteria in assessing the efficacy of national recruitment policy.

Research findings Relative importance of recruitment

campaigns

Before we consider the survey findings in detail, we felt it was useful to put into context how relatively important recruitment campaigns were to the trade unions. We distinguished three main approaches to the problem of membership retentiodexpan- sion, as follows: a. seeking recognition agreements with

employers; b. pursuing mergers with other unions; c. specific recruitment campaigns; d. respondents were allowed to indicate any

We then asked the unions to prioritise each strategy in order of importance. The pie chart in Figure 1 indicates the number of responding unions who gave top priority to each strategy.

other strategy.

Seek

pecific recruitment

5 recognition 18

note: some unions gave equal priority

Figure 1: Membership strategy top priority

Note: some unions gave equal priority

As can be seen, the membership size strategy given top priority by the largest number of trade unions(27) was specific recruitment campaigns. That is, half of all responding unions felt that this was the most important method of retaining/increasing membership size (although, as indicated above, it should be noted that this included unions who gave equal top priority to other membership size strategies). Seeking recognition agreements with employers was given top priority by 18 unions (ie. 33%). Other strategy was prioritised by five unions, and included an emphasis on maximising membership in existing unionised companies through to a general commitment towards recruitment. Finally, pursuing mergers with other trade unions was given top priority by only four unions.

Thus, it was clear from our findings that, at least perceptually, trade unions tend to give the highest priority to specific recruitment campaigns rather than other types of membership size strategies.

Table 1: Unions with dedicated official, budget, sophisticated monitoring

Official with sole Specific budget Sophisticated responsibility Monitoring

No. unions 10 9 15 O/O of all 18 17 33 respondents


Content of campaigns

The first set of questions we asked were designed to develop an overall picture of the content of the campaigns initiated by unions during the 1980s, ie. what period during the decade were campaigns initiated?; what type(s) of campaign were conducted?; who were the target groups (if any)?; what level of the union was involved in the campaign?

Clearly, specific recruitment campaigns were a growing trend, with 79% of responding unions initiating a campaign in the 1985-89 period compared to 39% of unions between 1980 and 1984. Only 19% of trade unions indicated that they had not initiated any campaign during the 1980s-the over- whelming reason given being ’stable or nat- urally growing membership’. This trend towards campaigns would appear to reflect unions’ growing realisation of the need for an organisational response on their part to the radical changes which had taken place in the labour market and the continuation of a steady post-1979 decline in membership.

We asked unions who had initiated campaigns over the last five years to indicate what type of campaign this had been from our listing of four possibilities: a. national advertising of union; b. publicity packs; c. workplace recruiting; d. any other. (A number of unions had initiated several types of campaigns, therefore percentages below total more than 100%).

The most popular type of campaign was workplace recruiting with 87.5% of responding unions utilising this method, followed by publicity packs which were used by 81.3%. National advertising of the union was the least employed method of campaigning, only 31.3% of unions used this approach. A large number of unions (43%) indicated another type of campaign, largely extraneous to the workplace: these included direct mailing to new employees and non- union members, local radio advertising and video material, displays at trade fairs, incen- tives to recruiters ranging from giving them discount vouchers to the more exotic policy of awarding bottles of champagne. In 1989, one union (in a highly competitive sector) employed 13 full-time travelling representatives specifically for recruitment purposes. It is important to note that most unions did

not restrict their efforts to only one method of approach, a factor which-when taken in conjunction with the fact that half of responding unions conducted campaigns that involved multi-level participation- indicates the need for careful internal plan- ning and co-ordination.

The next question we asked concerned the extent to which unions had targetted specific groups of workers, eg. women, part-timers, young workers, greenfield site employees, etc. The histogram below presents the responses in absolute numbers (ie. not percentages).

Sixteen responding trade unions (38.1%) indicated that they had not targetted any specific group, but had gone after all eligible workers. However, a total of 26 unions (61.9%) responded that they had targetted specific groups in their campaigns. Eleven unions (26.2%) had targetted groups specific to their unions (eg. deputy head teachers), and four unions (9.5%) had initiated campaigns aimed primarily at female workers. Part-timers and ‘combined’ groups (ie. campaigns that covered more than one specific group) were each targetted by three unions, and the self-employed and greenfield sites by two each. One union concentrated their efforts upon new employees, but no trade union targetted young workers exclusively (although the latter were mentioned in ’com- bination’ campaigns).

Some important environmental changes which took place during the 1980s-such as

No of unions

Figure 2: Target groups Notes: 1. ‘TU spec’ means employees specific to

particular unions 2. ’new’ means new employees

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the growing proportion of female and part- time workers in the labour market-do not appear to be reflected in the content of union recruitment campaigns, eg. only four unions had targetted women workers specifically (although others with a predominantly female membership might not target women per se, and women may also be a de facto target in other groups such as part-time workers). Non-targetting may be due-at national level-to an avoidance of what is seen as a time-consuming and expensive approach, and/or to a lack of expertiseJstra- tegic awareness at local level.

We also found that a generally higher level of recruitment sophistication-as measured by our three criteria-did not necessarily correspond to a greater emphasis on specific group targetting. This was contrary to our expectations that the more sophisticated the union approach to recruitment, the more likely it was to target specific groups of workers rather than going after ‘all’ potential members. Part of the explanation may be that unions in expanding economic sectors-but low union density areas of membership-are, on the one hand, more likely to consciously allocate resources to recruitment; but on the other hand, because they operate in circumstances where recruitment is seen as viable, feel under less press- ure to concentrate their activity in ‘narrow’ sectors. In general terms, we feel that there is an obvious need for unions to be aware of changes in the composition and structure of the labour market and to tailor their recruitment initiatives accordingly.

The final stage in examining the content of recruitment campaigns, was to ask responding unions which level of the union undertook the campaign. Fifty per cent of those unions responding to this question (20 out of 40) reported multi-level participation, 22.5% indicated that national officials undertook the campaign, a further 7.5% that they were conducted by regional officials, and 20% of trade unions responded that their campaigns had been undertaken by branch or workplace representatives. This finding implies that over two-thirds of the responding unions appear to have involved lay representatives in recruitment campaigns*. This latter factor is important, as

* There is, however, some ambiguity in the term ’who undertook’ the campaign, as this could be

a particular internal problem for unions regarding recruitment, is the division of responsibility between lay members and full-time officials. One responding union, for example, said that there are ”difficulties in getting full-time officials to do physical recruitment work-they regard it as work for lay officials”. As Kelly & Heery argue, full-time officials have many responsibilities and problems, particularly in that their primary role-servicing the existing membership-makes many demands on the officials’ workload[8]. This may mean that union full-time officials, whilst generally supportive of the need to recruit new members, cannot devote the necessary time to this function.

However, local level initiatives will tend to be concentrated in existing unionised establishments rather than devising/cond- ucting campaigns which focus on non-union areas. This may be so partly because many lay officials work in the more highly organ- ised sectors of the economy, and may not prioritise recruitment in new areas as highly as the national union. Certainly evidence from the early 1980s indicates that despite declining membership in traditional areas, unions made little effort to recruit in non- unionised workplaces[9].

TUCfnon-TUC union and sectoral analyses

We wanted to see if there was any significant differentiation between TUC and non-TUC unions, given that much debate on the issue of membership recruitment has centred on the question of employee perceptions of the nature of both categories of unions. Also, in sectors where there is a noticeable degree of inter-union recruitment competition, they are often characterised by the presence of both affiliated and non-affiliated unions (eg. the education, bankinglfinance and energy sectors). Indeed, it has been implied by some research that the only significant growth has been experienced by non-TUC unions, such as the RCN in the health service[lO].

interpreted in two ways. The respondents may have taken it to mean ’who had organisational responsibility’ or it could have meant ‘who actually carried out the campaign‘. Thus, where unions have indicated solely national or regional officials ’undertook the campaign, sometimes it may also have involved lay representatives.


Out of a total number of 56 responding trade unions, 45 (80.4%) were TUC-affiliated, whilst 11 (19.6%) were non-affiliated. Thirty- eight TUC unions (84% of total affiliated respondents) had initiated a campaign during the 1985-89 period, whilst eight non- TUC unions (73% of total non-affiliated respondents) had done so. When we applied our three key criteria, we found that there was little difference in the extent of their employment between TUC and non-TUC unions. The similarity of these responses probably reflects rivalry between TUC and non-TUC unions, particularly characteristic of competitive sectors such as banking and the health service. However, the presence of competing unions does not necessarily lead to the adoption of systematic recruitment strategies as other factors influence unions’ ability, perception, or willingness to put in place the appropriate measures.

For example, in the NHS and education- despite the apparent competitive nature of these industries in terms of union recruitment-only one (TUC-affiliated) out of nine of our responding unions displayed any of the features that we employed as objective measures of systematic recruitment commitment (however, one union with about a third of its membership in the NHS-TUC-affiliated and categorised by us as a multi-sector union-has a very sophisticated monitoring system). This may reflect a lingering tendency by some public sector unions to expect to automatically ’receive’ new members, and/or by financial strictures generated by low subscriptions deemed important in attracting and holding members. On the other hand, in another highly competitive sector-banking and finance- out of four responding unions, one TUC- affiliated organisation had a ’dedicated’ official with national responsibility for recruitment as well as a specific budget and (together with two others-non-TUC) a sophisticated monitoring system. Further- more, in 1989, this union employed 13 full- time officers solely concerned with recruitment across the country, clearly a commitment to perceived opportunities in an extremely competitive sector. A final sector worth noting is the civil service, where of four unions who responded (all TUC affiliates), three had a ’dedicated’ official and two had specific recruitment budgets. However, as Willman points out (in a slightly different context) the civil service unions

tend to be non-competitive as recruitment is based along fairly clear-cut occupational grade lines[ll]. Therefore, the relative sophistication of civil service unions in recruitment techniques is probably reflective of a high labour turnover in some areas, necessitating constant vigilance in attracting new employees into membership (irres- pective of competition).

Therefore, whilst differences clearly exist between sectors in the degree of internal inter-union competition and organisational preparedness, there appears to be a pattern of similar union responses within the same sector. Although our sectoral data is rudi- mentary, contrary to perspectives which tend to conflate sectoral developments with aggregate trends[l2], we think the influence is not simply in the direction of national to sectoral level, but also from sectoral to national. There is clearly evidence of union initiatives in low union density areas, which-to the extent that they achieve success-can have some impact on aggregate membership figures as other unions try to emulate fruitful campaigns. There may be a degree of competition between unions (particularly TUC/non-TUC affiliates) in such sectors- leading to membership being redistributed between unions-but the potential also exists for an increase in aggregate numbers through sectoral developments.

Finally, one area where it is often argued that significant differences do exist between TUC and non-TUC unions is in the provision of services, which non-TUC unions are perceived to put more emphasis upon. Although we did not ask a specific question, we found that where we invited respondents to make any additional comments about their union’s recruitment policies, a much larger proportion of non-TUC unions voluntarily mentioned services (27% compared to 7%).*

Perceptions and objective criteria

At this point we have aimed to go beyond a straightforward examination of the responses, and to analyse the extent to which

* Conversely, this of course means that 73% and 93% of unions did not mention services in this context. However, we feel that the significance of the responses lies in the fact that our question was an open one and made no specific reference to the provision of services.

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the perceptions underpinning the trade unions‘ responses can be supported by the more objective criteria indicated in the survey, ie. does the union have an official responsible solely for recruitment nationally, does the union have a specific budget for recruitment campaigns, and how sophisticated is the union’s monitoring system (if any)?

As indicated earlier, we found that 10 out of the 56 responding unions had an official with national responsibility solely for recruitment, nine unions had specific recruitment budgets[l3], and 15 had moderately or very sophisticated monitoring systems. In other words, according to each of our key criteria, only a minority of unions show signs of having a systematic approach to recruitment campaigning. We then cross- tabulated these three criteria to establish the relationship between them and the results are shown in Table 2. We then compared the incidence of the utilisation of each measure between unions who had employed, and those who had not employed, other measures.

From our findings, unions who have an official with sole responsibility are more likely to have a specific budget than those unions who do not have a ‘dedicated’ official. Nine unions had budgets and four of them had an official[44%], compared to only six unions with an official out of the 47 unions who did not have a b~dget[ l3~/0] . However, two points of caution are worth noting here. Firstly, if a union employs a ’dedicated’ recruitment official, the official’s salary may well constitute a large part of the recruitment budget, hence these two factors may be inherently inter-connected. And secondly, the majority of unions who replied that they had no specific budget, but had initiated recruitment campaigns, have presumably funded these campaigns from somewhere

within the union ie. finance for recruitment is often provided indirectly.

There would also appear to be a greater likelihood of unions employing a ’dedicated’ official having a relatively sophisticated recruitment monitoring system than those unions without an official. Of ten unions with an official, five had sophisticated monitoring (50’/0), compared with only ten out of the 46 unions without an official (22%). Again, this relationship is not surprising, since an official with national responsibility might understandably prioritise the establishment of accurate methods of measuring changes in membership.

On examining the relationship between unions with a specific budget and the utilisation of relatively sophisticated monitoring systems, we found that there is slightly more likelihood of sophisticated monitoring being in place where a union has a specific budget. Of nine unions who had a budget three had sophisticated monitoring (33%), compared with 12 of 47 who did not have a budget (26%). This relatively small difference may be due to unions with specific budgets not using a significant part of the funding to establish a ’sophisticated’ system of recruitment monitoring, but rather primarily to provide the salary of a ’dedicated’ official.

Central to our thesis, as can be seen from Tables 1 and 2, it should be noted that overall, a very small percentage of unions appeared to have developed mechanisms which would systematically enhance recruitment practices. Of the 56 unions w h o returned our survey, only t w o registered positively on all three of the aforementioned criteria. Both of these are white-collar unions and TUC- affiliates, but in different sectors; one of the unions is in a highly competitive recruitment sector, and the other perhaps slightly less so. An additional 6 unions utilised combi- nations of two of our three criteria.

Table 2: Relationship between dedicated official, specific budget and sophisticated monitoring

Dedicated Dedicated Specific official/specific budget official/sophisticated budget/sophisticated

monitoring monitoring

No. of unions 4

unions O/O of all responding 7.5

5 11

3 7


Overall therefore, our findings would suggest that the vast majority of trade unions, whilst attitudinally very committed to recruitment campaigning, have not put in place measures which would allow them to methodically organise, finance and monitor specific campaigns. In particular, the fact that SOo/! of the unions responded that they felt their campaigns had been very or reasonably successful has to be judged against our findings that very few unions have a sophisticated monitoring system. This alone puts a rather large question-mark over a union’s ability to objectively assess the real degree of ’success’ attained.

Conclusions At TUC and individual union level much stress is put upon the importance of recruitment campaigns. However, we believe there are a number of problems about the unions’ approach to recruitment, and that when measured by our three critical factors-the existence of a dedicated official, a specific budget and a sophisticated monitoring system-there is little evidence to show that unions have developed systematic and coherent strategies. This is due, we believe, primarily to factors related to union structure which inhibit a more concerted and imagin- ative approach to recruitment, and to modus operandi which often adhere to traditional and well-worn practices. In one union, for example, we were told that:

The topic of recruitment is very high on the agenda . . . in terms of what is said at conferences , , . and in our journal. But the reality is that in terms of the clerical and administrative resources given to it, it has a very low priority. Indeed it is the poor relation of our centralised system(l41.

Moreover the above union’s only organising officer was on the lowest salary grade of all comparable officers, and two other unions reported that their national organising departments were severely under-resourced and staffed.

It is clear that in the above cases recruitment policy aims are out of kilter with the resources allocated to achieve them. If the policy is held to be necessary and correct by the appropriate bodies within the union (eg. national executive, annual conference), then clearly the solution is to shift resources towards recruitment so that the union’s aims can be prioritised and implemented. The seriousness of an organisation’s commit-

ment to recruitment can be gauged by the actual resources allocated, although we appreciate that unions‘ finances are limited. All we are suggesting is that there is a gap between theoretical commitment and existing practice.

A more complex problem appears to be prevalent within union structures, related to their organisational ’culture’. We found that, very often, respondents would attribute responsibility for recruitment to all levels of the union, or suggest that this was an ‘on- going’ function for all members to address. One interpretation of this philosophy is that it often means nobody has responsibility for recruitment, either because national union officials are consoling themselves in the belief that recruitment has to take place at workplace level and therefore is seen as an ‘on-going’ affair, and/or the trade union has not got round to systematically thinking through the problems and the opportunities raised by recruitment.

If trade union officials casually adopt an ‘on-going‘ philosophy, this amounts to an abrogation of responsibility by those who are best placed to take an overview of the possibilities and problems before the union. Such an attitude would have val- idity only if the union regularly and methodically conducted thorough reviews of every aspect of membership gains and losses. Our research shows that the majority of unions do not assess their recruitment performance with anything vaguely approaching this rigour.

We do not believe that some magic formula exists which guarantees recruitment success, nor that there is a purely organisational solution to the range of socio-economic and political problems with which British unions are confronted as they enter the 1990s. What we are suggesting is that if individual unions are to translate recruitment potential into actual membership, then identifying and dismantling internal attitudinal and organisational barriers should constitute the starting-point.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. New- man Smith of Glasgow College for his participation in the early stages of this research, and the University of Strathclyde Research & Development Fund for financing the project.

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References

1. See Bain, G. S. and Price, R., ‘The Comparative Analysis of Union Growth’. Paper given at the International Industrial Relations Association, Eighth World Congress, Brussels, September 1989; and ’The Determinants of Union Growth’, in McCarthy (ed.), Trade Unions, Pelican, 1985; Undy et al., ‘The Role of Union Leadership in Membership Growth: Further Criticism of Bain’s Theory’ in McCarthy, op. cit.; Kelly, J. and Heery, E., ’Full-time Officers and Trade Union Recruitment’ in British journal of Industrial Relations, 27:2 July 1989.

2. See Organising for the 1990s: the SRB‘s Second Report, Trades Union Congress, 1989; Beaumont, P. B. and Elliot, J., ’Individual Employee Choice Between Unions: Some Public Sector Evidence from Britain‘, Zndustrial Relations journal, Vol. 20, no. 2, Summer 1989; Kelly, J., Trade Unions and Socialist Politics, Verso, 1988.

3. See TUC (1989) op. cit.; Willman, P., ’The Logic of ”Market-share” Trade-unionism: is Membership Decline Inevitable?’, Industrial Relafions journal, Vol. 20, No. 4, Winter 1989.

4. Willis, N., TUC Press Notice, 27th June, 1990.

5 . Special Rev iew Body reports on ‘The Union Yes Pilot Campaigns’ in Manchester (March 5-25 1990) and London Docklands (May 1-18 1990) TUC (1990).

6. Interview with John Monks, TUC Deputy General Secretary, at Congress House, London, 30th July 1990.

7. Beaumont, P. B. and Harris, R. I. D., ’Union Recruitment and Organising Attempts in Bri- tain in the 1980s’, Zndustrial Relations journal, Vol. 21, No. 4, Winter 1990.

8. Kelly & Heery, op. cit. 9. Millward, N. & Stevens, M., British Workplace

Industrial Relations 1980-1984, Gower, 1986, pp. 69-70.

10. Beaumont & Elliot, op. cit. 11. Willman, op. cit. 12. Bain & Price (1989), op. cit. 13. The 9 unions responding that they had a

specific recruitment budget were grouped in 4 magnitudes: 3 unions had between €1,000-9,999 1 union had between €10,00&99,999 3 unions had between €100,0OLL199,999 1 union had a budget of (1 union would not divulge the amount).

14. From our postal survey-union respondent wished to remain anonymous.

€200,000+

T r a d e union recruitment strategies 45

Trade union recruitment strategies: facing the 1990s

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