A prominent member of government has urged greater union membership among the UK’s employees.
In a speech to the Unions 21 forum, Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development, challenged the idea that union membership is in terminal decline.
Benn encouraged the unions to focus on recruiting potential members, including the 2.8m employees research has showed are interested in joining a union.
“The challenge is to get out there and show how trade unions can mean something to people,” he said.
“I am proud to be a union member. And so are millions of others because of the practical differences unions make at work.”
Union membership could rise as a result of an increasingly globalised economy, the MP suggested. He said:
“The world is changing fast. Trade, travel, technology, economic growth, climate change, and globalisation - all are moulding our world into a new shape. It isn’t all easy to deal with.
“Globalisation, for all its benefits, does bring greater insecurity. And yet dealing with change is what unions have always been about.”
However, a spokesman for the Forum of Private Business (FPB) described the aim to recruit almost 3m new members as ‘an unrealistic goal’.
“Although small businesses wouldn’t greet this aim with open arms, they wouldn’t be unduly concerned,” he said.
“The fact is that unions are not perceived as the powerful organisations they once were.”
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2006
