Colleagues,I am just in the process of preparing for a workshop at Ruskin College with a visiting group of officers and activists from public sector unions in Nigeria.
A key theme will be an exploration of the key findings from the latest global employment trends research from the Inernational Labour Organisation (ILO).
You can see a sumamry of the research at: http://www.ilocarib.org.tt/oldwww/news/2008/global%20EMP%20trends.htm
One of the most worrying issues is the prediction that the current economic meltdown precipitates a massive increase globally in unemployment.
Here in the UK we can start to see the increases particularly as reported on a quarterly basis by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The national 'at a glance' is always useful: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/instantfigures.asp
More specifically we can see the immediate impact within the finance sector not least with job losses at Northern Rock and now Bradford and Bingley.
The issue for trade unions however, and particularly within the context of the UK, is whether this is necessarily bad news within the long-term debate around renewal of the trade union movement.
My particular question is that, despite immediate in terms of job losses, whether significant economic instabilty reaffirms with workers on a long-term basis the need to stabilise their employment position via trade union membership?
Naturally you have various equations that impact on this not least the relatively higher growth of jobs within the public sector and greater propensity in that sector for un/non-unionisation.
My question aside from this however is still, can economic slowdown be good in the long-term for union growth?
There is much academic literature on this point - send me a note if you are interested and I'll e-mail back some useful reading.
As usual, any comments, questions or just gripes are welcome.
Cheers
Ian
