Trade union density in the UK 1995-2023
The share of employees that were members of a trade union in the United Kingdom in 2023 was 22.4 percent, an increase when compared with the previous year, when around 22.2 percent of employees were trade union members. This is also significantly lower than in 1995, when the share of employees who were members of a trade union was 32.4 percent.
Waves of industrial action since 2022
In May 2022, the UK's largest transport union, the National Union of Rail Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) elected to go on strike that summer. The transport worker strike soon spread to other sectors, with workers across various UK industries taking industrial action in protest at their pay and conditions. This reached a peak in December 2022 when approximately 829,000 working days were lost to industrial action, with around 155,000 workers on strike in that month. The wave of industrial action continued into 2023, with wages only just starting to catch up with inflation after several months of falling wages. For 2024, the month with the most working days lost was January, at 165,000, when there were approximately 78,000 workers on strike.
Uniting the unions
One of the biggest Trade Unions in the United Kingdom is Unite, with a membership of almost 1.25 million people in 2020/21. Unite was created in 2007 through the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers Union, with Amicus itself being created in 2002 through the merger of the Manufacturing Science and Finance Union and the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union. The decline in union membership as well as the mergers of smaller unions has led to a decrease in the number of trade unions. Compared with 1999 there were 113 fewer unions in 2023. Of these unions, six had memberships of 250 thousand or more, and six had fewer than 100.
