Union membership among young workers today is incredibly low. Industrial action scholars speak of a worldwide trend towards the so-called de-unionisation of the young.
In 1980 80% of the British workforce was covered by collective bargaining between employers and unions. By the 2000s, that figure had fallen to around 30%. And the numbers have kept falling, in particular for young people. UK government statistics show that in 2021, only 4.3% of 16 to 24-year-old workers were members of a union. This figure rose to 19.8% for the 25 to 34 category.
In their introduction to the 2015 compendium, Young Workers and Trade Unions: A Global View, scholars Andy Hodder and Lefteris Kretsos explain that it’s not so much that young professionals view unions more negatively than their older counterparts. Rather, they tend to work in jobs and industries where union representation doesn’t exist. Crucially, for the most part, they do not know what unions are, what they do – and what they have done to change the world of work.
