Introduction

This works starts from the position that trade unions, as with other organizations, project distinct identities through which they can be recognized in the public domain and the contention that through better understanding trade union identities we can better understand the trade union movement today and who it seeks to represent. With UK unions now representing less than a quarter of the workforce (BEIS, 2019) and making limited progress in organizing the unorganized, it is argued here that developing a better understanding of union identities can make an important contribution to wider debates on union revitalization. Therefore this chapter looks first at the development of trade union identities, the impact of change in recent decades and the case for developing a new understanding of trade union identities while recognizing the phenomenon termed ‘niche unionism’ in this work. It identifies four drivers towards identity change in trade unions, namely union mergers, rebranding and the formation of new unions and the dissolution of existing ones (see further discussion of these drivers in Chapter Seven). This chapter first reviews the limitations of industrial relations literature in explaining both trade union identities and niche unionism, before considering contributions from disciplines beyond the industrial relations silo, including organization theory and marketing.

Why is it important to understand union identities?

In search of a starting point for the development of trade union identities, it can be seen that UK trade unions originated largely in crafts and were bounded by occupational and geographical membership territories (Turner, 1962). With the development of successful general unions and later industrial unions there developed a structure of union organization which Clegg (1979, p 174) describes as ‘bizarre and complex’. Staff associations developed separately within companies, frequently with the encouragement of employers as part of trade union avoidance strategies. Many of these unions progressed to achieve a certificate of independence and some to merge with more broadly based trade unions, which might be seen as a ‘direction of travel’ (see further discussion in Chapter Five). However, trade union development in the UK, as in other countries, has for the most part been limited to national boundaries (see further discussion in Chapter Six).