‘Old Dusty Men’? Young People and Trade Unions in the UK

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to provide an insight into the relationship between young workers and trade unions in the UK. As noted by Hodder and Kretsos (Introduction, this volume), it is largely accepted that young workers are less likely to be union members when compared to older workers, and there have been a number of academic studies into the reasons behind this. Existing literature groups these reasons into three categories — the changing nature of labour markets and increasing employer resistance to trade unionism, inefficiencies of unions to reform themselves and engage with more young people, and the attitudinal problems of young workers themselves (Waddington and Kerr, 2002). The way in which UK unions have tried to reverse this is discussed, whilst the rest of the chapter provides an insight into the Young Members’ Network (YMN) of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS). The methods used involved analysis of internal PCS documents and discussions with 20 (full-time and lay) officials from across the union at the union’s Annual Delegate Conference in May 2014 and the National Young Members Seminar in June 2014. Widely acknowledged as the most successful youth structure in contemporary UK unionism, the YMN has been subject to previous academic enquiry (Hodder, 2014) and the insights provided in this chapter complement this existing research.