The TUC and New Labour's ‘Regional Fix’

Abstract

This article contributes to the growing literature on ‘labour geography’ by exploring the engagement of trade unions in regional development and governance. The context is New Labour's ‘re-scaling’ of governance in the UK and the parallel drive to encourage socio-institutional partnerships’, ‘networks’ and ‘coalitions’ to deliver local and regional policy. Through a detailed appraisal of the British Trades Union Congress (TUC), the article illustrates how labour cultures and traditions, working within emergent regional institutional space, acts as an enabler and constraint on union capacity to intervene in broader economic, social and political praxis. As a consequence, the TUC's response to devolution and regionalisation has, to date, been uneven. The article suggests that the British trade union movement wilt have to sanction further re-scaling of TUC structure and activity if trade unions are to develop an influential role within the UK's evolving and multi-level economy, society and polity.