Industrial relations in Great-Britain

Union organizations, collective bargaining structure, collective bargaining at cross-industry level, bargaining at sectoral level, bargaining in companies, employees representatives bodies  all you need to know about the industrial relations system in Great-Britain is in this fiche.

A few figures

As measured by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Labour Force Survey, union density amounts to 23.2%. It is much higher in the public sector (about 60% of all union members) than in the private sector.  In 2011, density in the public sector stood at 56.5%, which was four times higher than the 14.1% in the private sector.  Still according to national statistics, the pay and conditions of 31.2% of UK employees were set by a collective agreement in 2011. Bargaining coverage in the public sector, at 67.8% in 2011, was four times higher than in the public sector, where it was only 16.9%.

Union panorama

In 2011, 44.8% of employees reported the presence of a union in their workplace – 28.5% in the private sector.  The other key factor in union presence is workplace size. In 2011, the rate was 61.6% in workplaces with 50 or more employees, and only 26.6% in workplaces with fewer than 50 employees.

Union organizations

The UK’s sole national trade union centre is the Trades Union Congress (TUC), founded in 1868. As at its congress in September 2011, the TUC had 55 affiliated trade unions. While this represents only around a third of all UK unions, TUC’s affiliates account for five out of every six union members.…